Jamie’s story
Jamie Morris is one of those entrepreneurs who somewhat stumbled into the world of business. Fresh out of university in the summer of 1997, he decided to step into the family’s self-catering holiday lettings business.
“We were very small with a handful of properties in the West Country,” he recalls. “Back then there wasn’t much science to it – I wanted to improve the business and see how far we could go. We were goals driven and certainly were not thinking about things like private equity. It was more a case of let’s try and grow by 20% each year and see where it takes us.”
And growing steadily year on year the company did. Operating as Travel Chapter, the business started to add more properties and brands to its portfolio and towards the millennium became one of the first letting firms in the trade to launch an online booking system.
“It was a big deal back then!” muses Jamie, who had assumed the role of CEO by this point and approached every challenge with a founders’ mindset. “Now we have a huge tech and marketing team doing all the sorts of roles that only a handful of us were doing. I used to do a bit of everything. That’s what it was like – business was not complicated, and we made sure we played to our strengths. That ethos is something which has stuck with me ever since.”
Going to the next level
Up until Phoenix became involved in 2016, Travel Chapter’s growth was almost exclusively achieved organically, with new properties both inside and outside of the West Country being added in a sustainable way through the years.
“We had only made one acquisition to this point,” Jamie adds. “In 2016, we got to a stage where we wanted to move faster. As many in the lettings space will know, you really need to grow in order to survive and thrive.”

In keeping with his get-up-and-go style, Jamie started to understand the potential of private equity to help step up the pace of growth. As the list of options narrowed, it became clear that Phoenix would be the right choice for Travel Chapter as it sought to build a springboard for turbocharged growth.
For Jamie, as part of the founding family, it wasn’t simply a case of accepting the highest offer. More important was alignment on a cultural level, finding a partner who read from the same page and shared his vision and ambition for the longer term.

“Phoenix introduced me to new ways of growing Travel Chapter,” Jamie says. “As well as being the best overall proposition, they really are genuine people who are good listeners. I have made friends during this process. In many ways they are understated and grounded, which you can’t say about every private equity player out there. They didn’t just invest in our business; they celebrated every milestone with us. They listened and they truly understood our vision.”
Broader horizons
Phoenix supported Travel Chapter’s expansion through a blend of organic and acquisition-based growth. In just two and a half years, the company successfully completed 20 acquisitions, more than doubling both its property management portfolio and workforce headcount. At the same time, the company’s profitability increased threefold. In December 2018, Phoenix sold its investment in Travel Chapter, realising an impressive 3.6x return on its initial capital outlay.
Despite the rapid growth story, the company’s core business and ethos remain the same. It offers a compelling value proposition to both property owners and holidaymakers alike, its diverse brand portfolio showcasing an expansive array of distinctive properties, ranging from charming thatched cottages and whimsical cabins to luxurious coastal retreats. Travel Chapter’s flagship brand, Holidaycottages.co.uk, still serves as the company’s hero product, and is complemented by several national and regional subsidiary brands.

“We now have 15,000 properties and 900 brilliant employees on our books,” adds Jamie, who handed over the CEO reins to his successor Jayne McClure after taking the business through a secondary buyout with another private equity firm in 2019.
“Being CEO for 20 years on this journey has been incredibly full on and rewarding, and stepping back took a little while to adjust. The decision to do so was a head versus heart situation. My heart wanted to carry on, but my head was telling me that I had children and couldn’t sustain working seven days a week and being so attached.”

Three years later, in 2022, Travel Chapter was acquired again. Today, Jamie still serves in a non-executive capacity, his role now being to look at the bigger picture and ensure the business he raised retains its identity, sticks by its core values, and looks after its staff.
“Without good people, we are finished,” he says, “My role is to make sure our employees are happy and willing to give it their all to improve the quality of Travel Chapter as we look at where next to go.
“We operate with broader horizons and bigger ambitions now. There are multiple options in front of us in terms of investing and funding. We can think big, and that is certainly a legacy left behind by Phoenix.”