Global Travel Group member Savvi Travel has opened its third shop – but as a member of Worldchoice.
Sales director and owner Dave Batley said the travel agency had moved more towards selling luxury and tailor-made travel and wanted a consortium that reflected its needs.
The shop, in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, was opened by MP and former I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here contestant Nadine Dorries on December 2, and will employ three staff.
Batley said Savvi’s two other stores – in Olney, Buckinghamshire and Oakham in Rutland – are likely to move over to Worldchoice after deals with Global expire in about nine months.
The agency has been a member of Global for five and a half years since it opened.
“We are in a different place than we were before.,” Batley said. “We are predominantly luxury and we need a consortium that backs that. We need marketing that is more tailored to us.
“We had negotiations with Global, but feel we are now a different animal than when we started [in 2011]. Global has been brilliant to us, but we just felt it was time to move on.”
He said Savvi has grown through good customer service and high levels of repeat business. The new shop has been decked out in “relaxing” colours, with a lilac backdrop and walnut desks.
“People are coming back to the high street and, despite a recession and Brexit, they are still spending. We just have to position ourselves in the market,” he said.
Batley has hired a part-time agent to work in an existing Savvi Travel store and now employs nine agents across the business.
Batley, who has a background in asset management, said: “Travel is a lovely product. When you have the experience you want you are going to come back again and again.”