Fresh from collecting the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Globes, industry stalwart Hugh Morgan spoke to Ian Taylor
After nearly 50 years in travel Hugh Morgan was still not prepared for his award. “I was stunned,” he said on the night. And the following day: “A woman on the train stopped to take photos of me with the Globe.”
In the beginning
Morgan began his career by accident on the Costa Brava in the mid-1960s. He said: “I was in a basketball team and the players disappeared to Lloret de Mar. They were running a nightclub owned by a tour operator. I went and got to know all the holiday reps and area managers. I was introduced to a guy who had joined Intasun, who offered
me a job on the Costa Brava.”
Intasun, set up by Harry Goodman, was a small company then. “But when Clarksons went bust [in 1974], Harry put on extra flights. Intasun became hugely successful. I moved to Majorca as area manager. At the end of 1975, Harry made me overseas director. I was 27. He began to buy everything – Club 18-30, Global Holidays – and made me managing director of Global.
“I was with Harry until 1990, just before the company went bust.” Intasun was by then part of Goodman’s International Leisure Group (ILG). Morgan says: “The Gulf war [1990‑91] brought the company to its knees. Peter Long [now Tui Travel chief] was running it and desperately cutting. I was devastated. There were a lot of senior people looking for jobs.”
The 1990s: ‘a rocky period’
“Five of us set up Nova Tours, but we didn’t have enough financial backing and the company folded in its second year. I got a job with Grecian Cypriana Holidays in north London. Later, Roger Allard [now All Leisure Group chairman] approached me to run Ultimate Holidays.” The firm subsequently had to be shut down.
“I got a call from Jeremy Muller who was raising money to buy Club 18-30 [from ILG’s creditors] and Sunset Holidays, and to start an airline: Flying Colours. I became managing director of Sunset Holidays.”
Thomas Cook bought the companies in 1997, subsequently creating JMC. Preussag, today known as Tui AG, then bought a majority stake in Cook before selling it to Germany’s C&N in 2000, with the latter taking the Thomas Cook name. Morgan says: “C&N wanted me to move to Germany. I didn’t want to go. Terry Williamson, who I know well, phoned. He had joined Monarch and [owner] Fabio Mantegazza said ‘come to work for us’.”
The Monarch years
Morgan declares himself “very happy” at Monarch, especially after “a rocky period in the 1990s”.
He says: “Fabio and [group chairman] Iain Rawlinson have been extremely supportive. They gave me the freedom to put in place a team, because no individual turns around a business.”
Morgan planned to move part‑time seven years ago, saying: “I have a house in Majorca and wanted to work three days a week. But I got involved in so many things, then Fabio offered me the role of group managing director.”
Now he feels the time is right to take a less hands-on role as chairman. “I’ll be 67 in April and when you run a business you have to work from 6am to eight or nine at night, seven days a week.
“I still thoroughly enjoy it, but I have really good people around me and would like to slow down. I’ll keep an eye, but let the younger guys run things.”
Morgan, now well into his fifth decade in the industry, has seen huge change: “The technology, the quality of product, the way people are looked after have all changed beyond belief.
“It was ‘seat of the pants’ in the old days. Now everything is done to the letter of the law.
“People used to refer to ‘punters’, but we haven’t used the term for 20 years. Good service is paramount.”
One thing is worse, he says: “Bureaucracy.” Two things have not changed: “An overseas package is still really good value – a weekend in Scotland can cost you more – and the fun element has not changed. Companies are run more seriously, but people still enjoy themselves. Look at the Globes the other night.”