July/August 2024
www.nitravelnews.com
It’s a market we absolutely love: NI Travel News Catch up with Barrhead Travel Ahead of their Northern Ireland Expansion
BARRHEAD Travel has confirmed that its next phase of expansion will focus on Northern Ireland where it plans to open a new location before the end of 2024. The travel group revealed at its 2023 Annual Conference in Palma that retail expansion would continue during 2024 in addition to its commitments to existing store refurbishments, investment in new websites, and the launch of further specialist departments including its US
division.NI Travel News spoke with Nicki Tempest-Mitchell (Sales and Marketing Director at Barrhead Travel Group) and Caroline Donaldson (product and commercial director at Barrhead Travel group) in relation to this exciting addition to Northern Ireland.“We are looking at opening just one store in NI in 2024 so we’ve got a few areas in mind at the moment but we are really keeping our minds open to where the local market thinks it should be.” Described Nicki
when asked about potential locations.“I think our intention is to recruit the team first and then, from the team, discuss where they believe is best to open our next store so it’s quite an exciting way of doing it.” She continued, “They obviously know the market better than anybody so that’s what our plans are.”This store will become the second Barrhead Travel branded store in Northern Ireland following the opening of its Belfast branch in 2017. The group has also met recent growing demand in the region by launching a homeworking division in 2022 with a team of agents working remotely across the country.With no set date for the store opening just yet, Nicki described how Barrhead is “looking initially at bringing the staff onboard earlier so we can get them properly trained up the Barrhead way and then we will be looking at the start date with location on the agenda”When asked ‘why
Northern Ireland?’ Nicki highlighted how,“We started in NI in 2017 so we are not new to the market but it’s a market we absolutely love for many reasons. The product range that we have on offer,. We know that this market responds well to it. When we opened the store back in 2017,we had covid in the middle of it and beyond that, growth in the market has been immense and we generally find that the customers here see and appreciate what a travel agent can offer so that is really exciting as well. And we also set up a home working team back in 2022 so we allow people to be able to work from our branches or be part of our home working team so we just want to build on that success. Build on the opportunity to promote this
market.The NI market has blossomed since coronavirus hit the industry back
in 2019 and it has been noted across the industry the change in customer habits and wants. This has been no different for Barrhead Travel.“Lates are popular this year for everyone and we have seen that throughout our business as well.” Explained
Caroline.She continued, “Solo travel and cruise in particular is really good this year with lots on the market. We launched Touring and Adventure back in 2022 and we have seen that grow and some inspiration product grow too so a lot of bucket list stuff. Although a lot of it is travelling late, it’s still inspirational, high ticket travel. Then there’s the usual traditional family holidays as well, so broad goalposts in travel in terms of product for this year.”
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