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The ex-Thomas Cook top seller who became Hays Travel's biggest franchisee

High street
Ilaria Grasso Macola
22 November 2024

From the moment he met Dame Irene Hays and the late John Hays, John Stewart knew Hays Travel would be the ideal partner to allow his thriving business to aim even higher.

After 30 years with Thomas Cook, Stewart set up his franchise with Hays Travel

That meeting was in late-September 2019, a week after Thomas Cook – for whom Stewart had worked the past 30 years – collapsed, leaving thousands of agents out of work.

"My wife was in tears for days and my team were devastated,” Stewart recalls. Five years later, after moving his Cook franchise to Hays, things couldn’t be more different.