entrepreneurs 19
Pictures by Angus Thomas
decade – his profile for the sport definitely made golf that little bit more sexy. I think nowadays there’s more and more value put on leisure time. Particularly in the last two years, throughout the recession in this difficult climate, we’ve been very fortunate, we’ve seen two of the biggest years of growth, which is absolutely testament to the fact that golfers see golf as leisure time, it’s important and it’s not something that they’re going to take out of their diary. That ties in very much with spa – spa is a huge growth industry at the moment, so in 2010 we launched a sister site,
BookaSpa.com. We’d been looking for a while to set up another business that would be complementary to the golf business and looked at becoming a ski operator, but we realised it was a very crowded market. Seeing a huge growth in the spa market and having a ready- made database of golfers, it seemed a very natural fit to go into that, and last year 10,000 customers booked spa breaks and spa days through the site.
Would you consider yourself an entrepreneur? Do you have more new business ideas in you?
I do believe there is an element of truth that it is in the bones or in the genes – my father set up three businesses throughout his career, so I saw how those grew as I grew up, and then my first taste of it was working in the ski resort of Val d’Isere during my gap year between school and university. With a friend I set up a small enterprise selling packed lunches to skiers. We went round knocking on apartment doors in the evening, taking an order and delivering it the following morning. It was fun and it helped provide a bit of beer money. After I graduated I had a summer job selling aerial photographs door to door. It was on 100% commission which I absolutely took to, because it very quickly demonstrated that the more you put into something, the more you get out, and that wonderfully simple equation is something I’ve embraced ever since. Another wonderful expression I was taught from an early age is “Don’t die wondering” – that’s something which has constantly been in the back of my mind. There are other new ideas that are always up the sleeve. One thing we’ve always tried to do is make sure we grow within our means. If there were a million pounds sitting there now it would be about rolling out x, y, and z, but because there’s not and we’ve decided to try and run the company debt free, we’re committed to driving the brands that we’ve already got and making those leaders in their respective markets, rather than spread ourselves too thinly.
Have you ever wondered what else you might do in business?
At the back of my mind I’ve always thought being involved with the wine industry is something I would love. I don’t drink a huge amount of it but I’m very passionate about it and I see that as another market where there’s a huge proportion of the population
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2012
who are crying out to learn a bit more about how wine was made and also what they like, what they don’t like and why, so I’ll maybe save that one for a rainy day.
Looking at your business achievements, what would you say is your greatest achievement?
Taking the plunge in the first place, going out alone and getting through the first couple of years, along with surrounding myself with some good people who match and complement my skill sets.
What’s next for you personally, and for the company?
To continue with the strong growth that we’ve experienced. There are 4m golfers in the UK, so we’ve still got a long way to go until we’re getting every one of them going on a golf break every year. We’ll be looking at new destinations – the Caribbean is very much coming onto the radar, so we’ll be expanding into those countries to increase our worldwide product offering, and we want to increase the choice of spa venues. In all of the business the constant challenge for us is to get more and more products online. The
Teeofftimes.co.uk booking platform will book up over 250,000 golfers just on standalone tee times this year, and that’s absolutely the way it’s going, for golfers it’s the fast and easy way to book a round of golf. There’s not a day I wake up and think “oh my god I’ve got to go into work”, I absolutely adore it, and I get a huge kick out of growing the business. The challenge is to keep growing and to keep remaining profitable, and I’m always reminded that turnover’s vanity, profit’s sanity, so it’s keeping that yardstick.
Details:
www.Golfbreaks.com www.businessmag.co.uk
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