Debt, Egos and Bad Decisions: How Thomas Cook Failed to Adapt to a New Era of Travel

On the March 1, 2013, Thomas Cook announced the formation of a new digital advisory board to help management identify "the leading-edge trends for online businesses".

It included a number of Thomas Cook's senior leadership team, including the then-CEO Harriet Green, who now works at IBM, as well as a selection of outside digital gurus who could help an old-fashioned tour operator adapt to the new reality of travel retail.

It was the latest attempt to reboot a company struggling to adapt, and like so many previous efforts, it failed. That was partly because of Thomas Cook's lack of cash and partly because of internal disputes. The initiative was quietly shelved a couple of years later, by which point Green had moved onto other things.

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