Macs Adventure targets trade as it appoints three executives

Pictured from left: Graham Horner, Nick Blake and Stuart Hammonds

Self-guided walking and cycling specialist Macs Adventure aims to increase sales via travel agents after making three senior appointments.

Graham Horner joins the company as chief growth officer, with responsibility across the sales, marketing and customer experience channels, as well as overseeing international expansion.

He was previously managing director of luxury villa specialists Simpson Travel and chief marketing officer for Scott Dunn.

Nick Blake, former finance director at Simpson Travel, joins as finance director, and Stuart Hammonds, ex-product director at Dnata, is the new chief technology officer.

These three appointments follow that of ex-Hotelplan chief executive Paul Carter, who joined the board as non-executive chairman last year.

Neil Lapping, founder and chief executive, said of the new appointments: “They are all highly experienced in growing travel businesses and with this team in place I am confident we will achieve our goal of growing the business fourfold in the next five years.”

He added: “We have had a fantastic start to the year, with trading up 35% on 2019, and have ambitious growth plans for both the UK market and internationally.

“In the UK, we already work with selected travel agent partners and are looking to developing these relationships still further as well as building new ones.

“We also believe that international expansion will be a key component of our growth, particularly in the US where the self-guided category is still in its infancy.

“We are seeing huge demand for self-guided walking and cycling holidays.

“Domestic travel continues to be important, whilst bucket list options, such as the Camino de Santiago, the Tour de Mont Blanc and the West Highland Way, are selling very well across all markets.

“More than ever, people want to spend their time outdoors and are looking to achieve something on their travels. They want to immerse themselves in destinations and make a positive impact. Being on two feet or two wheels is the ideal way for travellers to do that.”