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.
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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.