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Luzi Matzig in TravelAsia
TravelAsia, April 9, 1999
By Yeoh Siew Hoon
After 28 years of taking Diethelm Travel to the top of the charts in Thailand and Mekong, Luzi Matzig will leave the company on May 31. His departure is the latest in a series of changes which has rocked Diethelm Travel since last year. Last week, Kittima Saengchote, one of Diethelm’s key executives, also left the company. Another veteran Chaladol Ussamarn has also left to set up his own company, CBS Successive Tour. Up to 30 staff were retrenched last year. Last May, Matzig was transferred to run Diethelm Travel’s Mekong businesses. Peter Weingand took over as general manager for Thailand but his stint was shortlived. Thomas Reiter was then brought in from Diethelm’s subsidiary, Tropic Asia. In a press release, Renato Petruzzi, CEO of Diethelm & Co, said Matzig was leaving "to realise his own ambitions in Asia’s tourism industry" and that "the parting is totally amicable". The string of changes has led to speculation that a clean-up of Diethelm Travel had been ordered from the higher-ups who are keen to see the company move in a new direction. When asked if this was part of a strategy to bring in new blood to the company, Petruzzi told TravelAsia, "It is not a strategy to bring in new blood. Our strategy is to be more aggressive in the markets we’ve covered and to get new markets where we have done very little, for example, the US. This is not adding new blood deliberately. When somebody leaves, you hire new people." Asked if it was ironic that Diethelm was undertaking such changes, such as retrenchment and re-engineering when Thailand was having a boom year in tourism and Diethelm was enjoying record sales, Petruzzi said the changes were part of a re-engineering exercise undertaken as early as 1996 when it brought in a team of consultants to review Diethelm Travel. The five million baht study took eight months to complete. "We undertook the re-engineering to assure us we can remain profitable in the future. At that time, our top line was not growing. This is very important in business, you have to grow your top line. "When we launched the study, we didn’t know there would be the crisis of July 1997 which would turn into an opportunity for Thai tourism. Nobody did." Petruzzi said that the study showed Diethelm needed to be more aggressive in new markets, needed to invest heavily in computerisation (it will be investing Sfr1 million in this area over 1999/2000) and needed to improve its standards of service in ground handling. Asked if plans should be flexible and adapted according to the circumstances, Petruzzi said Diethelm was indeed flexible and did not retrench as many staff as the study had recommended. Asked if these changes would send out the wrong signals to clients that all was not right with Diethelm Travel at a time when business was booming, Petruzzi said, "The study showed us our strengths and weaknesses. There is no nice way to reorganise, but we have to improve in areas where we need to." But would the fact that tourism is a people business and that Diethelm had lost several good people, cause the company to lose its edge? Petruzzi said, "It’s a challenge, I agree. Yes, people are very important and everybody including myself think they are indispensable. The issue is we have to work at all levels to improve our service. "In travel, there are three important things – connections with tour operators, the service you provide to tourists when they arrive, and we have to work much harder at that, and pricing. "I think we over-estimate the people aspect. In Europe, mergers are taking place, it’s all about making money. You have to offer a competitive price to compete. People are important, but so is price." Does this mean Diethelm becoming more aggressive in pricing? Petruzzi said, "I did not say that, but the market dictates." He reassured Diethelm clients of continuity by saying the company was continuing to invest in people and technology so that it stays at the forefront. "Being a big company, we have the resources to invest. That is our advantage." Matzig declined to comment on his future plans, saying it was premature.
"I am sad but Matzig is a doer. He’ll open his own company, I am convinced. He’s an operator, he wants to make things happen. He is a businessman, not a coordinator in a regional function. He’ll be a major competitor, I am convinced." Q: Are you worried? A: What can you do? That’s life, that’s business. The market is big enough. Competition forces us to work harder. Q: His biggest achievement? A: Diethelm Travel is market leader, that’s his achievement. He did good PR for the company, developed a lot of new products and won many awards.
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