An agent has started 2023 on a high after bagging a £119k booking for St Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean.
Homeworker Mike Carter, of Travel Plans, began working on the booking at the start of December.
The client, a regular who has been booking through Carter for more than 20 years, booked an If Only package for 14 passengers to stay at the Four Seasons Resort Nevis for 11 nights in April.
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The booking, completed in the first week of January, was for a family holiday but involved weeks of work before it was confirmed.
Carter, who joined the Independent Travel Experts homeworking group, part of The Travel Network Group, in March last year, said: “This enquiry has been ongoing for a while and we changed destinations completely from the original so I’m over the moon to get such a high-value booking confirmed at the start of 2023.”
Carter helped his client to find the right destination for a combination of a luxury beach stay with the opportunity to play ‘world-class’ golf. “This is a family holiday so a few of them will be playing golf whilst the rest relax in the sun,” he added.
Carter said he joined ITE as the group handles all the back-office administration on behalf of its agents. “I’m semi-retired now so I joined Independent Travel Experts because they provide all the back-office support to allow me to focus on selling holidays without the hassle of dealing with the administration side of things. It’s worked out perfectly and I’ve never looked back.”
ITE managing director Gary Gillespie said the booking had “caught us by surprise” after the agent’s decision to move across to ITE from Worldchoice.
“Mike ran a successful Worldchoice travel business for many years and was planning on retiring but didn’t want to let his long-standing customers down,” said Gillespie, adding: “We offered him the opportunity to move across to ITE as part of his ‘retirement plan’.
“In all honesty, we thought Mike would settle into his new lifestyle and slow down a little, but we’ve seen a steady stream of bookings from him since he joined. However, this one caught us completely by surprise. We’re really pleased to have Mike as a member of the ITE homeworking team and hope he continues to enjoy his ‘retirement’ with us!”