FRONTLINE
Q. What other roles have you had? I worked for Going Places’ business travel section called BTM. We were working in a gentlemen’s club in the Blythswood area of Glasgow, so it was posh. I felt like the country bumpkin suddenly turning up in the big city and I learned a lot. The next job was bittersweet. I worked with a girl called Lynsey and she got headhunted to work at Galileo, which is called Travelport now. She put my name forward and I got offered a job as well. We were so excited – we were 21 and going to move down to London and earn decent money for the first time ever. Sadly, she was in a fatal car crash one Friday night before we left, so I had to go into the office on Monday and clear out her desk and phone her clients to tell them. I had to leave a few weeks later to start the training course for the new job, which I should have been starting with her. She was such a lovely girl and so good at her job. It was a real career-making job for me and I became an account manager in Scotland, before going full circle back to Going Places as an assistant manager three days a week. It suited me better as I’d got married and had a family by then.
JOANNA BLACK The Creative Travel Company
founder speaks to Ella Sagar about her career in travel and the value clients place in experienced agents
Q. How did you get into the travel industry? I left school at 16 and wanted to do beauty therapy, like every girl where I grew up in Largs on the west coast of Scotland. I wanted to start in January, but they didn’t have a course. The only other one that appealed was travel and tourism. I’d only ever been abroad once to Fuerteventura, a few months before, but I’m still in travel today so it must have been a sign that this was always the path I was destined to take.
Q. What was your first job in the sector? My college told us to attend any interviews in the industry and I remember turning up at Prestwick airport to do an interview with my cousin and my sister to be cabin crew for Ryanair. We all got offers to work in Dublin for the summer and it was great, but the shift work was very tiring. My first job in an agency was at Going Places. My cousin worked there and called me one day to tell me they were hiring. I walked in and the manager really liked that we were cousins because of the teamwork aspect, so gave me the job straight away. Sometimes it’s true that it’s not what you know but who you know!
22 3 APRIL 2025
Q. What made you set up your own business? Going Places was bought by Thomas Cook and three of us decided to leave and set up our own business, Linlithgow Travel. During Covid, two of us decided to leave to set up the Creative Travel Company. The primary reason was that I was looking after my dad who had cancer and my mum who has dementia. I couldn’t keep going to the shop in another town, so I thought I could cope with a travel business in the town where I’m living. Sadly my dad passed away a few days before we opened the new shop, but I know he loved what we were doing.
Q. How is the business now? In many ways we’ve been more successful with this business. I do a lot of tailor-made itineraries and have quite a few high-end clients who have a yearly budget dedicated to holidays. Hypothetically, they say to me, ‘I have £50,000 and I want three holidays – here are my dates’ and I come up with some suggestions. It gets harder every time to top the last one but I enjoy the challenge.
Q. What have been your favourite destinations you’ve visited? I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some wonderful places but Palaiokastritsa in Corfu is a real jewel. It’s a beautiful and authentic island and does what Greece does best. Everything about it is perfect: the weather, the food, the scenery and so on. Last year, I hosted a group of 20 clients to the Arctic with Transun, which was amazing. As I’ve been a carer for my parents, I have only been on one fam trip, which was to Abu Dhabi, but I’m excited to be going to Bali with JTA Holidays for my second trip. I’ve heard good things about it.
travelweekly.co.uk
WHAT SETS YOUR BUSINESS APART?
We all sell the exact same
product for practically the same price, so the only thing that sets us aside is us as individuals, so that's what people need to know. They need to know us.
We are a team of three: myself, my niece Olivia and Rebecca – the colleague I left Going Places with. I couldn’t ask to work with better people and it’s a constant laugh. We all
work hard and pull our weight in different ways. I like that we all have different strengths.
We’ve made a conscious effort over the last 18 months to put our faces on Facebook and Instagram, sometimes acting stupid, so that people feel they know us. I did a video of my
25 years in travel and, within a few days, two new customers walked in together and sat down to book a holiday as a result. We had a laugh, but it shows it works and people realise the value of proper experience. It also really
helps when meeting suppliers so clients can see you are taking your job seriously but having fun doing it. Ultimately, it doesn’t feel like a job because it’s such a pleasure.
Rebecca Harmer, Joanna and niece Olivia Cairns
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