“A week is a long time in politics” with the last decade in travel experiencing some of the most seismic changes imaginable.
By 2000, Thomas Cook had acquired Flying Colours, Sunworld, Inspiration and consolidated them all, along with their respective airlines, into a “new brand” called JMC. As part of the restructure l was appointed to the board as Purchasing and Overseas Director.
2000 started with the impending melt down of all IT systems due to the “double digit shuffle” used by the IT industry resulting in “Y2K or “Millennium Bug”. It was probably the most expensive IT contingency solution, and biggest non-event of the century. The Spaniards and Italians who did nothing suffered no more or less.
Shareholders in Thomas Cook changed so many times in the next two years, that literally we would wake up one day owned by TUI, next day by Carlson Group and then ultimately by Neckerman. Integration, synergy, consolidations, cost reductions were the order of the day for years to come.
By February 2002 l was privileged to join Cosmos Holidays, part of the Monarch Travel Group, as Overseas Purchasing & Operations Director.
Cosmos was one of the first traditional tour-operators to introduce accommodation-only now referred to as bed banks.
Consolidation and collapse followed in abundance
In a surprise move Thomas Cook purchased Airtours, and My Travel provoking, First Choice and TUI to merge, with capacity dramatically reducing. AT Mays, Scotland’s largest travel agent, XL Leisure Group, Zoom, Silverjet, all failed, to name but a few.
The low cost carrier revolution gathered momentum with the sale of “Go Fly in 2002 to Easyjet and Ryanair flying into Gerona and calling it Barcelona.
The homeworking phenomenon boomed with Future Travel and Travel Counsellors leading the way.
New distribution terminology and technology emerged: World Wide Web, dynamic packaging, green, principle not agent, Web2, PPC, SEO, XML, API. There was certainly no room for luddites or the technical non-savvy.
Each year the industry faced major challenges with huge financial and operational impacts caused by world events: September 11, Iraq war, hurricanes, Tsunami, Bird Flu , Afghan War, Swine flu and the worst financial crisis ever.
ABTA moved into the 21st Century with a new chief execurive, offices and board, merging with the Federation of Tour Operators and slimming down its previous bureaucracy
by Cosmos overseas purchasing and operations director Hugh Morgan