Your Stories: Trevor Smith looks back on 35 years in travel

Q. What’s been your career to date?
This is my 35th year in travel. I’ve worked as a guide, tour manager and coach driver and helped to plan coach tours. Before I got into travel, straight from school, I worked for Woolworths for 10 years. I was its youngest store manager. I joined Shearings as a coach driver and tour manager and worked there for eight years until 2000. Some of the tours I helped to design for Shearings are still in the brochure, like the tour to Krakow, Zakopane and Auschwitz in Poland. I also helped with Leger Holidays’ original battlefield tour – I was the driver escorting the guides and giving them details of coach routes, how narrow the lanes were and distances to battlefields such as the Somme and Passchendaele. I have lived and worked in France, Andorra and Germany as a freelance coach driver. 

Q. Why did you decide to join Travel Counsellors 20 years ago?
It was the next logical step for my career. At the interview, they asked me about destinations and where I would tell clients to stay and I gave specific hotel suggestions and reasons based on my own travel experience and knowledge. They said I was exactly what they were looking for! Becoming a travel counsellor meant I was free to work how and when I wanted and could build up my business. 

Q. Tell us about your business.
I have a 50:50 mix of leisure and corporate sales. My real passion is trains, but nearly 60% of my leisure sales are cruise; I’d like to sell more expedition cruises. My business built up nicely pre-Covid, but post‑Covid it is still not quite back up to what it was. It’s been a difficult time because I lost my mum in 2021 and the sight in my right eye, and then two years later my dad died. In 2024, I built the business back up and sales did get better during 2025.

Q. Last year you attended more Tipto roadshows than any other agent. How do trade events help your business?
I look at all the different roadshows to see what interests me. Last year I went to five Tipto roadshows. Every time I go to a Tipto roadshow I pick up something new from their suppliers because the industry is changing all the time. There are always more products to learn about and it helps to meet the people who work for the suppliers. When you say to a client that you have met a person from that tour operator and spoken to them about their trips, that makes a real difference. It helps you to win the sale.

Q. Tell us about the regular socials you help to run for fellow homeworkers.
There are 33 of us [Travel Counsellors agents] in a WhatsApp group. We help each other out – it’s pinging 24/7! We have been meeting up regularly in Yorkshire for about seven years, but we also met up in Kent when I lived in Maidstone. It’s what homeworkers need. We know each other personally and know when we need more help. Donna Alexander, who has been with Travel Counsellors for 18 years, and I usually arrange a monthly meet-up for our colleages; it’s the best thing to do when you are working from home on your own. A lot of us are also going through personal issues. I’ve suffered bereavements in the past few years and I’ve a colleague who lost her uncle last year. It feels good to help others get through these difficult stages. When I was in hospital recently, I had lots of travel counsellors contact me and head office was there for me. The day after I got home there was a ‘welcome home’ box. These things work both ways – I help others and head office is there for me.