When Lisa Barnes (pictured, second left) joined forces with Claire Milby to set up an independent travel agency in a furniture store with one other part-time member of staff, it was with a sense of trepidation.
More than a year later, Lisa and Claire, both directors of the business, have expanded their team of staff and are seeing the business go from strength to strength. The pair, previously managers for The Co-operative Travel branches, took the plunge to set up on their own after Thomas Cook Group’s wave of redundancies last summer.
They contacted a furniture store owner, one of Claire’s regular customers, and secured space for a concession store inside, near its restaurant area.
“We used every penny of our redundancy money to start up debt free and having our own business has made us very focused,” says Lisa. “It’s actually the best thing that has happened to me and luckily plan A came off because there wasn’t a plan B!”
The calibre of staff – Lisa and Claire alone have more than 20 years’ experience between them – mean many loyal clients now book through Travel the Globe, located within Strollers Furniture World in Barrow-in-Furness.
“Without this client base it would have been very scary,” admits Lisa. “It really was a leap of faith in the hope the majority of customers would follow us.”
The move paid off, and the agency now employs three part-time members of staff as well as Lisa and Claire. It recently won Jet2holidays’ award for best independent travel agency for Blackpool airport for the last year.
Lisa says: “We have had a good level of trade since the day we opened. We didn’t expect this level of support in the first 12 to 15 months or to have five staff.”
For Lisa, having an experienced team working together in a relaxed environment, where staff are not competing against each other to chase individual targets, has been
a winning strategy.
“It’s about doing what’s right for the customer and having time for them – sometimes I show photos to customers to bring a holiday to life. But it’s also about rewarding staff with educationals and then sharing knowledge when we come back.”
But Lisa is far from complacent. “We had such a tremendous start, so it’s a hard act to follow next year. Hopefully our service and knowledge will keep the customers coming back,” adds Lisa, who says she has never before enjoyed such high repeat business in any agency.