Your Stories: Running an agency with a parent

Q. How did you get into travel?

It’s been in my family forever. My dad ran Air Ticket Centre for about 20 years, which he rebranded as Celtic Travel, before shifting to homeworking for 10 years. There’s a photo of me as a kid sorting through brochures in the shop wearing a bunny outfit – surrounded by Christmas decorations! Weirdly, I didn’t set out to go into travel. I did a degree in Welsh and started teaching before moving on to corporate jobs, but travel kept pulling me back in.

Q. What kinds of holidays are selling well?

It has been really varied this year because the market is so volatile with pricing and availability. I’ve noticed a growing trend in destinations that weren’t as popular last year, such as Tunisia, Cape Verde, Egypt and Turkey. People had been closed off to them in the past but that’s changing now because of price, since destinations like the Canaries or mainland Spain are becoming more expensive. We’re finding a lot of people turning to long‑haul travel because it represents more value for money than Europe.

Q. What other trends have you seen lately?

More people are coming to us because they want reassurance. The pandemic was horrific for travel but in the long term I think it was a blessing in disguise – people trust us more because we got clients home [during the pandemic] and dealt with everything. I’ve also noticed a younger demographic coming through our doors. People who would never have booked through an agent before are now saying they very much need our help. When you get over a certain level of spend online, people can be scared to put their credit card details in because if you get that wrong, it’s a lot of money. That’s where we come into our own, because we can go through it with them together.

Q. You’ve recently been posting more on social media. How’s that going?

I do a lot on LinkedIn because I have around 25,000 followers, but Facebook is our busiest portal. We started on TikTok too and have gone viral a few times on there, but you cannot physically be active on all of them all the time. We’re trying to be much more personal on social media, rather than simply posting deal after deal. It’s a case of stepping out of my comfort zone, but it’s working because we’ve had clients come in saying they had wanted to book for ages and the social media videos showed them that we are real people.

Q. How do you find your clients?

This past year has been heartwarming because we’ve had some lovely referrals and repeat customers. We’ve been sending bouquets of flowers to a lot of our clients who have recommended us; we like to surprise them with that gesture. It costs us very little and makes their day.

Q. What tips do you have for other agents?

Take as many opportunities as possible to experience the product you want to sell. It solidifies all the knowledge. In March, I was at the Clia RiverView Conference, where I experienced different river ships first‑hand, which was super‑helpful. Cruise is a huge and confusing market, but a lot of clients are confused by it too, so if you can be the one to break it down they will trust you.

Q. What has been your most unusual booking?

I booked the English Ice Hockey Association on one of their tours, which was one of my coolest bookings – pardon the pun. There were 88 team members going to Helsinki and it was complicated, but so fun to work on.

Q. What fam trips have you been on?

I went on my first‑ever fam trip last year to Florida with Ocean Florida, which was incredible. We had the best time and were treated like VIPs from the minute we left Heathrow, all the way through with the fancy hotels and theme park access. We did a Florida festival for clients at the office afterwards where we took around £30,000 worth of bookings, which made it all so worth it.

How do you find working with family?

My dad and I launched The Travel Business together about eight years ago. There are four of us in our Newport office and homeworkers all over the UK, which I’d love to double by next year. A lot of people find it so strange that I work with my dad, but for us it has always felt natural. I’m the energy and ideas girl and he’s more old school and balances that out. We’ve never fallen out over anything apart from the yellow sign he wanted for the office, which I thought looked terrible!

We did end up rebranding, so I got my way eventually. We’re known for treating every customer the same way. If someone wants to book a £200 caravan in west Wales, we will do that, and we will service that the same way as a £10,000 honeymoon. We’ve done some weird itineraries for people over the years – ones that would not make sense on paper – but we thrive on figuring it out, and that’s almost our motto here in the office. The more difficult the request, the better. Over the years we have massively grown our corporate and cruise business, which I would like to expand more, along with luxury and sport travel.