The new owner of the collapsed Thomas Cook travel agencies is hiring almost 1,500 new staff in a vote of confidence in the future of the package holiday industry.
Hays Travel, which last month snapped up Thomas Cook’s network of 555 shops across the UK following its high-profile collapse, said the roles were in addition to the rehiring of 2,330 former employees from the collapsed travel group. Hays says it has so far reopened 450 Thomas Cook branches, rebranded Hays Travel, and continues to hire staff for the stores.
The hiring spree includes 500 jobs to handle foreign currency exchange in each of the former Thomas Cook stores, as well as an apprentice for each of the 737 branches Hays Travel runs across the UK. Prior to the Thomas Cook deal, the company already ran 190 shops under the Hays Travel brand. A further 200 staff are being recruited to work at the company’s head office in Sunderland.
“We’re further increasing staffing to ensure we have the highest customer service levels across all our stores and our head office functions,” said John Hays, who founded the chain in 1980. “These are fantastic permanent career opportunities for people who want to take a step into an exciting industry where every day is different.”
Hays took a pop at Thomas Cook’s corporate culture, saying that the management style of his independent travel agency had been “empowering” for the former managers of the collapsed firm.
“The former Thomas Cook managers have said the biggest difference for them is being empowered and valued,” he said. “As an independent travel agent they are not tied to certain products or scripts and they feel trusted. This is a key principle of our business.”
The latest round of job hires is a boost for the package holiday industry, which Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said recently was “screwed”.
Following the Thomas Cook deal, Irene Hays, who chairs Hays Travel, rubbished his claim, saying “there’s been a huge resurgence in package holidays in recent years”.
Tour operator trade body Abta said 51% of people it surveyed in July said they had taken a package holiday in the past year, up from 48% in 2018. According to statistics from the Office for National Statistics, the number of package holidays taken in the UK has been rising steadily since 2014, reaching 18.2m last year.
Earlier this month the Chinese conglomerate Fosun, which was Thomas Cook’s largest shareholder, paid the liquidators £11m for the rights to 178-year-old travel brand. The deal gives Fosun access to Thomas Cook trademarks, websites, social media accounts and software across most of the world.
