As Noel Josephides says in his column (Travel Weekly February) ‘not much research goes into writing them’. This seems to be the case with most of the people who are currently knocking specialist companies like Cresta, which have recently been consolidated by bigger parents.
Noel said’these are not longer individual businesses in the true sense of the word’. Noel has never visited Cresta, but if he did, he would find we are still fiercely independent and have a huge company spirit. I firmly believe Cresta is the same animal Airtours purchased in 1997.
As he says, the personality of a business’ leader permeates down to all levels. It may interest him to know that the three senior directors at Cresta have each been here over 16 years. As we had no shareholding in Cresta we did not ‘pocket many millions’ and still need to earn our crust. But what we do have is immense pride in the ‘baby’ we have helped to create.
Every so often we smack its bottom and give it new toys. But underneath it’s still the same beautiful child. We also have some new brothers and sisters to play with, but as you know siblings don’t always see eye to eye.But we are fortunate in being left alone to fend for ourselves in the playground. What makes us really cross is when the uninformed father of an underprivileged kid starts to doubt our parentage. Rest assured Noel, we treat our offspring with very specialist love and are looking forward to a bright future for our growing junior.
Steve Kimber, managing director, Cresta Holidays, Altrincham, Cheshire