ALL ABOUT YOU — READERS’ LIVES
THIS WEEK
Nigel Armitage co-owner
Millington Travel, Leicestershire One-company man rises from trainee to co-owner NIGEL’S TOP TIPS FOR
When Nigel Armitage was 16, he secured work experience at his local travel agency, then called Midaway Travel, in his home town of Lutterworth. Now, 32 years later, he is back in the same office, but this time he’s the owner, having last year bought the very shop in which he did that work experience, one of Millington Travel’s five branches. “Some customers still remember me writing out their airline tickets in the early 1980s,” recalls Nigel, who has worked at Millington for his entire career. Nigel started at Millington as a trainee consultant and worked up through the ranks. This included setting up a branch specialising in North America and Australia holidays, making it one of the early agencies to see the potential of specialising in destinations. One of Nigel’s many anecdotes is about the time he escorted 160 agency customers to New York to see in the new millennium. “I had 100 customers with me on a flight from Birmingham to Newark, but we ended up in Cleveland after New York closed because of a 14-foot dump of snow,” recalls Nigel, whose colleague was left in Washington with the other 60 holidaymakers. “It was bedlam. I had to get a message to customers at five hotels to fly to New York the next day!” When the Millington family decided to sell the business in 2006, Nigel seized the opportunity to buy the company with another former Millington trainee, Nick Bland. “Two years earlier I had been talking to Nick and we had been plotting about going
into business. Then it all came together,” he says. Nigel was so confident he could make the business more successful he put all his money into the venture. “I left myself with £1 in the bank; I put everything on the line,” admits Nigel, “but it was the right thing to do.” Consolidation followed, with the business closing two offices and moving all staff
into a larger head office in Market Street in Leicester, from where it could run a large shop and corporate travel business. Last year the agency chain added two branches –
Nigel’s CV
All roles at Millington Travel ●2006 to date: co-owner ●2000-06: leisure and corporate director ●1996-2000: leisure sales director
●1986-96: manager, North America and later Australia division
●1984-86: trainee consultant, Leicester
in Lutterworth and Syston, Leicester – and hopes to add another this year. While currently focused on
overhauling the company’s web presence, Nigel and his staff recently made it on to our TV screens in a dance rendition of an Electric Light Orchestra song for BBC1’s The One Show. “They Googled ‘travel
agent in the Midlands’ and we came top,” says Nigel, whose staff took part with other businesses in the ‘music montage’. “We were on for 12 seconds, it was very amusing.”
Would you like to be profiled on Readers’ Lives? Tell us why it should be you! Email:
juliet.dennis@
travelweekly.co.uk
32 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 26 June 2014
Nigel (le) with Millington Travel co-owner Nick Bland
OR
MANAGING AN AGENCY ✪ Pay attention to detail in everything.
✪ Manage your time. Don’t make excuses that you don’t have enough time.
✪ Plan and forecast. Whether it’s cashflow or budget issues, you have to get it right, and this means having a thorough business plan. Set your budgets well in advance.
✪ Specialise to stand out from the crowd.
✪ Motivate your staff. Use incentives and fam trips as well as pats on the back. We take staff abroad for the Christmas party – it’s a massive motivator as people are still talking about it a year later.
✪ Take every opportunity to travel.
READERS’ LIVES
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68