NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW 4


Newell’s Travel launches cruise division and site


Lucy Huxley lucy.huxley@travelweekly.co.uk


Newell’s Travel is to launch a cruise website and appoint cruise ambassadors in all 11 branches.


Oceanandrivercruising.co.uk is poised to go live, while a cruise development manager with more than 40 years’ cruise experience is due to start on December 1. The ambassadors will be a mix of agents who have travelled on cruises and younger members of the team who are keen to be involved in the new initiative.


Roger Hawke, owner and managing director of the West Country agency chain, said: “We run a holiday show in Cornwall every spring, but also held shows dedicated to cruise last autumn and this autumn. They were both phenomenally successful; that’s what has kick-started this. “The Travel Network Group has helped us with the website, videos and adverts, and we have received training from the group’s cruise concierge reservation manager. “I moved from Global three years ago and it’s the best move I’ve ever made. When The Travel Network


Newell’s Travel’s Roger and Helen Hawke are honoured by The Travel Network Group


5 STORIES HOT


Group says everything it does is to benefit members, they mean it. They will come all the way to Cornwall for training or just a visit.” The cruise development manager and his ambassadors will attend The Travel Network Group’s cruise conference in Birmingham and Clia conference in Southampton. Hawke said the business would


sell fly-cruises and ex-UK cruises, and dynamically package using low-cost airlines to link up with river and ocean itineraries.


Hawke is also looking to


overhaul his group travel business. Operating from an office in Bristol, it sells predominantly low-cost two-night breaks to London. “We have a database of about


3,000 social clubs and social secretaries, and their members want new experiences farther afield,” he said. “We need to start working with new suppliers and develop longer, more high-end


tours for these clients.” › Conference report, page 14


5 Lincolnshire Co-op to open 14th shop


Lucy Huxley lucy.huxley@travelweekly.co.uk


Lincolnshire Co-operative Travel is to open its 14th branch next month, in Retford, Nottinghamshire.


It will be followed by two more


shops in 2018 and two in 2019. Travel and Post Office Group manager Wayne Dennett said he expected the new store to open on December 18 in time for Christmas and the January peak-selling period.


The store will be his second


in Nottinghamshire, with all the others in Lincolnshire. Dennett said he was looking at locations where there were Thomas Cook and Tui shops but no strong independent alternative. He has promoted two staff to be manager and assistant manager of the Retford branch and is recruiting for two new employees. Dennett, who picked up the


award for Worldchoice agency of the year at The Travel Network Group conference this week, revealed he was also moving his


6 travelweekly.co.uk 23 November 2017


“We have a model that works. We have a great team with a great ethos”


flagship store into new premises on Tritton Road, Lincoln, in March 2018. The new branch will be 3,000sq ft, located next door to Marks & Spencer, and kitted out in Lincolnshire Co-op’s new concept store design with three zones – sales, bureau de change and


seating, which will be applied to all new stores.


Dennett said: “We have a model


that works. We have a great team with a great ethos. We give a good independent service, selling the customer what they want, so they come back and book with us again. “Everyone who spends in our shop, or the rest of the Lincolnshire Co-operative, generates money for local charities. We have 285,000 members and most of them are active with the co-operative. It’s great for the local community.”


PICTURE: SIMON HARVEY PHOTOGRAPHY

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