A BRAND name that has been around for the better part of a century is about to disappear from local high streets.

The name Bath Travel has been over its shop front in Albert Road, Bournemouth, since the business started there in 1924.

The company was to expand massively, with, at one time, 70 branches and more than 500 staff.

In pictures: Bath Travel through the ages, click to view a gallery >>>

It became known not only as a travel agent, but as the owner of the airline Palmair, whose chairman personally saw off every flight.

Now Bath Travel is disappearing after its parent company Hays Travel, which took over the business in 2013, decided to bring the whole enterprise under one brand name.

Stephen Bath, grandson of the business’s founder, said last week: “We always knew that there would be a rebranding. It is now generally known that it has been taken over by the Hays family company so I think that it will not be a surprise to the public.”

Bath Travel was founded in Bournemouth by Reginald Ernest Bath.

It still had just the one site in Albert Road until Reginald’s son Peter left the Royal Navy and took over the business in 1953.

He set about expanding, with offices across Dorset and beyond.

The travel agency really took off when it became a significant agent for P&O and Cunard.

In 1959, Peter – known by almost everyone as PJ – formed Palmair as a tour operator.

In 1993, Palmair launched its own airline after buying its Whisper Jet.

It soon came to be regarded affectionately as Bournemouth’s own airline. PJ himself became known for personally seeing off all flights from Bournemouth.

His family home at Avon was under the Bournemouth flight path and he would wave from his garden to the Palmair pilots and passengers as they returned from their trips.

Once, when the Avon Causeway bridge was closed, he used a helicopter to reach the airport to see off a flight.

As Bournemouth Airport expanded, Bath Travel took full advantage – most memorably when it brought Concorde to Bournemouth.

The idea started when PJ asked his son Stephen whether he realised that once Bournemouth’s runway was lengthened to 2,211 metres, it would be big enough to land the supersonic jet.

Stephen was tasked with organising a unique pleasure trip which would be the focus of the airport’s extended runway party on April 21, 1996.

A hundred people were taken to Heathrow by coach and charged £199 to fly subsonic on Concorde for 20 minutes. Around 25,000 people came to the area to see the plane arrive, with 5,000 on the ground at the airport.

Another 100 paid £600 to leave Bournemouth that afternoon, fly at Mach 2 (around 1,522mph) over the Atlantic and enjoy a champagne lunch before landing at Heathrow and taking a coach back.

A flight to Paris took place later that year and was followed by trips to Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Venice, Tenerife and Lanzarote, with holiday-makers flying out by 737 and returning on Concorde after their break.

In all, 4,400 people flew on the 44 Concorde flights organised by Bath Travel.

Also in 1996, a flight to Disneyland on a Leisure International Boeing 767-300 was the first transatlantic flight from Bournemouth for 50 years, taking advantage of the runway expansion.

The same year, Bath Travel organised a Boeing 767 to fly to San Juan in Puerto Rico for a 14-night cruise.

In 1997, the company won the Best Travel Promotion title at the Agent Achievement Awards for its Concorde flights. It also expanded further by taking over Tappers Travel Service.

By 1998, the company was mailing out 55,000 of its Holiday magazines – 27 tonnes’ worth. The publication featured guest writers such as Alan Whicker and Jill Dando.

It was taking bookings of £500,000 a day in January, and £235,000 per day in an average month.

PJ’s sons Stephen and Andrew were join managing directors by this time, while daughters Sallie and Christine were training and customer liaison directors respectively.

In 1999, more than 400 staff and 50 guests celebrated the company’s 75th birthday by partying aboard the Cunard Cunaria, which was berthed at Southampton.

Peter Bath recalled then: “I did once promise my wife Liz that we’d stop when we had opened six branches."

Of the company’s successful expansion, he said: “In the early days we came across a number of towns without travel agencies of their own and decided to set up shop there. I suppose we have been lucky in our choices.”

The one-plane airline Palmair was voted the world’s best for customer satisfaction in 2003. In the same year, Peter Bath was inducted into the British Travel Industry’s Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Sir Freddie Laker, Sir Fred Pontin and Sir Richard Branson – and in 2005, he was given the MBE for services to travel and charity.

Peter Bath died in December 2006 at the age of 79.

Stephen said then: “Obviously he was a father figure to me but in business he was seen in exactly the same way by hundreds of colleagues.”

David Skillicorn, then MD of Palmair, said: “He was the epitome of the old school, where a handshake meant everything and your word was your bond."

Despite the challenges of recession and the internet, Bath Travel retained a network of 60 branches.

In 2013, it was sold to a bigger firm – Hays Travel – making it part of the country’s biggest independent travel company, with more than 1,100 staff and a turnover of more than £600million.

The owners had decided to sell rather than to hand it down to an enormous fourth generation.

Now, with the Bath Travel name due to disappear, MD John Hays insists the business will continue to emphasise personal service.

“We are carrying on the Bath Travel tradition,” he said.