I am sitting rather appropriately in the lounge of an Oban seafront hotel with my first guest in the series of Story’s stories.
My partner in conversation today has an almost iconic status in Argyll – and along with his hotels, his Red Gold liveried luxury coaches can be seen traveling the length and breadth of Argyll.
He is Ian Cleaver, Founder and MD of Highland Heritage Tours – the man with the widest smile on the west coast.
MS : Hello Ian, many thanks for joining me today on a wind swept Oban Sea Front, which you have just described as ‘a cheery wee afternoon’. You and I have spent many an hour chatting together but this is the first one I have taped!….. So, Ian Cleaver… local boy made good?
IC: Well… yes, I suppose. I first saw Oban during the war years. I remember it with Sunderland Aircraft taking off from the bay, convoys going up and down the Sound of Mull and the sound of air escorts flying above them. I also remember seeing the ships and at the age of 5, thinking, ‘I am going on one of them’ – and in 1955 I did… to America!
Hitting warp speed
MS: So has that been part of your character – that you have always had a plan?
IC: …. well… I always had it in mind when I went to school and all the way through school, that I was going to sea. I always intended to go to sea. So when I was 17 – and I wouldn’t say I was a disappointing pupil – I was a complete failure. So after breaking the news to my dear mother that any ambitions of me being a brain surgeon would have to be put off, temporarily at least, I went to sea until I was 30. By the age of 25 I had a masters foreign-going ticket, because I had educated myself; and in 1968 I came home.
MS: Home to Oban?
IC: Actually, home to Auch in Glen Orchy. Home to work as a game keeper for a year; and then I bought a guest house business in Oban. When I left Oban 7 years later I had three guest houses and a flat – not a bad start.
MS: Is this the infamous story of Ian Cleaver running three guest houses out of the one kitchen and running with breakfast dishes between the three?
IC: (laughing) Well… there is a little bit of truth to that story and while it didn’t always happen, those kinds of efficiencies were indeed encouraged. Other stories were entirely true, for instance a very well dressed German gentlemen stayed with us and checked out leaving a rather smart and expensive jacket and shoes behind. I thought it was my lucky day and was trying them on when there was a knock at the kitchen door – and there stood the gentlemen in question.
MS: So you started small… What made you take the leap?
IC: I saw the future of group tours quite early on. In fact, I was the first person to have a double decker bus of 75 school children parked outside Breadalbane street in Oban. I had a deal where I took British School tours through the week and French Children at weekends, having met a French tour agent.
MS: When did you decide to expand across Argyll ?
IC: In 1975 I started to see that the froth was coming off was undoubtably a boom, a bubble – very much a bubble, which had been phenomenal. The whole thing had been stoked up by a Gentleman by the name of David Webster.
David Webster was doing the greatest sales job that anyone could ever have done for any town anywhere. Anywhere. He was filling the Freetrade Hall in Manchester with 10,000 people – and he was showing them pictures, highland dancing, pipers, Jimmy Shand, Bobby McLeod and painting a picture of the west coast – and the people were coming up here in their thousands, tens of thousands from the north of England.
It was a tremendous time and I don’t think that David Webster was ever properly recognised for what he did, over a period of 25 years or so.
However in 1975 I saw the froth coming off and sure enough things went politically pear shaped down south with the miners strike and the winter of discontent. I thought, ‘I need to get in to the coach tour business’. The Royal Hotel in Tyndrum was for sale and I bought it.
MS: And that was the start… the brown trouser moment. I imagine you had done a lot of research by that stage, but how did you source all your guests?
IC: Initially we sub contracted to National Holidays and Wallace Arnold and others. They provided all the guests for about 5 years. But in 1981, Margaret Thatcher deregulated the coach tour industry – which meant you no longer needed a licence to run a coach tour company. I put an advert in the Clydebank Advertiser, I think and three weeks later I had thirty five tourists on a rickety old coach at my front door. The ad cost me £30 and my brain went ‘Tick Tick Tick’ – and that was the beginning.
The first year we ran 12 tours, the next year 42 and now we run over 800 tours per year.
MS: So how big is the empire?
IC: Well with our four hotels and fleet of coaches, last year we will have turned over net of VAT around £9.5 million and if you add VAT and personal spend by the customers, its about £17 million per year that we bring in to Scotland.
MS:Impressive figures indeed… and a big part of that revenue comes to Argyll?
IC: About 70% of that is coming in to Argyll.
The many Ian Cleavers
MS: A very successful company by any measure. Now Ian, You seem to run pretty much every part of it… I have seen you watering the plants in your potting shed; welcoming guests; on stage at your highland shows; manning the buses; in your control room; in your studio, even at your tender age ….so who is Ian Cleaver?
IC: Ha!..its just who I am, I’m a restless creature and if there is a hole in the business then I seem to fall in to it.
MS: And you still have the passion for it that you had thirty years ago?
IC: Oh yes. It’s a lot better getting up in the morning and worrying about the business than it is worrying about which silly golf course to play on.
MS: A lot of people I speak to around Argyll and Oban in particular, lay claim to ‘knowing Ian Cleaver’ but I get the feeling that very few people actually ‘know’ the real Ian Cleaver?
IC: I am not a social animal. I am not a big socialiser and whilst I do know an awful lot of people but the older I get the less I socialise … (laughs) …I just cant take it any longer.
MS: You and I have known each other for a while now, and while you always come across as gregarious, friendly and outgoing, I sense that there is quite a private man in there who guards that privacy and who treasures his solitude?
IC: Oh I think that’s absolutely right. My greatest pleasures in life are going out and doing the company’s photography. That entails going away and getting on the hills or being in the car by myself for days on end; or going out on the boat and doing a lot of photography from there. Another aspect is that I do a lot of dinghy sailing which up until the last couple of years is all round the world and that tends to be for two people at most. So I am not a great socialite, and happy with my own company.
Business philosophy and another life
MS: You live in Dalmally, close to your hotel and head office, in a lovely old house. Been there a long time?
IC: I have been in Dalmally for thirty years, twenty five in the present house.
MS: You couldn’t be described as flighty…..
IC: (Laughs)… No, certainly not. I don’t move around a lot in business. I don’t buy and sell hotels. I buy them, improve them and keep them. The same applies in personal property… It’s always worth hanging on to. Anyone with Royal Bank Of Scotland shares will tell you that!
MS: So….Ian Cleaver, the sportsman… You mentioned earlier that you have sailed dinghies all over the world – but not many people will know that you have sailed and competed at a very high standard.
IC: Yeah, I have sailed to a high standard – but I am an absolute amateur and have only been able to put a limited time in to it. But I have made it in to the top ten in world championships in more than one class. I have been third in a world championship; and once upon a time was smuggled on to a boat in Sydney harbour – but the race was cancelled just as we were about to have our moment of glory.
MS: What would surprise people about you?
IC: (Laughing)… Well the guests are all surprised that I am not 7′ 2″ and three’ across the chest… as opposed to the real me, who is nearer 5′ 2″ and three’ across the chest.
MS: The industry is always changing quickly and your competitors always speak well of you – albeit through gritted teeth. But do you still have a feel for it, does it still drive you?
IC: Oh yes… The last 5 years have been particularly challenging. Trying to make a bob during a world recession is tricky. And on top of that, business is changing rapidly and people’s aspirations are growing. These days marketing is everything. Marketing is the key to all business these days. So, in my 70s, I am becoming digital. And that’s not easy when you’re 70+ and can hardly type. As a matter of interest, I am a lot better and a lot happier with a chain saw in my hands rather than a laptop.
MS: (Laughs)… I get that impression every time I see the logpile in your garden.
IC: (Laughs).
Bringing the business intelligence to bear
MS: Ian, where do you see the future of Argyll, and the Isles, both economically and socially… Are we getting it right?
IC: Well..there are politicians with absurd aspirations for a place that is out on the end of the broom stick, if you like. We are out of the way, and that’s difficult.
And we are at the mercy of markets by being prime producers. Be it Forestry, Fishing or Farming, we don’t do what is known as adding value. By taking timber, or fish or meat and processing and refining it before exporting out of the region, you add value. If you always add value and encourage firms to add value – and have the enterprise companies support that – then you will grow businesses and employ people.
If we are going to grow as a region there is no use in new house building projects when there are simply no jobs to keep people here. They always say Argyll is built on the four Fs. Farming Fishing Forestry and F.. ing Tourists.
MS: Finally Ian – if we can come on to tourism for a moment, – and especially hospitality and hotels, which is your forte – an awful lot of companies have perished on the rocks of Argyll’s fickle economy. What advice would you give to a young business person starting in Argyll?
IC: There is a common mistake. Do not come here thinking that you have to have a luxury 5 star business to be successful. Generally speaking, Argyll and the Isles is not a five star destination. It has some five star credentials, but competing at the five star end of the market is very difficult. We have a tendency to pat each other on the back and overestimate just how good we are as a destination. You need to be aware of how the customer sees you.
However, if you want me to predict the future, I think that outdoor activities will be a huge feature. Just take a trip a few miles out on a boat and look back. You will see a world class natural destination, with a host of possibilities and I think the future of Argyll and the Isles tourism can be found here.
MS: Ian Cleaver, businessman, sailor, photographer and chainsaw aficionado, thank you for taking the time to tell me your story.
Mike Story
