Spain-based agents seal £72k Pure Luxury sale
Samantha Mayling
A Lanzarote-based couple working for Your Holiday Booking have secured a £72,000 sale with Gold Medal’s Pure Luxury brand. Expats Julie and Mike Cliffe-Jones
run their Camel Travel agency from a restored camel shed in Haría. They moved to the Canary Islands
in 2001, later establishing a website called Lanzarote Information. In 2014, they joined Your Holiday
Booking – one of Vertical Travel Group’s homeworking divisions – after meeting the agency at World Travel Market. “We focused, inevitably, on Canary
Islands bookings. Our client base is almost entirely in the UK,” said Julie. “Then Covid happened. We
reduced our reliance on the Canaries and sought higher-spending clients. The last year has been our best ever.” The £72,000 booking was
for a week at the Shangri-La Hambantota in Sri Lanka, plus a week at the Lux South Ari Atoll in the Maldives for Easter 2024. The customers are a party of six
who previously booked a £41,000 trip to the Hard Rock Hotel Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. “They live in the UK and own properties in Lanzarote,” said Julie.
“They contacted us because they
were aware of the work we do to support and promote Lanzarote.” The couple clinched the booking
with the help of Stacy Caunce, their Pure Luxury contact, who handled the reservations while Mike and Julie were boarding a flight after a conference. Julie added: “Now long-haul travel
is back and clients have confidence to go farther afield, we’ll use [Gold Medal] much more. “We’ve run our businesses for
nearly 20 years and love the freedom. “We have periods of hard work
and long hours, but the payoff is time to explore the world.”
Hugo Burge, online travel pioneer and ex-Momondo chief, dies at 51
Online travel sector pioneer Hugo Burge died suddenly on May 10, aged 51. The former chief executive of Cheapflights parent Momondo Group left the group after 17 years in 2017 following its $550 million buyout by
Booking.com parent Priceline. Burge also invested in the early development of hotel site Trivago in 2008.
8 18 MAY 2023
Mike and Julie Cliffe-Jones
Mike added: “I dislike the term
‘homeworker’. We’re part of a large group of professional, independent agencies under the umbrella of the excellent Vertical Travel Group marketing, admin and support teams.” The couple made another
lucrative booking worth about £27,000 for Ikos Odisia in Corfu within a few days of their “big one”, and hope to maintain the momentum throughout 2023. The Vertical Travel Group has
other agencies overseas within its homeworking division, including four in Spain, one in Crete, one in Jersey and one in Cyprus.
Blue Bay Travel expands
sales team by six staff to 24 Blue Bay Travel has expanded its sales team to 24 with the addition of six recruits. As well as appointing two newcomers to the company, Blue Bay has seconded four staff members from other departments as part of a scheme which gives employees the chance to try their hand at being a travel advisor for six months.
Not Just Travel appoints Jones as non-exec director
Not Just Travel has appointed former Kuoni managing director Derek Jones to its leadership team as it targets major growth. Jones, former chief executive of
Der Touristik UK and managing director of Kuoni, has joined as non-executive director. His recruitment follows the
appointment of ex-Dawson & Sanderson managing director Chris Harrison in March. Jones, who left Der Touristik
in August last year, described Not Just Travel as a “great business”. “I’m here to support Not Just
Travel and find the right strategy to move it forward,” he said. “They have ambitious plans. I’ll be as hands-on as they need me to be.” Outlining a target to double the
number of franchises – currently more than 1,000 – Not Just Travel co-founder Steve Witt said: “We expect to double in size in the next 12 months and recruit more than 1,000 travel entrepreneurs, as well as helping them to increase bookings. The average number of bookings per consultant per month has increased by more than 50%.” The company would continue
to expand its leadership team with a “diverse range of people and skills” after “phenomenal” sales growth in recent years, he said, adding: “For the next part of the journey, it’s key we have people to continue this growth.”
Travel Counsellors sets sights on achieving £1bn in annual sales
Travel Counsellors reported record-breaking financial results for the 12 months to October 2022. The homeworking firm said the total transaction value (TTV) of its business and leisure travel sales rose by 312% year on year to £719 million. Chief executive Steve Byrne said the company was “accelerating rapidly” towards £1 billion in annual TTV.
travelweekly.co.uk
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