TravelMole Interview: Philip Jansen, MyTravel

New MyTravel UK and Ireland boss Philip Jansen has told TravelMole that while the company has to reduce its fixed costs there are “no redundancies planned” at the company. Mr Jansen, who has just replaced Duncan Wilson as UK and Ireland chief executive – told TravelMole that there would also be no further shop closures. Mr Jansen pointed out that it had already made significant job losses worldwide and commented: “Our people and our shops are critical to us, they sell our holidays. We are not looking to make cost savings in those areas.” He also said claimed the company would not be making any further disposals in the UK and Ireland. Mr Jansen said that MyTravel would instead be looking internally to solve its problems. He said: “All of our problems are of our own making – full stop. But that also means all of our problems are solvable within the company – we don’t have to rely on other people.” As well as reducing fixed costs, such as back office inefficiencies, Mr Jansen said the other two elements of the turnaround strategy were improving the use of the company’s assets – its planes, ships and hotels – along with the previously announced restructuring of the UK charter and distribution business. He compared MyTravel’s situation to the problems facing rival First Choice “four or five years ago”. He told TravelMole: “They [First Choice] focused on the very things we are looking at – cost base, flexibility and increased asset utilisation. While the last thing I want to say is that we are doing the same thing there are some no-brainers.” Mr Jansen said that there was no doubt that some summer 2003 holidays had been sold at a loss because incorrect management information systems meant holidays had been wrongly priced, meaning the company had not made the margin it had expected. He said for the future the company would look at margins rather than volume or market position and would be looking to get the “balance right’ on its new year discounts. And he denied that the only reason that MyTravel had not yet gone bust was because most consumers did not realise it owned Going Places. He pointed to the success of the MyTravel branded website – MyTravel.co.uk, which now accounts for between 8-9% of bookings compared to 3% a year ago. He also claimed that most people who went on a MyTravel holiday – six million in the UK last year – generally had a good experience so were inclined to think well of the company. He insisted that despite the £910 million loss it was possible for the company to return to profitability by 2005. According to Mr Jansen in terms of “cash outflow” the loss was only £109 million and the remainder of the loss was not “real” because it was due to the sale of businesses that had been drastically overvalued. Other relevant stories: 11-Dec-03: TravelMole Interview: Philip Jansen, MyTravel 11-Dec-03: Is MyTravel on the rocks? 11-Dec-03: MyTravel Summer 2004 bookings down