A travel agency is planning its biggest event to date to mark 40 years in business.
Holbeache Travel, based near Stourbridge, Birmingham, is inviting 200 people to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The majority will be regular clients but local representatives of key suppliers will also join the celebrations.
The party will be Hawaiian themed with attendees encouraged to dress up for the event, which is being held at DK Rugby Club in the village of Wall Heath on September 20 and will include food and live music.
Joint managing director Lucy Hall said: “We’ve had to be quite selective about who we invite and they are mostly regular clients that we have had for years and years but we’ve never had an event on this scale before.”
She said the main aim of the event was to thank clients for staying loyal to the business as well as thanking new customers for choosing to book through the agency.
“If it wasn’t for our clients we would not be here 40 years down the road and we want to thank our new customers too,” she said. “This event is purely a thank you and we’ve invited some suppliers too.”
The agency has run pop up shops and travel shows to generate extra business in the past but has never held such a large social event for customers.
Hall said the business was now thriving after surviving the “dark days” of the Covid pandemic, which she described as the most difficult period in the agency’s 40 year history.
The business was founded by Roger Lunn, now retired, originally in a portacabin in a yard near the town centre before moving to a small parade of shops where it has been ever since.
Hall is in her 30th year with the business, starting on a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) straight from school at the agency, which originally focused on business travel before switching to mainly leisure sales.
Another member of staff has been with the agency for a decade while one has worked there a year and an apprentice started in February.