For Tivoli Travel director Jo Richards, being a member of the Travel Network Group Managed Services is a “no brainer”. From the commercial and financial support to the marketing services the organisation offers, being a member has freed up Richards’ time to focus on expanding her business.

Tivoli Travel’s portfolio now spans four branches across west Yorkshire, including in Mirfield, which Richards opened as her first store in 2017 having previously been a homeworker. Her second store closed during the Covid pandemic but was followed by a branch in Holmfirth in 2020, and another in Cleckheaton in May 2024. A fourth branch made its debut in Denby Dale in January, and alongside the 15-strong team working across the stores there are also four homeworkers.

Richards is currently looking to add a fifth branch in the Huddersfield area, having already identified suitable premises. She credits TTNG’s support with helping her expand the business, explaining: “I’m very driven, and I know TTNG is there in the background. I’m the one driving the business, but they’re coming in from the rear, so it’s a team effort. They’re my safety net, and if anything goes wrong, they’re definitely there. For me, being a member is a simple no brainer.”

Tivoli Travel has been a TTNG member since the consortium acquired Global Travel Group in 2020. Richards recalls: “The transition was amazing, and they were very, very supportive to us as members.” TTNG now offers agencies a choice of The Global Travel Group and Worldchoice Plus through its Travel Network Group Managed Services proposition, which is designed to help members streamline their operations. 

For Richards one of the key benefits to being a member is TTNG’s financial services, which includes full bank reconciliation for customer monies, payments to business partners and commission calculations. “It saves us a massive amount of time, and helps just me focus on the growth of the company,” she adds.

It also means Richards saves on salary costs, as she explains: “The fees we pay to TTNG more than cover the equivalent of me paying someone’s full-time salary to do the supplier payments ourselves.

"Having someone [in-house] would mean having an extra body in the office, which obviously also involves other HR issues. I’ve been in travel since 1986 so I’ve done all that, and I know how time consuming it can be. I’ve got four branches so it’s just so much easier [having TTNG look after our financial services], and they’re very reactive if we need to send money that same day.”

The commercial team are also on hand to help with any queries members have, as Richards explains: “We have support from the commercial team if we have any issues with operators or anything we want to chat about. And we feel like we can connect quickly with everybody there.” 

Marketing is another huge draw for Richards. TTNG supports Tivoli Travel with a range of marketing tools and campaigns, including the annual consumer-facing Where Next magazine. Each summer around 50,000 copies of the magazine are distributed through local supermarkets on behalf of members, and recalling last year’s edition Richards says: “They sorted it all for us – I just said where I wanted the brochures to go. I don’t have to worry about marketing because TTNG has got a great marketing team, although we do our own as well.”

Richards also praises the consortium’s training and communication, and her team join regular online training sessions. “We have a weekly email from head office with all the commercial information in, commissions, fam trip opportunities, what’s going on with operators and the codes that are out there. They are very much in tune with travel.”

In June, Richards shared some of her wisdom during a panel session at TTNG’s 2025 conference in Bucharest, where she joined five other business owners to outline what had and hadn’t worked for them in recent months.

“It was fantastic, a really, really amazing conference,” she adds. 

While Richards can draw on her decades of experience in travel, she highly recommends TTNG to fellow high street owners starting out in the industry, explaining: “I’ve been in the travel industry for nearly 40 years, so I can pretty much do everything with my eyes shut. But for newcomers coming into the business who need support with everything, TTNG can help them with much, much more.”