Hays Travel Chair Irene Hays says her team is ‘very excited’ about its buyout of Victoria Travel Group, while Victoria Travel Chief Executive Chris Gardner said the company had received other offers but was ‘only interested’ in a deal with Hays.
Dame Irene told Travel Gossip: “It was clear for a few years that we needed to focus on cruise and longhaul and balance out our product mix. Coming out of COVID, our product mix was dominated by shorthaul. [Hays Head of Cruise] Catriona [Parsons] has done a fantastic job growing the cruise business within retail.
“When we heard that cruise.co.uk may be available for acquisition, we thought it was a perfect fit. It’s an online proposition that we have admired for a long time and it fits very well. We don’t see it as being directly competitive.”
Chris added: “We complement each other with different propositions. We want to value and nurture these differences. Irene and [Hays Chief Operating Officer] Jonathon [Woodall-Johnston] have been clear that they like the differences.
“I love the fact that we are joining a really successful business that has grown amazingly well over the last few years. They eat, live and breathe travel. It’s great to be part of an environment that really understands travel. Over the years we’ve been approached by many different companies. We were only interested in this particular relationship.”
Can we ask how much you bought the company for?
Dame Irene: “In a word: No! But we have used existing revenue. We still haven’t had one pound of debt in 45 years.”
How will the businesses be run?
Dame Irene: “They are going to be run separately. Cruise.co will continue to do their own commercial cruise negotiations, while Hays Travel will continue with their negotiations. We will take a view in a couple of years’ time, but for now it’s a very clear structure. We are just very excited to see what the future brings. I can’t wait to work with Chris, [UK Managing Director] Tony [Andrews], [Group Chief Financial Officer] Carl [Tromans] and [German Managing Director] Tom [Reiter]. When we acquire a business, we try to learn as much as we can.
How much bigger can cruise get?
Chris: “There’s a great love for cruising amongst a bunch of people who have been doing it lots of times. Many people are also cruising for the first time and realising that it’s a great holiday choice and still fantastic value. Only 2-3% of the population cruise in any one year.
“There is an opportunity for that to grow. There’s a huge amount of variation in terms of duration, types – whether it is families or couples only – and range, from wonderful luxury cruses and expedition cruises. The old adage there is a cruise for everybody is not quite right, as there are still a lot of people who are very anti, and will stay that way. However, the data says there are a lot of people, about 40% of the UK population, that haven’t cruised and would consider it.
Hays has said it wants cruise sales to account for 30% of its total business, does that include this acquisition?
Dame Irene: “The one-third [cruise], one-third [longhaul], one-third [shorthaul] just applies to the Hays Travel Group, including our Hays Independence Group members and homeworkers, in addition to the bricks and mortar. They all contribute to the target.”
Why cruise?
Dame Irene: “The investment in innovation and distribution the cruise industry has brought to travel over the past 10-15 years is totally different order of magnitude to land-based [holidays]. They really have worked with the best designers and most of the big cruise lines are bringing new hardware to the seas, with long-term plans running to the next eight years of innovation. This elevates the quality and choice of holidays at a time when British and German public are wanting to travel on cruise ships more. It’s good for us to support their investment. We do not own expensive assets like cruise ships or airlines, we have an enormous respect for those that do and want to support them.
What’s the secret to selling cruise?
Dame Irene: “We train our people to show what fantastic value cruises are relative to land-based holidays and encourage our people to switch sell. It’s about educating, comparing prices and value, as well as some hand-holding, which is why we started our own Hays cruise charters four years ago, accompanying customers on Caribbean cruises. We now fly out of nine airports and we’re hoping to extend that.
Since COVID, people want experiences over stuff. We are finding that, if you put products in front of customers, such as experiential cruising, they are interested. People just want to go away and learn and experience.
What’s selling well in cruising?
Chris: “It’s across the board but we have seen up take in North American and Caribbean business. Of course, this reflects the fact that the cruise lines have put a lot of ships in the Caribbean. Europe, East and West Med and the Fjords are popular.
“Asia and China have come back in recent times but they are not quite back to pre-pandemic [levels]. Again, it matches deployment – there hasn’t been enough product to sell in Japan, but it’s a really popular destination. China was taking off before the pandemic but that has taken a bit of a knock.
“Expedition cruising and river cruising are growing. The number of expedition ships is staggering. It’s still very small in comparison with the overall market, but it is growing more than mass market cruising. There is a huge amount of interest.”
Pictured: Chris and Dame Irene
