Barrhead Travel will open its first implant store within another retail outlet this autumn.
The Glasgow-based travel agency will open inside a revamped Sainsbury’s in East Kilbride in September. This will be followed by an implant in a Morrisons supermarket in Inverness, Barrhead’s first shop in the city.
Barrhead already has a big branch in East Kilbride on the site of an old petrol station. Chairman Bill Munro (pictured) bought the site, knocked down the garage and built a new “themed” travel store with 26 car parking spaces outside.
But he said there was definitely room for another shop in the town since the two will be positioned on different roads used by separate sets of people and traffic.
The new agency is opening in a Sainsbury’s, which is currently being refurbished and extended to twice its original size.
Munro said: “I’m not a huge advocate of in-store travel agencies, but if it’s in the right place then it will work. We actually turned down three Sainsbury’s.
“Our branch will be located right beside the cafe behind the tills. We hand-pick all our locations.”
The outlet within Morrisons in Inverness finally “closes the loop” on Barrhead’s coverage of Scotland.
“We’re now in every major city,” he said, adding that trying to get good staff was the hardest challenge when opening a store.
Before these implants, the closest Barrhead had got to supermarkets was a store in the Asda car park in Bearsden, Milngavie, north of Glasgow.
But Munro said they could be the first of many.
“If this works, and I am sure it will, and they [the supermarkets] come up with similarly good opportunities, then we will look at more,” said Munro.