Name:Harry Goodman.
Age: 50 something
Title:joint MD TVTravel Shop.
Career History
l In 1972, bought a travel agency which began trading as Intasun Travel. He swiftly developed the agency into a major travel group which became known as International Leisure Group.
l In the late 1970s, ILG expanded into the airline industry, establishing Air Europe. ILG became the second-largest tour operator in the UK and floated on the Stock Exchange in 1981.
l In 1991, ILG collapsed following a slump in demand for airline seats during the Gulf War.
l In 1992, Goodman acted as a consultant for Riva Travel, which failed in 1993.
l In 1998, Goodman launched TVTravel Shop.
For most people who have been in the industry for all of this decade and more, the name Harry Goodman still evokes the most amazing degree of interest, excitement, and even affection.
Of course, not everybody remembers him fondly. He undoubtedly sailed too close to the wind at times, in both his personal and business life, and the collapse in 1991 of ILG, of which Goodman was chairman, took many people with it, one way or another. Flash Harry was more their name for him.
But they are, I suspect, a minority.
When the dust had settled on that collapse, and the famous edition of the News of the World which had revelations of his private life had become merely wrapping for a bag of chips, a clearer view was to be had of a talented man who had great success, but most thought was finished.
ILG went, Riva followed without trace, and Harry vanished too, presumably never to surface again, in the travel industry at least.
But in late 1987 there were sightings, and in early 1998 the TV Travel Shop was launched and Harry was back.
At the beginning not everybody thought much of the idea. Even former friends were sceptical.
Many wondered whether his undoubtedly brilliant, high-profile, entrepreneurial style that had helped to create a whole industry in the two previous decades, was what the business needed going into the next Millennium.
And the product didn’t have everybody enthralled either.
‘Teletext with pictures’ was one of the kinder comments about the TVTravel Shop – and for marginal audiences too. And even if one could find that audience on satellite or cable, the wiseheads thought it was unlikely that many of the majors would want their product to be involved.
It was doomed, they said, to be last-minute, low-volume holidays at giveaway prices.
Well, a year later, they would appear to be wrong.
Harry’s back and he seems to have a hit show on his hands.
The TV Travel Shop was founded by Harry and his long-time business partner, Denis Strauss, together with the multinational IT giant, Flextech. Goodman and Strauss own 12.5%, which can rise to 25% providing they make their targets.
Among Flextech’s many businesses are other UK cable and satellite channels including Living, UK Gold and Discover.
The TV Travel Shop went on air last April for 5hrs a day. It is now a 24hr operation.
And all the majors, except Thomson, are now using it and lots of the minors too. And whoever you speak too among the operators, they all say the same thing – it sells far more of their product at much higher value than they thought possible.
Talking, or rather listening, to Harry is always an exciting, enthusiastic, no-holds and no-reputations barred, experience.
So I will let him explain from here.
The future of travel
“I have got a list of preferred operators including, Airtours, First Choice, Unijet, Kuoni, Royal Caribbean International and P&O Cruises,” said Harry.
“They get guaranteed airtime and we do great business for them.
“And we are selling for practically everybody else too.”
But he is not yet selling his old adversary, Thomson.
“I offered(Thomson chief executive) Paul Brett first bite of the cherry, but he said it wouldn’t work.”
Harry’s sales figures would suggest otherwise.
“We get about 3,000 calls on peak days, which are Sundays and Bank Holidays, when people are at home and there’s nothing on the box worth watching.
“I expect about 150,000 bookings in our first full year, and 500,000-600,000 by year four.”
Harry also expects an eventual market share of around 10%.
“We started with four staff 15 months ago, and we’ve now got 300 staff working mainly out of the Bromley call centre and the best studio facilities money can buy in the West End.”
Most of those preferred operators have told me that he might be piling it high, but he is not selling it that cheap.
“Our average price for Unijet is about ú800, and although our lead-in for Royal Caribbean is ú690, our average price is nearer ú1,100.
“I can’t sell the ú199 stuff, and I am lucky if I sell 10 seat-only flights a week,” he said.
If you haven’t seen the programmes, then it would be fair to say that they are not yet enthralling TV. But as a selling tool,they are very effective indeed.
One of the most interesting points is that although the operator’s name is displayed, they are not as prominent as the TV show’s own branding. People are buying what almost looks like the Channel’s product.
The TV Travel Shop is further blurring the already increasingly grey area about whose customer is it – the distributors’ or the operators’. The real sense of security and familiarity that TV brings into the home is clearly working very well for this business.
“Just think,” said Harry, “if John Carter or Judith Chalmers were to front it, it would very soon seem like Wish You Were Here with a booking facility. Now that would be powerful,” he said.
It didn’t seem to have been the first time he had had that thought.
But it is already powerful enough as the number of operators “knocking holes in my door” demonstrates.
“What gets me is all those so-called independent agents moaning that they can’t get distributed by the big boys, and they could be up and selling with me tomorrow for no more than it would cost with Going Places,” said Harry.
And the paradox is that smaller less-known specialists would actually benefit from his in-your-home branding that is such a prominent feature of the whole idea.
“I tell them, give me something to excite the viewers, and I’ll sell it. Its the most exciting innovation in travel for donkey’s years,” said Harry.
The past
With Harry there was always the hype, the razzmatazz, the charisma. But it was always underpinned by real achievement, and it seems to be again.
With the big operators needing all the distribution they can get, especially as their agency arms each seem to want to sell even less of their competitors than before, this is in the market at just the right time.
Like Harry, I think interactive TV and Internet are going to be several years off yet, at least in attracting customers. And if things do change, he couldn’t have a better partner than Flextech to keep him in front.
They may also need deep pockets for a year or two. The audience potential may well be huge, but it is still actually being seen by a small part of the buying public.
So, in 1999, Goodman is undoubtedly back with us, with every chance of another success.But how difficult was the going away in 1991?
By 1990, ILG’s tour operating had come out of a difficult time, thanks in part to cost and capacity cutting under Peter Long’s new management.
The UK-based Air Europe scheduled airlines business had also been set up in Spain, Italy, and Germany, with majority local shareholders to get around a host of national ownership restrictions.
It was low-cost flying ahead of its time, and was rumoured to be eating money even before the Gulf War started.
“It was Saddam who finished me off,” said Harry. “We went from 80% load factors down to 25% overnight.
“I was at the helm of a company that was a great company. Look around the industry today and see how many former ILG people are running the business now.
“Thomson and we would have consolidated and there would have been two, possibly three with David (Crossland, chairman of Airtours), controlling 70-80% of the business.”
And would he have taken ILG into retail?
“No, there would have been no need. I would have been more aggressive in signing up Lunn Poly’s competition. I would have taken them on. I don’t think David Crossland really wanted to get into retail. Back then he wasn’t big enough to fight back.”
Taking on the Thomson group seemed almost a pastime for ILG.
“We used to deliberately provoke Thomson,” he remembered. “We would do something and while they were thinking what to do about it, we would change tack.
“Would I change anything? No, nothing. Our strategy was right; we were 10 years to early that’s all.”
But perhaps there are one or two things he would change.
“I hated ILG for the last two or three years,” he said. “In the limelight, you don’t get treated like a human being. I was finding it tough personally and that probably drove me down the escapism route. My personal life has never been a halfway house.
“It took me years to recover from the whole thing. No one is risk free, and nobody lost more than me. They were wilderness years.”
But the onset of diabetes and the fact he was four stone overweight, forced him to take stock. That led to endless tennis with the aforementioned Strauss. And endless after-match conversations lead to the TV Travel Shop. The rest may become history.
“I needed to do it again, not just to prove it to myself, but to prove all the other people wrong,” he said. Although people wasn’t quite the word used.
“I couldn’t go back to what I did before, even if they would have let me – you should never go back, that’s where Freddie (Laker) went wrong.”
He had, and clearly still has, enormous energy and charisma – what he would call “buzz” – and charm. And a talent for business – our business.
Selling travel via the television, will be a winner, and he is better placed than any at present to be riding it. Most people would wish him great success. I most certainly do.