The Interview Niel Alobaidi,


Newmarket Holidays The operator’s first chief executive aims to make


customers central to every aspect of the business and deliver for the trade. Juliet Dennis reports


T


aking the top job at Newmarket Holidays was a no-brainer for Niel Alobaidi.


“Te more I found out about


Newmarket, the more exciting the opportunity became,” says Alobaidi, who became chief executive of the tour operator in September last year. “I knew if I didn’t take this chance


I’d regret it one day. Escorted touring is a growing sector. I couldn’t say no.” Previously, Alobaidi was managing


director of Emirates Holidays. He admits: “I was genuinely sad to leave Emirates but my ambition was always to work for a private, single entity as opposed to a corporate plc.” Te corporate world is one


Alobaidi knows well. From starting out on First Choice’s graduate training scheme, he rose through the ranks to become commercial director of Tui’s UK specialist businesses (Specialist Holidays Group) and managing director of SHG Scandinavia. Judging by his track record,


Newmarket can expect great things. In just four years at the helm of Emirates Holidays, passenger


20 23 JANUARY 2020


numbers grew tenfold from fewer than 10,000 to close to 100,000. His objectives are clear: to


drive growth and build the brand proposition in a sector he believes is ripe with opportunity. “Tere is an increasing population


of over-55s that are more mobile and more adventurous than ever before. If it’s complicated, people will not want to do it themselves, and we have the experts,” he says. “As one of the founder members


of Atas (Association of Touring & Adventure Suppliers) we share the vision to drive that opportunity with our trade partners. Atas has been valuable in driving the sector’s growth.”


Restructure And when it comes to delivering further growth for Newmarket, Alobaidi isn’t hanging about. Fewer than six months into the role, he has already made significant changes. He recently announced a


restructure, creating a chief customer officer, a move designed to make the customer even more central to every aspect of business. “We want to differentiate


ourselves on the service side and properly understand what customers want,” he says. He has also reshuffled priorities


among the leadership team to increase the focus on sustainability, events and cruise. It is critical companies have a clear and joined-up approach to sustainability, he warns, otherwise customers will, quite simply, “book with someone else”. “We’re at a tipping point [on


sustainability] and it goes back to customers being the most important element of the business.”


The trade Agents will be key to growth, he stresses. Online bookings account for more than a third of Newmarket’s bookings, but much of that comes


from agents via the website portal. He adds: “Te trade is our single


biggest sales channel and our biggest opportunity. We have to continue to drive trade bookings but we do also need to deliver sales growth across all our distribution channels.” Already the marketing budget has


been increased for 2020. Te clearest indication of


Newmarket’s dedication to the trade is the fact it recently expanded its on- the-road sales team from three to five. “We want to invest more,” Alobaidi


says. “Te most important bit of this is adding people on the road. My experience is that face-to-face is really important in growing through the trade, particularly in gaining trust.” Alobaidi sees the southeast,


Scotland and Ireland as distribution


The trade is our single biggest sales channel and our biggest opportunity. We have to


continue to drive trade bookings and deliver sales growth across all our channels


travelweekly.co.uk


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