An InteleTravel agent has secured two bookings worth more than £170,000 after joining the trade four years ago following a career in investment banking.
Rachel Harris took a booking in March for a £77,000 Maldives trip, followed by a £97,000 booking for the same destination four months later.
The latter is the most valuable holiday the Essex-based homeworker has sold since joining the travel industry in 2019. “It was quite unbelievable,” she said. “It was a huge amount of money.”
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The more expensive of the trips is a 10-night stay at Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi, departing in February, for a multigenerational group. The £77,000 holiday, also for 10 nights, is for travel over the festive period to Kandima Maldives.
“There’s been a huge rise in multigenerational bookings since the pandemic,” said Harris.
During the pandemic, Harris built up her knowledge of the travel sector after 13 years in investment banking. From leaving school at 17, she was employed in a middle-office role and was most recently responsible for a team of 12 trading in commodities.
Since joining InteleTravel, she has “never looked back”, she said, with her client base including fellow mothers as well as contacts from her investment banking days.
Both of the large Maldives bookings were made by customers who had arranged trips through Harris previously on the back of recommendations.
The £97,000 booking required two face-to-face meetings, frequent messaging and long hours.
“I like to be busy,” said Harris, who appeared on a panel alongside fellow leading InteleTravel homeworkers during the agency’s conference in Malaga this month.
Her three pieces of advice were to commit plenty of time to learning, to go the extra mile for clients and to focus on gaining a handful of quality repeat customers rather than aiming for a high number.