As the son of two self-employed playwrights, our Co-founder and Co-CEO Harry Hastings has always had the self-belief and creative vision required to persevere. However, as we approach our 20th anniversary, Harry discusses four lessons he would have taught his younger self sooner in the final story of our Founder Series.

At the tender age of 18, I didn’t know a lot about the world – and certainly didn’t know much about running a business. But that’s the age I was when I first caught the travel bug and realised I wanted to build a career around making travel the best it can be for as many people as possible. Almost 20 years on, I’ve learned some valuable lessons – here are four that I would’ve told my 18 year old self.

Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement

It was 2012, the year of the London Olympics and Oceans Holidays was on a gold medal winning streak doing £30m of bookings a year. We’d brought in a business partner – someone with experience who we entrusted with our financial affairs and who we believed wanted to join us in growing the company. But all was not as it seemed. One day, it came to light that some supplier payments had been missed and our business partner hadn’t turned up to work nor answered his phone. A handful of us worked through the night to unpick what had happened and realised this was the tip of the iceberg. All in our twenties, us four founders realised we were staring down the barrel of a £1.8m black hole, with our business partner nowhere to be seen. Despite advice from a trusted advisor to walk away, we owed it to our 85 employees to persevere. With fire in our belly and sheer determination to survive, we worked round the clock for a week to write a five year business plan which satisfied those we needed the support of and ultimately led to our survival. Learning this valuable lesson the hard way made us tough and instilled in us all an unwavering commitment to being rigorous in the detail, laser focused on our numbers and ferocious in our governance.

As founders we work for the company and the people in it, not the other way round

To some, it might seem counter-intuitive to say that as founders we work for our staff and not that they work for us. But it’s a philosophy that has stood us in good stead and has led to us weathering the storms that have rocked the travel industry over almost 20 years. During the pandemic, when others closed their customer service lines and put staff on furlough, our staff got on the phones and reassured customers that we’d safeguard their holidays and ride out the storm together. In 2021 right in the midst of the turmoil, our staff’s commitment to helping Ocean Holidays customers navigate the chaos helped us almost double the size of our business from £40m to £77m between January to December of that year. And what’s more, we managed to do that and retain 85% of our staff. Today, we face new challenges: rising energy prices, a cost of living crisis and a looming recession. Our number one priority remains making sure our staff are comfortable. It’s them first, and selling holidays second. Which is why we’re investing in our staff now more than ever before. We’ve introduced a profit share scheme, pay rises and we have opted to be a real Living Wage provider, which we’ve back paid to January 2021. As we near the 20th anniversary of Ocean Holidays, I couldn’t be prouder that we’re on course to being rated a world class employer by the Best Companies engagement survey – although I do sometimes wonder if I’d have hired 18 year old Harry Hastings.

A band of brothers will build a brilliant business

The Ox brothers and the Hastings brothers come from very different backgrounds. Their Dad was a Romford market trader. Our parents were both playwrights. Yet we all shared a passion for travel and all had the self-belief instilled in us by our self-employed parents that we could one day run our own business. Daniel Ox ran the tuck shop at school – that was his early, sticky-fingered education on supply and demand. South of the Thames in Brixton, I was a keen ice hockey player. The game teaches you resilience, teamwork and as the greatest player of all time Wayne Gretzky famously said ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’ – a philosophy that has always resonated with me. The Hastings and Ox brothers have long since hung up the skates and closed the tuck shop – and we’ve all found our cornerstones within the business. I look after our people and business planning along with our profit and loss with our Finance Director. George is responsible for our flights and relationships with our airline partners, Dan looks after the innovation and technology part of the business, and David – one of the UK’s top travel managers for high-net-worth’s and SME’s – is responsible for our personalised travel management business, Winged Boots.

Doing the right thing is best for business and the world we live in

The pandemic was a strange time, and the entire travel sector was nervous. In the midst of the turmoil, our colleagues’ commitment to helping our customers navigate the chaos helped us to become the UK’s fastest growing travel company according to ATOL reports. I have learnt that doing the right thing, looking after your employees, your community and the world around you, as well as being truly inclusive is good for business. As an 18-year-old founder in my early years, I would have passed off such altruism as a distraction from growing the business – believing these were qualities only highly funded big brands could afford to indulge. As it turns out, thinking beyond short-term revenue goals and focusing instead on doing the right thing for the wider world we live in pays off.

In the second of our Founders Series, George Hastings, Managing Director of Ocean Holidays, discusses how we can learn from last year’s travel chaos to create a better holiday industry.

There’s no denying it has been a difficult couple of years for the travel industry. As travel restrictions began to ease post-pandemic, the industry faced a new set of challenges, from staff shortages to flight cancellations.

And yet the travel industry remains incredibly resilient. At Ocean Holidays, our sales were up 50% compared to January 2020, showing the green shoots that we have all been waiting for. As winter starts to draw to a close and families look ahead to planning well-deserved summer holidays, here are a few things I’ve learnt that will stand any travel business in good stead to overcome hurdles and work together to support customers as we move forward towards a brighter future.

Open and honest dialogue is key

I had my own experience of last year’s ‘travel chaos’ when I was caught up in a major outage issue on my return from Geneva. As a result, my flight and luggage were delayed turning what should have been a 1hr 30-minute flight into 15 hours from door to door. Unfortunately, my story wasn’t unique.

At Ocean Holidays we pride ourselves on putting humans in touch with humans. And this includes our suppliers and partners.

For example, being in regular communication with airlines last summer allowed us to stay one step ahead of any flight disruptions and let our customers know to book them onto other flights. Doing this kept the stress out of booking holidays for our customers and reduced complaints directly going to airlines.

As we look ahead to this summer, we’ll be continuing to have open and honest conversations with both customers and suppliers alike. Issues will arise, but we know it’s how we handle these situations with our customers that will determine if we’re successful or not.

The right deal is important, but so is a robust guarantee

Last year’s uncertainty cemented the need for a strong guarantee in the minds of consumers. Whilst price is important, consumers are also looking for reassurance from travel companies that they can support them should things go wrong.

As customers navigate the current cost of living crisis, holidays, more so than ever before, are considered purchases. Offering reassurance and guarantees on holidays will be key to encouraging consumers to part with their cash.

Be agile to respond to changing consumer needs

It’s no surprise that the way consumers book holidays has changed over the past year, so it’s vital that travel companies remain agile and respond to evolving consumer demand.

For example, we have seen a shift in when people book their holidays with the vast majority of travellers now booking seven months in advance, compared to nine months to a year that we saw before. As a result, we need to ensure we are constantly refining our deals and services to cater to this.

During the last few years, we have also seen major airline partners change their routes to accommodate those visiting friends and family abroad, however, we are reaching capacity in market growth for this type of travel as consumers return to traditional leisure destinations.

We are honoured to be the inaugural winners of ‘Employer of the Year’ at the Travel Weekly UK Globe Awards. This award is particularly special as this is our very first Globe Award.

When choosing Ocean Holidays as the winner of the award, Travel Weekly said, “The winner’s submission particularly impressed with an authentic approach to people, sustainability, D.E.I., and community. Judges felt this approach was underpinned by a strong commitment to honest and transparent communication which allowed staff at all levels to feel involved. They were also impressed by the way the company’s values flowed through to every decision taken, with an ongoing drive to ensure all employees were engaged and constantly encouraged and supported to do… and be… their best. And they commended the engagement of senior management, with a specialist team member driving company culture and working impressively with the chief executive to implement its strategy. Finally, the judges were impressed by our winners’ commitment to fair wages, with plans to increase starting salaries from next year to better attract and support staff.

Our Co-Founders Daniel Ox and George Hastings were on hand to pick up the award, where George said “It’s such a surprise to have won and this the first Globe Award we’ve received so it’s exciting. We have done a lot of work in the last two years finding out what our staff want and need and then worked to implement all of that so to have that recognised is amazing. He went on to say, “This award will be front and centre at our town hall next week and the staff is going to be buzzing – at the end of the day, this award is all about them.”

When told about the award, Ross Swallow, Trade Sales Consultant said, “It may have only been 6 months since I’ve been with the company, but it really makes me proud to see Ocean Holidays winning this especially as I wholeheartedly agree with it!”

This prestigious award would not have been received without Ocean Holidays’ Head of People, Karen Sheehan, who has played a crucial role in implementing several new initiatives to improve the lives of our colleagues in both the workplace and personally.

Co-Founder & Co-CEO Harry Hastings said, “I couldn’t be prouder of Karen Sheehan and the entire team at Ocean Holidays for winning the special award for Employer of the Year by Travel Weekly UK Globe Awards last night. We know we have so much more work to do to continue to improve the lives of our colleagues at Ocean Holidays.”

Our employees have always been at the heart of everything we do, and we attribute our success as the UK’s fastest-growing travel company in the last two years to this people-first approach. Whatever the future holds, it’s vital to us that we continue to listen and act on what our employees need to make them not only productive but happy too.

We’re proud to share this Sunday Times article, featuring our very own Co-CEOs and co-founders, about the trials and triumphs of Ocean Holidays.

The last Friday of October 2012 is forever etched in the memories of Harry Hastings and Daniel Ox, co chief executives of Essex-based Ocean Holidays. That’s not only because it was Ox’s son’s first birthday; it was also the day they discovered that the travel firm they had built up from scratch over the previous eight years was at risk of imminent collapse.

“We got the call that Friday to say the business had run out of cash,” said Hastings, now 39. “We spent the next 72 hours trying to figure out what on earth had happened. We discovered a hole of about £1.8 million in the end.”

It was a do-or-die moment, every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare. The four founders – Hastings and his brother George and Ox and his brother David – decided to try and save their floundering firm. With an emergency, insurance-backed loan from industry bonding body the Travel Trust Association, Ocean Holidays was able to continue trading while the two pairs of brothers feverishly worked on the rescue effort.

“We had seven days to write a business plan to show we could get out of where we were — to cut costs, sell assets, rebuild the business and pay off that special arrangement over a number of years,” says Ox, now 42. “Harry and I had a few very late nights doing that.”

The grim news didn’t quite come out of a clear blue sky — at the time, the firm’s finances were managed by an experienced older shareholder (who subsequently left the business) and the brothers had been concerned over a lack of financial information for a while. But the discovery of the extent of the cash shortfall was a huge shock. “We were very young when we started the business and none of us had really had proper jobs before that,” said Hastings. “Dan and I were university drop-outs. We were completely and utterly self-taught. We thought we were doing well — we didn’t know any better.”

In the end, 28 staff out of a total at the time of 85 had to be made redundant, and one of the company’s crown jewels — a successful online booking platform for travel agents called Beatthebrochure, which Ox had built himself — was hastily sold to a competitor to liberate some cash.

“It was so painful. We were in total chaos for about 12 weeks,” said Hastings. But it bought the founders time to get back on an even keel — and to realise the potential of a restructured Ocean Holidays based on two key markets. One was mid to long-haul holidays to destinations such as Florida and Dubai, and the other a bespoke travel agent, called Winged Boots, aimed at high-net-worth individuals.

“People ask why we didn’t just pack it in and start again,” said Hastings. “We had invested eight years in the business. We had thousands of customers who trusted our brands, and an incredible team working with us. Once we had built the business plan, we could see there was a tremendous opportunity right there, and we were really, really hungry for it.”

Another crisis hit in March 2020, of course, but one that was industry-wide rather than specific to Ocean Holidays – the pandemic. The company made a pre-tax loss in 2020 of £1.25 million as the world went into lockdown and travel ground to a halt. It did keep its call centres open, however, talking customers through their options and resulting in 85 per cent of them rebooking rather than claiming a refund.

After a couple of weeks, Ocean also bucked the trend by turning its online advertising back on and looking for business. “In April 2020, we started to sell holidays for beyond Easter 2021 up to 2024,” said Hastings. Few other companies were doing so, resulting in a flock of locked-down customers easing their frustrated wanderlust by booking a holiday a year or two hence. “In 2020, we ended up selling £40 million worth of holidays,” he adds.

Fast forward and the company is going strong. Ocean Holidays said its revenues were £78 million last year, when it was named the fastest-growing travel business in the UK by ATOL, the holiday protection scheme. It now has 200 staff and claims to be on track to generate revenues of almost £100 million this year, with earnings before debt interest, tax and non-cash items of “between £6 million and £7 million”, said Hastings.

The business has its roots in the 1990s, when the Ox brothers set up a business selling holidays to Dubai on Teletext, the TV-based forerunner of the internet whose pages looked like they had been drawn with Lego bricks. Daniel Ox was 19 at the time, enjoying life as a sometime DJ in Spain but not really going anywhere career-wise. “I had just dropped out of university and was messing around,” he said. “My dad was a bit of an entrepreneur — the family had fruit and veg stalls on Romford market for generations — and he said to me and my brother, ‘Why not start a travel company?’ ”

So with £30,000 from their parents, the pair set off, selling holidays to Dubai. When they decided to start doing US packages as well, they met the Hastings boys — then sales agents for a Florida villa specialist — and went into business together. “Somehow, my brother and I cobbled together 20 grand,” said Harry Hastings. “They sold the holidays and we processed the bookings, and we all got a cut.”

How does a company run by not one but two pairs of brothers manage to avoid a double dose of family squabbling in the boardroom? Each of the four owns an equal 25 per cent stake, and the business is structured so that they don’t tread on each other’s toes, Hastings explains. “We all have our own, very well-defined areas of responsibility. David is managing director of Winged Boots and George is managing director of [subsidiary company] Ocean Flights – on long-haul holidays, the vast majority of the cost is the flights. I’m the co-CEO who works closest with the finance director and head of people on product and commercial stuff, while Dan is the co-CEO of technology, operations, process and strategy.”

Now a few years older and hopefully wiser than back in 2012, when the money almost ran out, what tips would the founders give to others about to embark on their own entrepreneurial journey? “For me, I’d say double down on your strengths and accept your weaknesses,” said Ox. “Things move faster if you quickly accept what you can and can’t do.”

“Try to think long-term, even in a crisis,” added Hastings. “Making decisions based on fear is a really bad idea. One thing we discovered is that, when the thing you are most scared of happens, it can actually end up being the best thing for you. So be optimistic, but with rigour.”

We are proud to have been recognised by the US travel industry as one of America’s best International Tour Operators.

On Monday 6th June 2022, the U.S. Travel Association and Brand USA honoured 51 of the world’s highest-producing tour operators and buyers of U.S. travel at its annual Chairman’s Circle Honors awards reception. Held at SeaWorld Orlando during the association’s 53rd annual IPW, this exclusive awards event—co-hosted by Brand USA—honoured international travel buyers for outstanding efforts to bring global travellers back to America.

Remarks thanking the select companies for boosting international inbound travel to the United States were delivered by U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow and Brand USA President and CEO Chris Thompson. They praised the work and partnership these organizations deliver to rebuilding inbound travel and tourism has never been more important following the challenges of the past two years.

The U.S. Travel Association’s Chairman’s Circle-level members, including top U.S. travel businesses and destinations, nominated the honourees.

“The work of our Chairman’s Circle honourees is vitally important to bringing visitors back to the United States and accelerating the recovery of the inbound travel sector,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow. “Their efforts extend well beyond the benefits realized by the U.S. tourism economy and include reuniting Americans with the world and re-establishing cultural ties that we have missed these last two years.”

“Consumer confidence is key to recovery, and tour operators and buyers play an incredibly important role in helping increase travellers’ ease in exploring new destinations,” said Brand USA President and CEO Chris Thompson. “This year’s Chairman’s Circle honourees are essential to helping people navigate the new travel landscape with their expertise and deep connections to those across the industry.

Co-CEO of Ocean Holidays, Harry Hastings, offered this response, “We are delighted to be recognised as one of the top international tour operators in the US in 2022. From closed borders to the return of holidays, it’s been a rollercoaster few years for everyone, not just our theme park enthusiasts. So as a family-run business, we couldn’t be prouder to have helped loved ones rediscover their favourite US destinations. And as the fastest-growing travel company in the UK, we hope to remain among this esteemed list of fellow honourees for many years to come.”