Hours later, as she travelled back across the Yorkshire Dales the next day with her team clutching another gong, Cheesman signed the contract to lease the award-winning agency’s second branch.
The new shop in the east Yorkshire town of Hedon will open on 1 June and is around half-an-hour’s drive from Beverley Travel’s existing shop in Beverley. “We literally signed the contract on the way back from the awards in Manchester,” Cheesman tells TTG.
“We only recently started talking about finding a second store. The unit was not advertised, but it had just been refurbished, and the landlord had put a sign up in the window.”
When asked what her and her fellow co-owner Karl Douglas were searching for, Cheesman explains: “We were looking for a high street shop as we’re all about shopping local, but we did not want to step on anyone’s toes.
"Hedon has not had a travel agency since Hays Travel left last year.”
Cheesman believes travel agencies, particularly newer businesses like Beverley, can fill in gaps in towns and villages where units have been vacated, some left empty by the demise of agencies going back decades.
"We should all be standing together on the high street as the internet is what we need to be fighting against,” Cheesman insists. “We were looking for communities that did not have any travel agent provision.”
While there has been “a lot of interest” from people wanting to join Beverley Travel’s ranks, Cheeseman reveals the business will – for now – stick with its current 12-person team and spread resources across the two shops to give Hedon time to find the right staff.
"We know we need to train staff in-house as recruitment is an issue everywhere right now,” Cheesman admits. "There are 12 of us in the team at the moment. In the new shop, we will move three [people] across as we’ve only got three desks.
‘Not giving anything away for now’
Like Hedon, the agency’s branch in Beverley’s Flemingate Centre is the only travel agency in the town. The main difference between the branches is their size, Cheesman notes.
“The two shops have a very similar [customer] demographic. They’re the kind of customers who want to deal with a human and value our service.”
Cheesman is understandably reluctant to outline if or when Beverley Travel will open a third branch. “I’m not giving anything away for now," she adds
As fate would have it, it’s not the first time Cheesman and Douglas have launched a new business venture while on the road. They set up their Your Travel Partners franchise operation while travelling back from the 2023 TTG Top 50 Travel Agencies ceremony in Birmingham
Beverley Travel currently supports 12 Your Travel Partners franchisees.
Pressed on whether Your Travel Partners could grow to be one of the country’s major players, Cheesman says: “We want to mentor people as they take their next steps in travel. We’ve not got any plans to be the biggest.
"We will work with people who we believe we can work with. We’ve got a really slick training process across the business.”
Cheesman believes that although high street has got “problems”, there is hope for businesses who follow a set of simple rules. “It’s getting harder to get everything from the high street,” she says.
“For the new Hedon shop, we’re not going to go to Ikea. We will use local people to fit out the shop. We need to stand by our morals. We believe if you work hard and smart and you do embrace the local community – you will do well.”
This recipe is clearly working for Cheesman and Douglas after their business was named TTG Top 50 Travel Agencies Top Agency UK and Ireland last year. Beverley Travel then retained its place in the Top 50 this year after it was crowned Top Agency in Yorkshire for the second year in succession.
