Tour operator de force
Travelzest, a buy-and-build business focused on specialist holiday brands rather than package deals, is the child of his imaginings. Mottershead became chief executive a year ago and has swiftly set about his ambitious strategy.
With customers now far more demanding and savvy, the old model of high street travel agents offering package holidays for the Euro market is on its way out. High levels of service, knowledge and expertise in emerging markets such as Morocco or Egypt are the things that the new globalised consumer will be demanding. Travelzest comprises an online travel operation and a series of niche businesses focused on emerging destinations and specialist interests. Online, Travelzest provides its own exclusive products as well as offering other companies a channel for their sales. For example, it provides booking services for package holidays from Expedia and Opodo.
Equally appealing is the fact the business excludes all the traditional industry headaches, such as unprofitable high street shops. Seasonality – a long-time bête noire – is not a concern either, because the plan is to bring winter- and summer-loaded business under one roof. Synergies, economies of scale and improved purchasing power should come into play.
‘I want to build Travelzest into a £100 million business within three years,’ he insists, ‘and I want to do it by including all the things that observers of the travel industry like – and excluding the elements and old hangovers that investors don’t like.’ Travelzest consists of tour operator VFB Holidays, a specialist in holidays to France and a British pioneer of the gîte holiday concept, and online travel agent Holiday Express, which owns a number of key domain names for which Mottershead has grand ambitions, including www.Holiday.co.uk and www.Flight.co.uk.
The group has acquired The Best of Morocco, a niche player offering bespoke and highly serviced trips to the African nation for individuals and small groups. Best of Morocco is the premier agent for the Marathon des Sables, a punishing foot-race that takes place every April and covers some 230 kilometres, for which it provides the largest contingent of runners.
More earnings-enhancing acquisitions are highly likely in the short term and the key to delivering high-quality targets is Mottershead himself – all the best deals and vendors are approaching him, rather than the other way around. ‘I never turn a meeting down,’ he asserts, with the scent of another major challenge in his nostrils.
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Vital statistics
Name: Chris Mottershead
Age: 47
Status: Married with four children. ‘Family plays a very important part in my life’
Hobbies: Staunch Manchester United fan, occasional golfer and loves to travel. ‘When you run the UK’s biggest holiday company, people welcome you with open arms everywhere you go!’
Rules of Thumb: ‘I’m not a control freak, but I have to know exactly what is going on in each part of any business I run and I set up my board accordingly. I bring in people that are entrepreneurial, able to drive sales, because I can’t do it all myself. When I left corporate life I vowed to work with people that are confident but not arrogant, commercial but not nasty.’
Business hero: Biggest influence on his career is David Crossland, who successfully built up the Airtours /MyTravel giant, which later nearly collapsed. ‘The tragedy of MyTravel could have been avoided,’ he says.