It started with one travel company in 2002.
Big Time Travel opened in 2002. Twelve years later, on 22 July 2014, The Dream Merchant Group (Pty) Ltd was registered to bring it, and the businesses built after it, under one roof.
A travel business first, a group second.
The Dream Merchant Group (Pty) Ltd was incorporated in 2014 to consolidate travel businesses built since 2002, starting with Big Time Travel.
Big Time Travel was Cybil Rockefeller's first company. It is where the trading history behind the group begins, and it is the reason the group did not have to learn packaged leisure travel from a standing start. Twelve years of that trading sat behind the decision to register a holding company.
Today the group packages holidays and offers them through brands made for the people they serve, from doctors and advocates to schools, universities and families planning their next break.
Trading since 2002. Incorporated 2014.
Our trading goes back to Big Time Travel in 2002. The company came later: The Dream Merchant Group (Pty) Ltd was formed on 22 July 2014 to hold the businesses that trading had built.
Both dates are part of our story, so we give you both.
How we got here.
From one travel company in 2002 to the group of brands it is today.
Big Time Travel opens
Cybil Rockefeller's first company, and where the group's trading history begins. It is not a brand we market today, but the group grew out of it.
Dr Travel and Adv Travel open
Dr Travel for doctors and Adv Travel for advocates and the legal profession, each built around a diary that does not bend: on-call rosters for one, court terms for the other. Both have been trading ever since.
Dream Vacation Club comes to South Africa
Holiday ownership in shares, held under franchise for South Africa. Families own their annual holiday rather than paying for it from scratch every year.
The Dream Merchant Group is incorporated
Registered in Pretoria on 22 July 2014 as The Dream Merchant Group (Pty) Ltd, to hold and consolidate the travel businesses built since 2002.
EduDreams takes schools and universities travelling
Packaged school and university travel for South African institutions, from school tours to university group travel.
Lockdown ends group travel
Group travel stopped, and with it the market EduDreams was built for. The brand stayed with the group, ready for schools and universities when they're ready to travel again.
Executive Travel opens the door to every other profession
Executive Travel brings the group to professionals in every other field, looked after like every client by Holiday Brokers consultants.