Church Village Travel on keeping busy during lockdown
One Church Village Travel team member hasn’t let the coronavirus crisis slow him down, having completed a walk the length of a half marathon for charity, refocused his attention on recruiting homeworkers and built a new brand designed to help boost tourism in Wales
For David and Jennifer Perry, the evening of 17 May was spent in their Bridgend home nursing blisters, soothing muscles with a hot bath and indulging in a tipple or two to ease the aches and pains. The pair – both in their 60s – had just completed a 15-mile walk along the Glamorgan Heritage Coast in five and a half hours in memory of David’s eldest son James’ wife Ceri, who lost her long battle with bone cancer a year earlier in May 2019.
In doing so the Church Village Travel agency proprietor and his wife raised more than £500 for Macmillan Cancer Support, a charitable boost much needed in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, which has seen the suspension of countless fundraising events. One such event was a Walk4Life David had planned for 11 July, now postponed until next year.
“We were raising money for Ceri and we wanted to [do the Walk4Life] in memory of her untimely passing away, so we thought ‘we will carry on with this walk’,” David explains.
“Family, friends and clients who have had bereavements made donations and they have all been very supportive,” he adds.
David and Jennifer won’t be stopping there, with plans to complete all 186 miles of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path this summer in aid of Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff and Marie Curie Hospice in Penarth.
Keeping busy
Raising funds for charities close to his heart is just one of the ways in which David has put the recent quieter months in his Pontypridd-based travel agency to good use. He has also been concentrating on building Church Village Travel’s homeworking division, Travel Bug, which is headed up by former Thomas Cook employee Wendy Ismail and is currently made up of seven homeworkers.
“We are planning to recruit [more] homeworkers because the industry will move in that direction,” he says. “We will always maintain a high street presence, but move towards homeworking more.”
David is also dedicating time to promoting a brand-new Church Village Travel venture, Golf Inspirations Wales. This branch of the agency packages golf breaks in Wales for inbound tourists and came about from a conversation with a client who frequently travels to the US for business and loves golf. This client is now promoting Golf Inspirations Wales across clubs in the US in return for commission.
“We’re targeting wealthy Americans because they tend to spend a lot and holiday little, which will help support the Welsh travel industry in terms of local transport, guest houses, hotels and restaurants,” David explains. “We’re trying to get people into Britain so it can prosper again.”
Golf Inspirations Wales currently has 20 US clients lined up to book breaks in 2021.
Prepped and feeling positive
The Welsh government has yet to announce when non-essential shops can reopen, but Church Village Travel is prepped and ready to go when the good news comes, with screens, warning messages, floor tape and hand-sanitizing gels in place. David is also feeling positive about the future of travel.
“The public are now saying they can’t wait to go on holiday and we’re getting busier by the week with quite a few enquiries – it’s quite buoyant,” says David, adding that he’s “very optimistic next year will be a bumper year”.
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