SKI holidays expert SNO expands into the Caribbean
ONLINE travel agent SNO is heading for the beach after a peak performance in the mountains. The ski holiday specialist saw 87 per cent growth as it turned over £6 million last year and and is the fast growing in the sector.
Sno discuss benefits of Innovating For Growth programme
According to SNO’s founder and majority shareholder Richard Sinclair the company got the edge in a packed market because of its unique formula of “Expedia tech meets Lonely Planet content using the latest travel technology to offer all ski holidays from UK airports to the world’s top 200 resorts.”
“That’s all suppliers, one search,” he says. “We’re totally independent, have the biggest online selection, can beat or match any price and rock-solid safeguards in place to protect customers and their money.
“Although we have more guides and are the most useful ski travel resource anywhere, the biggest progress was when we transplanted that imperative of excellence into our approach with clients on the phone.
“Our honesty and wealth of options have driven strong sales and repeat business. We don’t do brochure-speak.”
Our honesty and wealth of options have driven strong sales and repeat business. We don’t do brochure-speak.
Based in south-west London and employing 12, the company expects to double numbers in the next 12 months as this spring it takes its successful cue from SNO to expand with Beach, a Caribbean brand.
This will cover the whole region in a phased roll-out beginning with hotels, followed by flights and direct packages.
Sinclair, a former BBC Tomorrow’s World, Watchdog and Holiday programmes boss, was a new entrepreneur when he set up SNO in 2011 after seeing a chance to apply his experience and disrupt a niche travel market which wasn’t seizing the opportunities technology had to offer.
“Many of the smaller holiday businesses are more about a lifestyle choice which influences their appetite to embrace change,” he observes.
“Our biggest challenge was to build technology that could import and structure live price/availability data from an incredibly diverse range of travel and accommodation providers, from the biggest such as Hotel Plan and Tui to small chalet owners with weekly spread sheets.
“We engineered our Hub then built bespoke integrations for each supplier in a modular way. Because of this approach we’ve been able to add online booking for some of the suppliers too.”
The most successful products he finds are those that hit “the sweet spot between quality and price.
“Brits like catered chalets, although hotels are not far behind. Our market is existing skiers, not beginners, and ours is the classic agent’s role but online. Our average selling price has also increased with demand for more 4 and 5 star properties.
“The Winter Olympics may spur extra interest, but is not significant for us.”
SNO has been self-funded so far, Sinclair’s business management strengthened by taking one of the Innovation for Growth courses with expert mentors run by the British Library’s Business and IP Centre.
"Innovating for Growth was the lens which helped focus our plans and stopped us just muddling through,” he explained.
“When you’re starting out and focused on getting traction, the very specific coaching in discrete areas such as product development, branding and marketing helps to crystalise your often amorphous goals. It gives you the know-how and tools in a short space of time, which are usually garnered through a lifetime of trial and error.”
While Ski and Sno have seasonal constraints and can be harder to internationalise (French and Germans just drive to a resort while Brits need a package), Beach fills in all the gaps, is a more mature market so easier to deal with and has never been more do-able cost-wise with today’s VOIP and internet communications.
But for faster growth going forward he is now weighing up future investment to fund a third brand Cruise, and a travel company across all niches and world economies with sales to customers in the US, Germany and China, followed eventually by the creation of a fully-fledged tour operator.
Whether the plan begins with a £100,000 bank loan or £300,000 plus from a private, angel backer, decision time is approaching.
“Tech allowed us to take the approach of a much bigger business,” he says. “We’re an idea whose time has come.”