Travel firm Thomas Cook aims to boost profits by more than $500 million in the next three years by moving more of its operations online and further cutting costs, it said yesterday.
A long-awaited strategy update from chief executive Harriet Green gave the latest positive signal that the company is responding to radical changes in its industry and sent its shares up more than 15 per cent to their highest in 19 months.
The 172-year-old group has struggled over the last two years with a slump in sales that has forced it to renegotiate bank loans and sell off planes and retail outlets to lighten its debt load.
Since travel industry outsider Green took over as CEO last summer, she has identified £160 million of cost savings through measures such as merging its airline businesses. She said she had earmarked a further £50 million of cost cuts.
With previous management having announced savings of £140 million in 2011, that takes taking total annual savings to £350 million by the end of 2015.
Green is targeting sales growth of at least 3.5 per cent a year by 2015 as part of the plan, under which the world’s oldest tour operator will simplify its business and place a greater emphasis on selling holidays online.
“We need to move from turnaround to transformation now and create a simplified, restructured business, which translates our strengths into profitable growth,” Green told reporters.
Thomas Cook last week announced plans to cut 2,500 UK jobs and close 195 stores in Britain as it seeks to restore its UK business to health.
The company said it would also make disposals to raise up to £150 million, with analysts expecting it to sell luxury travel agent Elegant Resorts, long-haul specialist Gold Medal and ski firm Neilson.
Thomas Cook is targeting new product revenue of some £500 million by 2015, with around half of sales coming from online transactions. This should lift its UK earnings margin to at least five per cent by 2015, from zero, the company said.
Thomas Cook, a quarter of whose 2012 sales are already made online, will focus on driving more web sales to help it catch rival TUI Travel, which last year made a third of its sales over the web.
To do this, Green has created a digital advisory board, involving independent experts, to help it ramp up its online offering. It also plans to reduce its online brands to three in the UK and one in Germany, improve the performance of its websites and extend products offered online.
It also plans to increase its annual investment in technology by nine per cent to £60 million.
The group will also boost its presence in the concept hotels, city break and winter sun markets over the next five years, while seeking better terms from hotel partners.
“Plans to focus the product offer and hotel inventory is important as we believe Thomas Cook‘s past inability to sell the right product through the most efficient channel to the right customer at the right price has harmed profitability,” said analyst Ian Rennardson at brokerage Jefferies.