Midcounties Co-operative Travel has revamped its homeworking brand as part of plans to ramp up the marketing of its Personal Travel Agents nationally.
The group set up its PTA division two and a half years ago and now has 110 homeworkers.
The “brand refresh”, announced at the group’s annual conference this week, changes the name to The Personal Travel Agents and sees a new website unveiled, thepersonaltravelagents.co.uk.
The word ‘personal’ is handwritten to emphasise the service offered by its travel consultants and the new logo includes the wording “at Co-operative Travel”.
Sheena Darby, head of direct, with responsibility for PTAs and website, said: “The last two and a half years has been about building the business to a certain size and getting everything to work as it should.
“We’ve got a big opportunity to take this further and look at how we bring the concept of having a personal travel agent to everyday customers.”
The move follows research with 432 existing PTA customers and a panel of 100 UK residents.
This found that while existing clients enjoyed using agents they knew and trusted, 80% of the general public did not know what a personal travel agent was.
When this was explained, many assumed a travel homeworker would sell only luxury holidays and would charge. When told this was not the case, 40% of consumers surveyed said they would pay for this service.
Darby said: “Existing customers treat their PTA like a personal financial adviser or a personal trainer, but there was little understanding among people who had never booked with us.”