Bespoke travel firm enjoying rapid growth after big move

INDEPENDENT leisure business Travel Counsellors has completed a seamless transition from its former Bolton base to its £2m home at Trafford Quays.

The 21-year-old company has brought with it 98% the 250 staff which were employed at the old home on Churchgate, Bolton, with workers offered car loans and shuttled on buses to Peel’s 30,000sq ft Venus building near the Trafford Centre shopping complex.

The £111.547m turnover company which also made pre-tax profits of £7.3m in 2014 has 50 more staff across the globe and 1,450 travel counsellors, 950 of which are based in the UK, with the remainder in Ireland, Dubai, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and Australia.

“Profit last year grew by 40%,” said managing director Steve Byrne, who has been with the business for the last 11 years. “In 2015 it will have grown by 25%. The reduced figure is because last year we made an above the line investment in a TV advertising campaign.”

“We have worked hard to keep people within the business. The move to Trafford Quays has given us capacity to expand and develop flexible working patterns for our staff.”

Byrne said the company – a two-time winner of the Queen’s Award for industry – is enjoying rapid growth because it has had the best two months ever for the recruitment of travel counsellors – travel professionals who run their own home-based bespoke travel business.

“Our overseas are becoming more successful because they maturing,” said Byrne. “Our travel counsellors are also growing their individual businesses because of a more buoyant market.

He also said the practice of people working from home had also benefited the business.

However, a major factor in Travel Counsellors’ success has been the development of Phenix, its own system for searching for holidays for customers.

“Our biggest cost item is technology over and above staffing,” said Byrne. “We’re Putting £1m a year into technology development. Of the 250 staff we have here, a quarter of them are dedicated to IT.

“The reason why we exist is that we care for our travel counsellors, our customers and our people.”