Homeworking group Travel Safe has taken on its first high street travel agency.
Travel Safe Horbury opens this weekend as a member of the Travel Safe group and is owned by Sophie Davis, who left Sunvil Holidays last year to have a career break with the birth of her third child.
Travel Safe, which launched last summer, already has 10 homeworkers and is a member of Protected Trust Services.
Davis’ partner Brett Gerrett (pictured below) is managing director of Travel Safe homeworking group and her father is Trevor Davis, founder of retail travel marketing firm 3FOR. Davis said she had been considering opening up her own agency for some time.
“It was something I had been mulling over but had put on the backburner with a new baby, but then we found the right premises and location. It’s never going to be the right timing,” she said.
She initially kept the news from her father, who in the past ran large high street and homeworker agency groups such as the former Co-operative Travel, Freedom Travel Group and Thomas Cook’s Personal Travel Advisors.
“We waited until we were in situ to tell them and when my parents came to see it they loved it. We wanted to surprise them,” she said.
The agency in Horbury, west Yorkshire, was previously a William Hill bookies and has been completely refurbished to create a “relaxed travel lounge”.
“We have a sofa, coffee table and TV and I’ve created a little beach and there’s beach balls hanging from the ceiling. I wanted a relaxed, chilled out vibe. There aren’t many offers in the window,” said Davis, who even sought out a coconut diffuser to give the shop a “holiday smell”.
She said: “I have worked for agents before when I worked for 3FOR and the ones that made me want to go back were those had a relaxed vibe.”
The Mayor of Wakefield is due to attend the official shop opening this Saturday when prizes will be given away to customers. The agency also plans to plant a tree for every booking it makes.