Hays Travel franchisee Charlotte Hopkin tells Ella Sagar she should have moved in to homeworking ‘years ago’
Q. How did you get into travel?
I didn’t know what I wanted to do and my dad said I needed to do something and suggested doing a travel agency course at college. I did like travelling and you had to apply for a job for the course. I had seen an administration job in a Thomas Cook branch in a Cardiff shopping centre, so I applied and I ended up getting it.
Q. How did you progress?
After a few months of seeing the girls out front selling holidays, I didn’t want to be sat at the back doing the postage any more, so my manager trained me and then I started selling. A few years later, they put me on a management course and I became a customer service manager in the shop. I went on to manage a store in Barry after that before taking maternity leave for my first little girl. When I went back, I got offered a job with Tailor Made Travel, which was an independent company, and I was with them for three or four years.
Q. How did you move into homeworking?
Tailor Made Travel went into administration [in 2020] and was bought by Hays during Covid. After that I had my second little girl so was off work for a bit. As much as I loved travel, Hays was totally different to being with Tailor Made. We had a lot of rules and targets, which I didn’t really like. While I was on maternity leave, I looked at going self-employed and Hays obviously offered self-employed roles, so I thought I’d give it a go! To be honest, I should have done it years ago because even though it’s commission-based, it’s much better for me. It’s much more flexible, more money and I can work around the kids. It’s even meant that we’ve recently been able to move to a bigger house, which I’d never have been able to do on a standard salary in the shop.
Q. What destinations are popular at the moment?
It always depends on the time of year and what the customer is after. I book a bit of everything. Turkey always seems to be very popular because the prices are really good. I sell a lot of European trips with families, but I also do quite a lot of long-haul, whether it be Florida, Thailand or Mexico. Last year, I did a really big booking for about £80k for a villa holiday in the south of France. They had their own chef, business‑class seats and that sort of thing. On the wedding side of the things, I tend to do more European destinations with package holidays, but a few cruise weddings as well. It depends on the client and what they’re after. Some people want to go for two or three nights rather than a full week or two weeks, for example.
Q. What’s next for your business?
I’m hoping to launch an Instagram page called @Charlhopkin for the business when there are quieter periods. I think that’s the way that it’s going, with a lot of customers using only Instagram rather than Facebook. Although, even with posting on Facebook, I find that I’ve got a lot of customers now from Manchester, Leeds, Essex and London, even though I live in Wales. I’ve got repeat guests from all over the country, which is great. I need to speak to the social media team at Hays to get a bit more clued up on how to work on Instagram with boosting posts like I would on Facebook. I’m hoping to get a little office built in my garden this year too. At the moment, I’m working in a spare room which doubles as my daughters’ playroom. Having my own space, my own little sanctuary, would be amazing.
Q. What’s been your favourite trip?
I would normally jump at the chance of a fam trip, but I have had to turn down so many as my little one is only two. Over the years, my favourite two trips I’ve done have been to South America and Florida because they were places I would never have dreamed of going to. Seeing Iguazu Falls from both the Argentine side and the Brazilian side was a real highlight.
How important are wedding bookings to your business?
I do a lot of wedding bookings. In Barry, because we’re a small town, everyone talks and there’s always someone getting married or looking to get married, so there are quite a lot of word-of-mouth recommendations. I am currently working on two wedding bookings to Rhodes: one for about 40 and another one in the pipeline for about 30 people.
With the wedding that I’m booking now, I booked the groom’s mum and dad’s wedding 16 years ago. Normally, I get the couple to give me a list of names and numbers so I can go through all their guests and groups individually to take the stress away and sort out the various groups and different payment deadlines. One of the biggest weddings was a £120,000 Carnival Cruise Line booking for 90 guests. Carnival reserved about 50 cabins, which really helped as customers were ready to book at different times and the cost was still the same. Royal Caribbean reserves cabins too, but Carnival did it for a good few months, whereas normally it’s two weeks. In the last two years, I’ve done three cruise wedding bookings. My own wedding in Greece had 70 guests!