Co-owner Karl Douglas told TTG that, barring any complications, the shop would open on 7 June in the town of Market Weighton – 10 miles west of Beverley, where Douglas and co-owner Kelly Cheesman opened their first store in 2020.
The branch will be named Wicstun Travel in honour of the town’s old English name, in line with the agency’s decision not to use the Beverley name when it opened its second branch, in Hedon, in June 2024.
Douglas claimed the Market Weighton store would be the first travel agency to open in the town for 20 years, and said his vision was for the shop and its team to embed themselves in the local community. “We want to be known as the area’s local independent travel agency,” he explained.
The shop will initially be staffed by senior travel consultant Steph McInnes, who lives in Market Weighton, and Rubie Thompson, who has been with the company for a year. The pair will be supported by Douglas and Cheesman, with the possibility of bringing in additional staff in the coming months.
Douglas said he and Cheesman started thinking about opening a third shop soon after the Hedon launch. However, their conviction was strengthened by the measures outlined in last year’s Budget, which took effect last month and saw the costs of operating a business surge following changes to National Insurance and minimum wage.
At the time, Cheesman told TTG she and Douglas had chosen to remain positive and focus on growth “instead of screaming, shouting and stomping our feet”, something Douglas reiterated on Thursday (22 May).
"We see many gaps and opportunities in our target areas, so we want to get in there before anyone else,” he continued. “We believe the best way out of these [economic] troubles is to focus on growing and seizing every opportunity.”
Douglas said the agency started recruiting for the Market Weighton store in mid-April, but in the end decided to deploy McInnes and Thompson there due to ongoing staffing issues. "The bottleneck is finding good people, so we generally recruit from outside the industry and we train them,” he said.
According to Douglas, the two-time TTG Top 50 top agency in Yorkshire – and 2023 TTG Top 50 top agency UK and Ireland – will adopt the same approach when it comes to its plans for its proposed fourth and fifth stores.
"We’re open to people inside the industry, but not many people are moving, particularly in this area,” he added. “We will try to recruit from within the industry, but our main expectation is that we’ll be recruiting and training.”
