Your Stories: Self-confessed 'aviation geek' Gopal Shah discusses his passion for travel

Q. How did you get into travel? 
I have had a passion for travel from a young age, and then worked for corporate organisations, which involved a lot of international trips. I effectively became an unofficial travel agent for my team. I loved researching and it sparked my interest as an aviation geek. I’ve got about 16 hours of flying lessons under my belt at Coventry Airport. Then I was made redundant at the end of 2018, and I thought it was a second chance to do something I loved, which was own a travel business. I decided to take the plunge and set up the Not Just Travel franchise for Tailor My Travel.

Q. What sets your agency apart? 
I am all about the fine details and I’m known for trying to get the most out of life, which carries over into my holidays. I always encourage people to do twin or triple-centre holidays if they can. I urge clients to travel farther afield and get on a better aircraft to improve their experiences. If I can get someone in an economy class on an A380, then it feels like you are flying in business class. The Far East has always been my haven for that sort of travel – twinning Singapore with Kuala Lumpur is the best of both worlds.

Q. How did Covid affect your business? 
I started the business at the end of 2019, but in March 2020 everything came to a halt. It was a difficult time for me to run a business that was only a few months old. Luckily, customers were happy to keep deposits and full balances with me and trusted me to send them somewhere safe when I could. When I look back now, I see it as a bit of a blessing in disguise. It gave me the time to do a lot of training and networking over Zoom to turn a negative into a positive. 

Q. How have you been dealing with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East? 
I had to rebook flights for clients in India, Mauritius, Malaysia and the Maldives, but the biggest challenge now is to switch-sell people from disrupted areas. I am the type of person who offers to help anybody, no matter if they booked through an agent. The difficult thing is that none of us holds a crystal ball, and we don’t know what is going to happen next.

Q. What is trending in sales at the moment? 
People do still want to book a holiday to get away, but now more to escape the negative news cycle and social media than before. I have spent a lot of time in my life visiting countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, so that’s where my interests lie. I am switch-selling clients to destinations such as Barbados and St Lucia and have a huge influx of enquiries for the next few months, which is great because I believe the Caribbean needs more exposure. There has been massive financial investment in regenerating the offering there, and many properties have reopened in the past six months following Hurricane Melissa.

Q. What has been your biggest booking? 
My biggest was for a group of five travelling to east Asia for five weeks. It was a unique itinerary with business‑class flights. They wanted to visit a remote island near Thailand that required two internal flights, a private transfer to a local jetty and a private yacht. I worked with Kirker and A&K to fulfil that booking. 

Q. How do you find new clients and grow your business?
It’s important for the business to reflect me as a person, so I put out social posts, webinars, video blogs and Facebook Lives so people know it is not a faceless business. I have never had a physical presence, but I converted my double garage into an office where I could host people, and replicated that in my outhouse in my new house in Leicester. My son has started at a different school and that has been another chance to expand my network to a new demographic.