TRAVEL AGENT PROFILE: YOUR TRAVEL’S SUCCESS STORY

Travel Daily finds out how offering a bespoke service has paid dividends for Your Travel, part of The Global Travel Group

Name: John Stephenson

Title: Director

Agency: Your Travel (www.yourtravelgroup.co.uk), member of The Global Travel Group

Location: Maidstone Town Centre, Kent

Industry experience: Eight years

What you do: A business travel, first class and luxury specialist making tailor made trips for our clients.

Our success story

2017 marks our third year of operation and in terms of our unique selling points, we try to think about the little things that make the big differences for our clients. We differentiate ourselves by providing added extras, for example making sure that the hotel GM knows when a client is arriving. It makes all the difference to your trip when you feel treated like a VIP.

When you book with us you get these extra perks that don’t cost anything but make the biggest difference, service is everything. So many agencies have thousands of people behind a desk trying to hit monthly targets but we are a small agency and focus on customer service not how much a booking is worth. It’s better to build great relationships with clients and make their whole travel experience as great as it can be, right from the booking.

We have great relationships with all of the hotel chains we work with. Myself and my business partner Sam are always out at industry events with our customers in mind. We are often the only people at director level at these events but it’s important that we go as well as the sales team. My business card book is falling to bits. But it’s good that we make these contacts and then have someone to call to make sure our clients get the best experience possible. Me and Sam make these calls personally, we take care of it all and the truth is with most companies and things in life, you won’t get extras unless you ask for them. But we think about that for our clients so they don’t have to ask.

We have great staff working for us, we are a team of seven at the moment and have provided them all with extensive travel knowledge through airline and hotel training as well as social media training. We don’t only use the traditional social platforms, but also LinkedIn for our corporate arm.

Why Global?

We chose The Global Travel Group as they gave us so much support from the very beginning. When we were starting up three years ago, some consortiums didn’t take us seriously and just wanted the start-up fee but The Global Travel Group gave us so much support. Andy Stark and Cherie Richards took us under their wing and have helped us through the ups and downs that we have faced as a business. The team at Global make things happen so quickly and they believe in us which has helped to push us forward. We have great relationship with a tech company called Clicky Media. They built our new website that represents the biggest investment we have made to date. We have had so much new marketing material created with the help of the in house team at The Global Travel Group and are constantly utilising the tools available to all members.

I would recommend Global for anyone thinking of starting up. They will give you the dedication and time you need to be confident in your decision and they have a great network of staff that has helped us with training, events and great deals with hotels. They have supported and encouraged our development as well as showing us how to be successful business owners. The team at Global are always out and about in the industry, pop up in the press and organise a fantastic annual conference for all members. The networking and exposure we get at the event is invaluable.

What’s next?

We are now in our third year and during our second year, we achieved 1.7 million. This year we are going for three million. Our long term plan is to carry on expanding over the next few years. We would like to continue develop our team further and get some new staff working with us, helping to give our clients the best holidays possible.