A specialist agency boss who sells accessible cruises has launched a new business that offers “every type of holiday”.
Jon Fletcher set up Cruise Holidays UK 10 years ago but said that the Covid-19 pandemic made him evaluate his business and he decided to launch The Wheelie Good Travel Company.
Within hours of officially launching on Monday (November 8), Fletcher had taken his first enquiry from someone wanting to meet Mickey Mouse on a Disney Cruise Line sailing out of Dover next summer.
Fletcher (pictured, left) said going forward bookings would be made through Cruise Holidays UK and enquiries would come via The Wheelie Good Travel Company.
The agency boss, who has neural tube defect – spina bifida – when a person’s spine and spinal cord does not develop properly in the womb, operates out of his home and two hot desking sites, including the Stockport Business and Innovation Centre and the Doghouse Hotel in Greater Manchester.
Enquiries are also made via the businesses’ two Facebook groups. Fletcher said the groups have around 380 followers between them.
He told Travel Weekly: “We can sell every type of holiday. It is whatever the client’s dream is. Our aim is to work with them to make their dreams come true.
“If someone comes to us with an idea that’s weird and wonderful, we will make it happen. We aim to work with people of all types of disability – visible and less visible.”
He said that he and his partner David Southworth (pictured, centre), who is blind, had “a wealth of experience” about accessible travel between them.
The Wheelie Good Travel Company has recently been approached by a customer that is interested in going on a naturist holiday.
“As far as we’re concerned if it is possible, we will do it,” added the former mental health nurse, who said his childhood dream was to be a travel agent. “My attitude is if that is what they want to do then we’re here to serve them.”
On accessible travel, Fletcher added: “Where a lot of agents go wrong is they either overboard or underboard. Sometimes they think they need to just book an accessible cabin. They do not think about the assistance that you will need at the airport or transfers.”
Norwegian Cruise Line and Virgin Voyages are Cruise Holidays UK’s best-selling cruise lines, but Fletcher added: “People like Princess Cruises and P&O Cruises as well. It can vary. That’s the beautiful thing about the travel industry.
“People start off with one cruise line and then move to others.”
The Wheelie Good Travel Company run by Fletcher, who is based in Ashton-under-Lyme, is part of Silver Service Cruises – a Travel Leaders franchisee – and a member of The Co-Operative Travel Consortium.
Asked what booking levels were like, he said: “It can be a lot of hard work, but travel has always been a lot of hard work and I love it. I do not mind the hard work because it means that you’re alive.”
He added that “a lot” of customers were repeat bookers.
Fletcher went on to say “nobody is going to hand us an opportunity on a plate we have to make that opportunity ourselves”.