Ally Case tells Samantha Mayling how their different personality types complement each other
Q. How did you start in travel?
I joined Travelbag aged 19 and was there for 10 years. After travelling Down Under, I returned to Travelbag for two years before managing Going Places in Salisbury for a couple of years. I retrained as a personal trainer and a sports therapist and had my daughter Danielle. After 10 years out, I returned to the industry and 12 years ago I joined Travel Counsellors, achieving gold status in 2022. Danielle, now 23, became my admin assistant. After her degree, she went travelling then joined Travel Counsellors.
Q. Why did you switch to Protected Trust Services?
A year ago, Danielle asked: “Why don’t we go out on our own?” Our networking group, Peer2Peer, has a ‘hot seat’ during which they give you positives and negatives about setting up your business. It was a really good exercise. Last June, we thought we’d give it a go. We absolutely loved our time with Travel Counsellors and the value they offer including their Phenix booking system and 24-hour duty office. We were looking for more flexibility.
By joining PTS, we now have greater control over our business, retain 100% of our commission and still have the ability to create fully tailored travel experiences for our clients. The move happened very quickly, smoothly and amicably. The PTS Bournemouth office is a mile away, so we’ve been working closely with them. Danielle and I are partners.
Q. Tell us about Case Travel
Our tagline is ‘redefining luxury’. It’s not just five-star hotels and private jets, it’s about the luxury of an agent who can look after you from start to finish. We’ve employed Sue Smith – who works from home – and she looks after customers once they’ve booked, handling airport parking, lounges and restaurants. Danielle takes the lead with marketing, social media, the website and emails.
We’d like to grow, but we’re doing it slowly; quality as opposed to quantity. About 99% of our business is referrals. We’re in Bournemouth but have a lot of customers in the Manchester/Liverpool area, which developed from a single client. Recently we had a huge spin-off in Essex, from a couple my in-laws met on holiday. We have four clients in the same street.
Q. How is trading and what’s selling well?
January was better than we could have ever imagined. We did lots of social media and email marketing, contacting clients to let them know we were starting our own business. We had a low-key launch party with about 50 people in December and hope to do a larger one after peaks.
We don’t sell lots of bucket-and-spade holidays and rarely discount. We sell tailor-made holidays – and cruises have been really popular. My expertise is in tailor-made long-haul trips, while Danielle likes putting together European holidays. We dynamically package quite a few rail holidays – if somebody asks for a city break, we suggest two or three cities and link them with rail. Our first two bookings, as Case Travel, were cruises: one round-the-world cruise, then a 35-day one. Places such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Africa are quite popular with families with younger children too. We hear: “I need a holiday where my child isn’t on their phone.” We sell lots of Lapland as there’s so much to do and it means children aren’t on their phone for 12 hours a day. We also organise and accompany groups to Iceland and Lapland. We’ll do more this year, including trips to India’s Golden Triangle.
We book yoga holidays, with one going to Bali in February, last year they went to Vietnam. We also handle school bookings – we took 44 students to New York in October and they want to return next November.
Q. How flexible is your role?
I take my laptop wherever I go. I sometimes walk the dog in the morning, then just work a bit later in the evening. I love the flexibility the industry brings you. For holidays, I am going to Lisbon with my husband for three nights, Danielle is off to Disneyland Paris and we’re going to South Africa in October. I remember going to Crete and had one of my best sales weeks while sitting on my balcony. You can work anywhere, any time.
How does your Peer2Peer networking group help?
It isn’t just a networking group; we get insights and support from other professionals. There are normally 12-15 people from different industries. If you have problems within your business or personal life, you can speak to like-minded people. It covers all aspects of running your business, such as managing staff and your time, or finding ideal customers. You might have a solicitor or somebody who owns or runs a factory giving you their view on the best way to go forward on any issue.
It is like having other people in your company. They use a profiling platform called Contribution Compass to outline different personality types. I am a ‘connector’, down at the bottom, whereas Danielle sits as a ‘champion’ at the top. We are very different, so we complement each other. We had our profile done as a company as well, which is how we came to employ Sue because we knew we needed a certain kind of person filling the gap between myself and Danielle. The only gap that we then had to fill was our technical side, so we have a consultant who does all our technology and systems.