Your Stories: How we built a £6.5m business with Facebook marketing

Q. How did you start?

Hugh: We were school friends then Ben went to uni and I started at Hays Travel. Ben got a travel marketing job. After a couple of years, we thought we’d give it a go.

Ben: Global Travel Group [now part of The Travel Network Group] was down the road so it fell into place in 2017. We were in my mum’s garage [in Mold, Wales, pictured] and couldn’t afford heating. We sent direct messages to thousands of celebrities and that gave us our first sales.

Q. How did the business grow?
Ben: It developed on Facebook. [Celebrities] weren’t a long-term strategy. We specialise in short-haul, family holidays and Disneyland Paris. Jet2, easyJet and Tui are massive for us. Between three and five million people a month visit our Facebook page.

Hugh: Yesterday, we had 180 enquiries and did 11 bookings – that’s a standard day. Disneyland Paris is 20% of our business – we get phenomenal feedback then a nice transition into: ‘And what could you do for my family summer holiday?’ The business is run pretty much on social media marketing. 

Q. Will you remain just online?
Hugh: We toyed with the idea of a shop, so hired homeworkers with the plan being that they could transition into the store. But we ditched that idea so we’re looking for staff farther afield. The six of us live quite near each other.

Ben: What we spend on Facebook marketing [would be] shop rent. When a shop outperforms Facebook, then we’ll be open to it. We retain customers with emails and have a holiday savings club, sending weekly offers.  

Q. How did you cope with the pandemic?
Hugh: Before Covid, we had £1.1 million [annual turnover]. Because airlines were slow to refund customers [during Covid], we used our own money to give same-day refunds. It created so much goodwill. Once we’d dealt with that initial flurry of refunds, we got part-time call centre jobs. In 2022 we turned over about £2 million. 

Ben: In January 2022, we said we don’t need part-time jobs and went back [to Venture]. We were recommended loads so didn’t have to spend much on marketing. People said: ‘We’re coming back to you; you were amazing during lockdown.’

 

Q. How is business now?
Hugh: We’ll do about £6.5 million this year. We need more sales staff to keep that growth rate. Almost every day we post a water-park holiday, which gets a few hundred comments. Because we get so many messages, we’ve probably spent the same on marketing as last year, as we cannot keep up with demand [from] returning customers, recommendations and offers that we post. 

Ben: We can do £7.5-£8 million in 2026 and need more staff to do that, along with help from TTNG. 

 

Our staff buy into our bigger, long-term vision that we can take this to a £100 million business.

Q. How does TTNG help?
Ben: They’re phenomenal. We went to London last year to meet [chief executive] Gary Lewis, Vim Vithaldas [chief commercial officer] and Stephanie Slark [membership services director]. We asked about a shop, a bookable website or spending more on Facebook. They really helped, and, since then, we’ve focused on Facebook. London seemed a long way to go for a three-hour conversation – but 12 months on, we’ve doubled the size of the business because they made things very clear for us; they’re fantastic.

Q. Any plans for an app and bookable website?
Ben: We haven’t touched the surface on Facebook marketing yet. We’re 6% of the way to a £100 million business, but we’re also 6% of the way there in terms of our customer journey. Every year, we look to improve clients’ bookings – such as the Disney parks guide that we’ve created. We’re integrating more AI and learning more about our team and customers.

Hugh: We work six days a week [and] think about work on Sundays, but it’s fun.

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Tell us about  your team

Ben: We took on three staff within the last six months of 2024. We need another two or three this year. We’ll try to get everyone on a fam trip or abroad this year. Sales executives Bria [Smith] and Ash [Reilly] are coming to Bucharest [for TTNG’s conference]. Emma [Jubb] will hopefully go to Jet2’s conference. Julie [Doran, admin executive] is going on a Jet2 fam. Our first hire Ash has worked in travel since she was 16. Hiring from and outside travel worked amazingly. Julie worked in luxury villas, Bria has a fashion marketing background and Emma worked at Disney in Florida. 

Hugh: Ben is based in Buckley, 10 minutes from where we used to live in Wales, and I live in Manchester. He and I have a call every morning for the first hour then everyone else starts at 9am. We try to meet the team every six weeks. At the end of peaks we celebrated at an Italian restaurant. A few weeks ago, we hired an office space for a day together. We met in December as we were onboarding new staff. Homeworking gives people flexibility, they don’t have to commute.