A Wrexham couple hope to transfer skills learned in the hospitality sector to their start-up travel agency after facing redundancy at the same time.
Ian Pritchard-Jones and Rich Goodwin launched their business Tailormade Escapes, a franchise of homeworking group Not Just Travel, in May this year.
The idea to form their own travel agency came from “a tough situation” when they were made redundant from the same hospitality company at the same time.
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Pritchard-Jones said: “Within a tough situation, they say every cloud has got a silver lining. It actually pushed us into doing something radical.”
Their love of holidays, particularly to Greek islands like Skiathos, combined with strong hospitality backgrounds have helped them hugely in setting up their business, they said.
“We love holidays, so we wanted to do something we were passionate about, but we also had loads of transferable skills from being in hospitality, so customer service, business acumen, marketing knowledge,” Pritchard-Jones added.
“All the things you need day to day to run a pub company is also what you need to run any company. It’s the product that’s different, but everything else is more or less the same.”
They praised the training and support they have received from Not Just Travel, including a week of full-time training when they started and a dedicated business development manager to be “a soundboard” and help with their growth.
The couple are looking forward to Not Just Travel trips, including a four-to-five-day training trip to Crete in October, which will be followed by “an elite retreat” farther afield.
Customers and bookings have so far been coming from “a warm market” of people that already know them or have a referral, but the agency plans to start advertising in a local newspaper from September as “a bit of an experiment”, and also share offers on social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram.
They have found Mediterranean bookings have been particularly popular, and they have recently booked clients trips to Mauritius and Barbados.
One trend that has surprised them is how far in advance customers have been booking, particularly for cruises.
Pritchard-Jones said: “Gone are the days of last-minute deals. I think since Covid, the demand for holidays has come back twofold, more than it was, and so with that comes more people wanting to go on holiday.”
He said he looks forward to being able to compare trends in bookings when the agency has been running for more than a year and aims to grow the business “as much as we can”, especially with two people working together.
He added: “By this time next year, we just want to have booked as many holidays as we can to as many places as we can and at least one of the different types of holidays that are out there, so we’re fully versed in how that operates.”
All holidays going forward will be “homework”, Pritchard-Jones joked.