TravelMole Time Traveller: ABTA’s John de Vial

John de Vial, ABTA’s head of financial protection, is this week’s Time Traveller, sponsored by Harp Wallen.

What was your first job in travel?

I like to claim that my first job in travel was as a baby in the summer of ’62! My father was a Spanish resident tour leader for ABTA member WTA Limited and my English mother was a customer, so, you could say I was made on an ABTA holiday!  The official answer is two weeks as a temp at Intasun Holidays in Bromley in 1980. I turned up for two weeks temporary work in the accounts department, only to find there had been a mix up and the job was filled. I think the receptionist felt bad and next thing I knew I was working in the post room.

What has been the high point of your career?

I have had a very lucky career, growing up at ILG; TOSG/FTO; Thomson and then early TUI; European Quality Assurance; the MyTravel Group; the Thomas Cook Group and now ABTA. It’s difficult to choose. ILG was a great place to learn and I was lucky enough to get my first director’s role in 1989 reporting to Peter Long. The holiday service director role at Thomson was a high point. The MyTravel team were fantastic, turning that business round was an incredible achievement and team effort, working with Peter McHugh and the late John Bloodworth. More recently, helping to bring ABTA and the FTO together, followed by ECTAA and IFTO, were diplomatic achievements and I believe very important strategic moves for the effectiveness of our associations.

What was the low point?

The closure of the MyTravel offices in the North West following the merger in 2007. The day I had to tell several hundred colleagues in Helmshore the outcome of the consultation process was definitely a low point. A great team of people who had always been at the heart of Airtours and MyTravel and who had worked so hard for five years as part of the turnround.

Who or what has been the greatest influence on your career?

There are so many. I learnt so much at ILG from Harry Goodman and Peter Smith, but probably most from the brand MDs of that era: Roger Heape, Nigel Wallington and Hugh Morgan (now our ABTA treasurer and director). Peter Long taught us all to focus on the numbers. Martin Brackenbury was a great chairman of FTO dealing with the ILG failure, as well as the person who then recruited me to Thomson. Richard Bowden-Doyle and Nigel David at Thomson lived the spirit of Thomson and customer focus that made Thomson a great place to work. Roger Burnell, MD of Britannia and then CEO Thomson Travel Group, really got sustainability on the agenda at Thomson, MyTravel and Thomas Cook, where he is now senior non-executive director.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

I really have no idea! I like the fact that I have never really had a plan. At the moment there’s plenty to keep me busy at ABTA. It has been two years of continuous change since ABTA and FTO came together and now I have been lucky enough to pick up the financial protection brief at a critical time for the industry with ATOL Reform. My eldest son started working part time for an ABTA member last year and wants to study computer science at Uni, so perhaps in 10 years’ time I will be able to go and work for him in his online travel business.

What would you be doing now if you weren’t in travel?

The family did have vineyards once, which sounds like a nice idea! The perfect job would be in Spain, probably Mallorca or Catalonia, and would involve being outdoors a great deal more than I am able now during the working day. We looked seriously at moving to New Zealand in 2001 and spent some time down there, looking at tourism businesses, so if I was not in travel I guess I would be trying to get back in to it! It is in the blood.