A cocky young accountant who stumbled into travel

Steve Endacott stumbled into the travel industry in 1988. A head-hunter arranged an interview with Hugh Morgan, Managing Director of Global Travel, part of International Leisure Group (ILG). The interview itself was memorable: after a bottle of wine, Hugh briefly mixed up a detail on Steve’s CV — mistaking his father’s job as a Docker for a doctor — found the mix-up funny, and offered him the job on the spot.

He went on to work across ILG’s Lancaster Holidays and Global Holidays divisions, before joining Airtours in 1991 as Head of Brochure Pricing under Ton Waslander. He later became Commercial Director, then moved into an expanded Commercial and Sales Director role — working throughout alongside David Crossland, during the years Airtours grew into a vertically integrated PLC with its own airline (Airtours International), retail chain (Going Places) and cruise line (the Seawing).

Along the way he built Airtours’ brochure pricing system from scratch, ran its late sales department, was one of the people behind the numbers for its move into cruising, and negotiated the deal that created Orlando Sanford International Airport as an alternative gateway to Orlando. He also became a known name in the travel trade press once he moved into sales — by his own account, “journalists loved it because I gave them plenty of headlines.”

Alongside his career, Steve travelled much of the world with his then-fiancée (and later first wife) Sue Smith, funding the trip with project work for ILG in places including Florida and Australia rather than working in bars.

He is writing this book, and publishing it online as he writes it, nearly forty years into a career that also now includes investing in and working with AI and technology companies.