Hays Travel turns 45 - we speak to Dame Irene Hays - video Dailymotion

Sunderland Echo

With Hays Travel marking its 45th year in 2025, Dame Irene Hays spoke to reporter Chris Cordner about the past and future of the business.

Transcript

00:00It's a big year, isn't it, that lies ahead, 45 years.

00:03Yes, that's right.

00:05I'm delighted. I am not surprised when you know the people that we employ,

00:15because the people are extraordinary. We're very, very fortunate in that we have

00:23a fantastic group of people based in Sunderland in our head offices,

00:28and across the country now, we're very, very fortunate that we have lots of people who just

00:34love the Hayes Travel brand. I remember when we did the Thomas Cook acquisition, people saying,

00:43oh, you'll become a big corporate, you'll lose your friendly culture.

00:48We haven't. People who come from corporates like Thomas Cook, who are very well trained and very

00:56talented, say that it doesn't feel like a corporate, it feels like a family business,

01:03and they feel as if they're treated as individuals. So I think in terms of the size and scale of it,

01:09I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised that it's success, because we just employ some

01:14astonishingly good people. It helps to take you back to 1980.

01:20It all started in quite a small scale, didn't it, really?

01:24Yes. John started the business in the back of his mum's babywear shop,

01:28and I'm sure you've heard the story many times, but started off selling butt lints and pond tints

01:35and the equivalent of National Express coach trips to places like York and Edinburgh

01:40and Blackpool, and then wanted to branch out into foreign holidays and applied to

01:48Abta, to be part of Abta. And at the time, you had to type a letter in 1980 because we didn't

01:55have emails, and you had to wait for an inspector to come and have a look at the store. And John's

02:03dad, who was a joiner at the colliery, had built the equivalent of a sort of a fish and chip shop

02:09counter in the back of his mum's babywear shop in Seaman, County Durham, and separated the baby

02:19clothes and dresses and tights and vests with a garden trellis, you know, those criss-crossy garden

02:26trellises. So the inspector came and had a look at the store and went back to London and wrote a

02:35letter and said, well, no, you can't be part of Abta because you're not really a travel agent,

02:41you know, you haven't even got your own entrance. So John wrote back and said, is that the only

02:49reason? And he said, yes. And then John wrote back and said, well, it's come to my attention

02:55that there's a shop in London called Harrods, and in the back, there's a travel shop called

03:00Thomas Cook. Can you tell me what the difference is, please? And they went, oh, OK.

03:06They used to have a shop in the back of Harrods, and clearly the guy had committed himself to saying

03:12it was just because we didn't have our own entrance. So John did all of that. So, yeah,

03:17very, very small beginnings with one store and two members of staff, and then branched out into

03:26Sunderland and Washington and then bought the first acquisition was in Darlington.

03:34To grow from one store and the total transaction value in the first year,

03:40this is turnover, not profit, was £812. But it was a part year, and that was a lot of bus trips,

03:49but it was a part year. So £812 in the first year. So this year, the total transaction value

03:56was £2.55 billion, 4,800 people. Now, how much do you think is that down to the Mackham spirit?

04:07It has undoubtedly contributed hugely to the success of the company. I think

04:15in head office and other offices, but in Keele Square, the commitment to working hard

04:23and playing hard. We do lots of events for our people. We're very grateful for them and

04:31lots of different rewards and opportunities to say thank you. But their hard work is

04:38fantastic. And as you might be aware, there are challenges around the world and flights being

04:45changed, and we never, ever, ever have to ask people if they'll work extra. They just automatically

04:51say, we're staying until this is done, Irene. We're just staying until it's sorted. And that's

04:57why currently we're number one in the UK for travel and cruise and foreign exchange. The work

05:05ethic in Sunderland is fantastic, but the work ethic across the country and the way that they

05:12care for customers in that they know that I feel that they are my representative

05:23when they're in front of that customer and when they're looking after that customer,

05:27and they take that very seriously. It has got you that nickname almost of

05:35Heroes of the High Street. Well, it was a headline the day after we acquired

05:44the Thomas Cook store. So we acquired them on the 8th of October. Thomas Cook failed on the 23rd

05:50of September 2019, and it had been a fantastic brand with fantastic people. But the parent

06:00company in Germany took on too much debt and couldn't service the debt and sell sufficient

06:07holidays and summery. And the tragedy was that those very talented people all lost their jobs,

06:16including the airline as well, which we didn't take on. We took on the retail estate. But in

06:22that interim period between the 23rd of September and the 8th of October, we first of all looked at

06:30shops to colour in the gaps where we had shops already. So we were looking at the gap between,

06:36we had shops in Leeds, so the area between the north-eastern Leeds, and then we'd acquired

06:4263 shops from Bath Travel on the south coast, and we looked at colouring in some of that as well.

06:48And then we, believe it or not, sat round our kitchen table at home with an AA Atlas

06:57and was circling the areas and writing down the names of the shops that we'd be interested in.

07:03So at the start, it was a cherry-picking exercise to take best locations and the ones,

07:11the shops that we knew were doing particularly well. And as the time evolved and we were appraised

07:18of what the process would be ending in a bid, we had to bid for the Thomas Cook estate,

07:25and that had to be in by tea time on the 8th of October, four o'clock.

07:33We eventually came to the conclusion that we should just bid for all of them. So we bid to

07:42have the licence to operate, at that time, 555 stores, even though we knew that many of those

07:52would be duplicates for where we had our stores as well. So there were a lot, if you were to do

07:57an event diagram with Hayes Travel and Thomas Cook, we had lots of overlaps, and some of the

08:07stores we would never have paid rent for. But anyway, we took that decision on the

08:157th of October, wrote the bid, put the bid in for tea time on the 8th of October,

08:20and they rang us at night. The official receiver had appointed KPMG to handle

08:30the bidding process, and we took a call that night to say,

08:37you have been successful and we want to make an announcement at nine o'clock the following

08:41morning. Now, as you can probably remember, there were people who were protesting outside

08:49the House of Commons about the fact that they'd been made redundant and hadn't been paid,

08:55and Germany had, the German government had stepped in to help the people who were employed

09:02in Germany. The British government had not. So the Thomas Cook staff turned up in the uniform

09:08and had got lots of coverage on the national news. And therefore, the official receiver who was,

09:14you know, a government appointed official receiver, who in turn appointed KPMG,

09:21were facing a severe challenge from the workers and the fact that we were bidding for all of them

09:29and said that we would want to take on all of the retail staff during the period that we

09:36had an opportunity to look at them. And we eventually took on 2,700,

09:45and they made the announcement at nine o'clock the following morning. And then

09:52the following morning, the headline was Heroes of the High Street because we did that.

10:00And then obviously it was roll the sleeves up and get all of the keys to all of these

10:05premises, let the staff know that they were safe, the ones that we'd managed to keep.

10:09And so that's where it came from. But we didn't, we weren't really heroes. It was just a

10:16business decision taken after consideration, starting from cherry picking some to why don't

10:23we just take them all and have a look at them and then see which ones we'll keep.

10:28We went into a pandemic. So it was like some bizarre MBA project where you're given a scenario,

10:38you buy this business, you take on 2,700 extra people. And then within the space of 12 weeks,

10:46you couldn't sell a holiday abroad to anyone. And the people who had already booked their holiday

10:52wanted the money back. And that money had been paid to Thomas Cook, in many cases,

10:58and we don't have that money. So it was a nightmare, which continued through 2020.

11:09And obviously on the 13th of November, John died. So it was a very challenging time.

11:17But John and I had had a very strong balance sheet. So we continued to pay people.

11:23And in order that those people could look after our customers, and again, you know, such things as

11:30moneysupermarket.com was running a commentary on which travel companies were looking after

11:37the customers best. And his travel was top, consistently top, because we used the money

11:44which was in the business to keep the staff to look after the customers. And they tried to save

11:50the sale, but lots of people were just worried about their money and wanted their money back.

11:54So it was a very harrowing time for two of us. It was a really difficult time when there was just

12:04one. But the team here at Hayes Travel are exceptional. And everybody stepped up to the

12:12plate and did their bit. And as we came out of the pandemic in 2022, and we're able to start

12:21selling holidays in more places without the rules and regulations of tests and vaccinations and

12:28completing forms and entry permits. And all of the changes, there were more than 4,000 changes

12:36to the regulations around, because all the countries in the world had different rules.

12:42And our people had to understand which, when you had to have had your vaccination by, how many

12:47vaccinations you had to have had, whether or not you had to do your test three days before you came

12:52back or two days or when you came back on entry into the UK. And all of the countries had different

12:59regulations. So it was, in addition to looking after people, people had to really pay attention

13:09to the website, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the FCO website about those changes.

13:18So despite all of that, our people still managed to hold on to the reputation.

13:25And then because we paid them, whenever I went out to see anybody in a store,

13:30they always said, don't worry, Irene, we'll pay you back. And they have.

13:35As we look forward, what are you hoping that 2025 brings for you and for Hayes Travel?

13:43I think continued growth since we, well, in the last 12 months, I've bought four more businesses,

13:50adding an additional 69 in some in Wales, some in the North West,

13:59also bought a technology company. And therefore, the results this year were strong.

14:09But that was before the four acquisitions. So I've got four more acquisitions to add on to that.

14:14And people are travelling more. People want holidays which are further afield.

14:22They are travelling more than once. And they want experiential travel. And the cruise market

14:30has grown significantly. And all of those, I think, will be important factors which will influence

14:38travel in 2025. It's not to say it's not without its challenges. You know,

14:43climate change, world events, unfortunately, wars or insurgencies in the Red Sea or Syria

14:51or the Ukraine, which impact destinations. But we manage all of that. You know, we've managed

14:59that. We do that really well. We think it's just part of the job in Hayes Travel

15:03that we care for our customers and manage it all. So I'm not saying that the whole picture in 2025

15:10will be rosy. But there's a fantastic opportunity for more growth in 2025. And I think we're well

15:19placed here. You know, there's increased costs to come. But we have our head office in a place

15:29where the costs are reasonable. And our people are reasonable. And we're more than happy to pay

15:37national living wage. More than happy. That means, you know, more people have disposable income.

15:43And hopefully, they'll spend it on holidays. So finally, as you go forward, I suppose,

15:49there's a big thank you there to all the people that have made Hayes Travel who they are.

15:56That's it. And obviously, this year, we employed 631 apprentices. When John died,

16:08the person I appointed to be my chief operating officer and work alongside me started his career

16:14in Sunderland as an apprentice for Hayes Travel age 16. He's now only 36. And he's now the chief

16:22operating officer of the biggest independent travel agency in the UK. And it is those people

16:28who started their career with us all those years ago, and those people who've joined us since.

16:34And it's their commitment to helping Hayes Travel be the best it can be through looking after and

16:42caring for its customers who've made Hayes Travel as successful as it is today.

Hays Travel turns 45 - we speak to Dame Irene Hays

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