Cross-Fertilize Cash Flows Across Seasons

“in 1965 for a dramatic take-off. What Raitz had dis- covered and Captain Teddy Langton had further developed was that, if you made a business of it and organised everything well in advance, if you chartered aircraft, booking thousands of seats, and reserved blocks of bedrooms, if not entire hotels, and if you put clever advertisements in the way of people who had never thought of going abroad, you could sell them a fortnight on the Mediterranean, including aircraft, all meals and hotel, for less than the cost of the scheduled air-fare to that particular spot. With the spending power of the new technological age working people, wouldn't millions go for that? Gordon based his faith on the expansion that would come from the great mysteries of the British climate and that enormously increasing spending power of the ordinary people. In cost terms, they could have a holiday in the Mediterranean sun in a comparatively high quality hotel for less than they would be asked to pay to sit and watch the rain from a Blackpool boarding-house. Moreover, since a deposit was payable on every booking, the cash would begin to flow in the winter and the spring, just when newspapers were habitually getting in little money, and by the time we had to pay for the hotels the newspaper income would be rising again to meet the demands. We had an added advantage in being able to com- municate through our newspapers and magazines to millions of prospective clients ; in other words we could make our sales of inclusive holiday tours in the advertise- ment columns of our own newspapers, and that very likely at a time—at the beginning of the year—when these columns were not carrying their full load. This would be cross-fertilization between one area and another of the Organisation's activities, which was good economic sense.”

“Meanwhile Gordon was searching for the entirely new pastures that would suit us. Away from the communica- tions business altogether, he set himself to find: (a) a growth industry (b) a business not requiring deep technical know-how (c) an operation with a cash flow that worked on a different cycle from that of newspapers (d) an industry that would employ the skills we had built up, and particularly that let us do what we were best at—selling to consumers in the market- place ; in other words, a market-orientated company.”