The agency believes the cost of recent changes to National Insurance, minimum wage and other aspects of running a business are the equivalent to employing one full-time staff member who doesn’t sell.

Currently, the agency has stores in Beverley and Hedon, with a third in the works in an unnamed east Yorkshire location. Beverley Travel’s bosses are currently finalising the contract to take over the high street premises, with a view to opening it in early June.

Shortly before Christmas, the business opened “a marketing outlet” at Cottingham Parks Golf and Leisure Club, a short drive from the agency’s flagship branch in Beverley.

Director and co-owner Karl Douglas said the Cottingham site had “great” footfall, with staff there promoting holidays to members with the aim of converting them into regulars at Beverley’s other branches.

Douglas told TTG these efforts to expand Beverley’s retail portfolio were proactive and came in defiance of the soaring new costs of doing business brought about by last year’s Budget.

“For four years, we had just one shop,” he said. “We’ve always felt we just needed to get on with our expansion plans. It’s definitely the right time to expand.

“We’re living in uncertain times with the massive cost increases we’re seeing. The costs are the equivalent of an extra member of staff who does not make any bookings – it’s a big chunk.

"We’ve decided we need to get to five shops quickly. We can run the business properly if we get to that number.”

Douglas stressed Beverley Travel had identified "lots of gaps" on high streets in areas 30 to 40 minutes’ drive from the agency’s Beverley branch.

“We don’t want to spend our lives on the motorway,” stressed Douglas. “We feel five shops will put us in a good place financially to carry the overheads and pay for marketing. We’re looking at a mixture of locations – mostly high street.

“Our plan is to sell our way out of trouble.”

Dougles revealed he and co-director Kelly Cheesman were recruiting for two new staff for the new east Yorkshire shop, as well as another member of staff to work in one of the agency’s three existing sites – Beverley, Hedon and Cottingham. 

“Cottingham has been an interesting experience – it’s been more difficult [to operate],” said Douglas. “When people are on the high street, they’re in shopping mode, but when they’re coming to Cottingham, they’re going to the gym or for a swim. We’ve learnt a lot.”

When asked how successful Cottingham has been at driving bookings to the Beverley and Hedon branches, Douglas said: “It’s quite hard because we know when customers start their booking journey at Beverley or Hedon, but we don’t always know if they started at Cottingham and then confirmed the booking elsewhere.

"We just use Cottingham as a marketing outlet. We have a decision to make – should we continue to just use it as a marketing outlet or should we use it to sell holidays? We would have to get an Abta membership sorted for that individual store."

Douglas insisted the high street remained Beverley’s “prime location” for new outlets, adding the agency was also recruiting for apprentices.

“There’s also an advert out looking for apprentices to start in September,” he said. “Students are starting to finish their courses right now so they will be applying for roles. The plan is to get to five branches and as we do that we will train up the apprentices who join the business.”

In addition to Douglas and Cheesman, Beverley Travel, which retained its place in Top 50 Travel Agency by TTG last year, currently employs 11 members of staff.