My First Lesson in Travel: Data Doesn't Just Predict the Future, It Changes It

People often assume that successful businesses are built by having better products or working harder than the competition. In reality, the businesses that consistently outperform everyone else are usually the ones that understand their data better and, more importantly, have the confidence to act on what it is telling them.

That lesson has stayed with me for nearly forty years.

A lively head-hunter called Alan, who had spent many an evening getting me drunk on expenses, reviewed his client list and arranged an interview with Hugh Morgan, Managing Director of Global Travel, part of International Leisure Group (ILG), whom he also knew was a lively character who liked a drink. The interview itself was memorable because, after Hugh poured a bottle of wine down my throat, he briefly became confused about my CV, thinking my father was a doctor rather than a Docker unloading boats. After several very odd questions, this mistake was discovered, and it made him laugh so much that he offered me the job on the spot, and my career in Travel was launched.

I threw myself into the role, working long hours to impress and progress quickly. What fascinated me wasn't the finance itself but the extraordinary complexity of the travel business. Unlike many industries, you couldn't understand what was really happening by looking at high-level numbers. You had to dig deep into the detail.

The first major project I took on was to forecast how brochure sales would evolve throughout the booking season. In those days, holidays were created in bulk and shoved into brochures, and prices rarely changed until within 3 months of departure, when they were dumped as heavily loss-making “Late Deals” to try to fill empty seats and guarantee accommodation.

I analysed several years of historic booking data, looking at how sales developed between January and April for every destination. I then applied those historical booking curves to current sales to forecast future load factors, profitability and likely demand.

Initially, the objective was simply to improve budgeting. Management wanted more accurate forecasts to better understand monthly profits and expected late sales.

But after the model had been running for a year, something much more interesting happened: we realised the forecasts weren't simply predicting our future but showing us how to change it.

For the first time, I persuaded the business to split their brochure print run into two, creating a second run in December for the peak January booking period, allowing us to adjust pricing. If a destination was selling ahead of expectations, we could increase prices earlier. If another destination was struggling, we would cut prices to try to stimulate demand, before it became a problem in the lates market.

Today, yield management is standard practice across airlines, hotels and tour operators. Back then, it felt genuinely revolutionary and was triggered by an accountant's brand-new spreadsheet analysis, so for the first time I felt that my accounting work was actually making a difference.

Just as importantly, the data exposed something every business still struggles with today.

We kept making the same mistakes.

Year after year, some destinations underperformed, yet capacity remained unchanged because decisions were driven by habit rather than evidence. Once management could actually see the patterns hidden in the data, commercial decisions began to change, and capacity was determined based on predicted sales.

Without really realising it, I had moved from being an accountant to becoming part of the commercial decision-making process, and that experience shaped the rest of my career.

Ironically, my next lesson had nothing to do with spreadsheets. It was about corporate politics, and the games people play.

Because I had impressed management, I was promoted and asked to take responsibility for finance across both Global Travel and another division, Lancaster Travel. This was when I first encountered corporate politics.

Lancaster's managing director, Nigel, would deliberately schedule meetings at the same time as Hugh Morgan’s to see whose side I would choose, causing me major issues with Hugh, who sulked massively that my time was now split between two businesses rather than just his. However, Nigel Wright, the Group Finance Director, quickly tired of this game and decided to sell it by offering me the Finance Director role at Intasun even though I was just 26 years old.

However, I doubt he ever expected that instead of accepting, I would resign the next day.

The reason was that I'd promised myself I would travel around the world, and now I was engaged, saving for a house and was about to get a massive promotion that, in my opinion, would mean I would never complete my dream.

So the next day I simply resigned to the anger of Group CEO Peter Long, who famously told me it was the biggest mistake of my career, and I’d never get another job in Travel.

Yet one year later, when I returned from my travels, I was welcomed back with a higher salary, a better company car, and an even bigger role.

That taught me my second great business lesson.

Never assume your employer, your market or even your industry will always be there. Companies can disappear far quicker than talented people do.

Looking back, I realise those two lessons still apply today. First, data should not be used merely to explain yesterday but to improve tomorrow. Second, your career belongs to you, not to your employer.

Nearly forty years later, those principles still influence every business I build.