Mottershead: 'Cook won't be rolling over to competitors from now on'
Sophie GriffithsThe UK boss of Thomas Cook was full of fighting talk at the ITT conference, admitting that the group had lost market share in the past to its competitors, but insisting, “that’s not going to happen from now on”.
Speaking on stage on the second day of the conference in Tel Aviv, Chris Mottershead said working for Cook was “like the missing piece in my career”.
“I thought Thomas Cook hadn’t quite fulfilled its potential. It was always the best-known brand but it was never the market leader,” he added.
He admitted Cook had faced challenges and allowed rival businesses to steal a march, particularly with regards to online share.
“We are below Tui - about 35-40% of our bookings come from online,” he conceded. Yesterday Tui UK managing director Nick Longman revealed that 60% of the group’s business comes from online.
However Mottershead added: “You’ve got to look at cost acquisition and where the customer wants to purchase their holiday. We don’t have shops for the sake of having shops, we have them because that’s where the customer wants to purchase [their holidays].
“I see an opportunity for growth with regards to online… there is potential for growth in packages [as well]. We might be taking share from somewhere else. We’ve been guilty in the past of allowing our competitors to take that from us and now we’ve got the strength to take that back.”
Mottershead conceded it was a “challenge” to recover the ground that had been lost to Tui, which the latest Atol figures showing it carried 4.78 million passengers in the last year, compared with Cook’s three million. “It’s a challenge but it’s not impossible,” he said. “And we are in the right direction. We need to compete and be a stronger competitor. We have tended to roll over sometimes – that’s not going to happen from now on.”
He also acknowledged that Cook was still not where it needed to be yet financially. “We’re not quite up to where we were before the financial downturn, but we’re on our way to where we were. In a relatively few years, I think we’ll be back to the levels of 2008,” he insisted.
“Last year was a very difficult year for Thomas Cook and it was clear to me that we had to change and improve our quality and customer service.”
In a veiled dig at Cook’s rivals, Mottershead added: “We’re already seeing some improvement – we’re getting some fantastic recognition from customers. We’ve taken out hundreds of our poor performing hotels and some of them are now appearing with our competition…”
Elsewhere Mottershead was quizzed over the look of Thomas Cook’s shops. He was interviewed by Richard Carrick, chief executive of Private Fly who pointed to a photo of a Cook shop front, and said to Mottershead: “It’s not the most inspiring look is it.”
Mottershead replied “no”, but added: “We’re not hiding the fact that we had financial difficulties. We need to invest and we’re now in the financial position to do so.”
Meanwhile he referenced the Cook-Co-operative joint venture, which is up for renewal later this year. “We are in discussions. The outcome may be negative – as in if they decide not to continue [the joint venture]… but for now we have to make the best of what we’ve got at our disposal today.”
He insisted though that Cook would not necessarily close any of the 250 co-operative stores, should the JV come to an end. “The shops are ours, it’s the use of the brand [that is the deal],” he said.
Looking at the group’s brands, Mottershead said Club 18-30 remained a “huge opportunity”, while he said the group had noted a significant improvement in the Airtours brand since its refresh at the start of this year.
“Airtours is responsible for 40% of our business and we never mentioned it. It was deteriorating [as a brand].” As result of the re-launch, he said “we’re seeing growth in it already. When you look at forward bookings, it’s really quite dramatic.”
“I see a huge opportunity for Cook – both in new routes and destinations,” Mottershead added. “And there are old destinations that we are going back into – Benidorm, Malaga – what on earth were we doing by not being in these destinations in the first place?”
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