Halstead Travel owner Arline Sloan headed to Coggeshall, which is about five miles from her home in Earls Colne, to find out how receptive people would be to a travel agency, believing she had spotted a gap in the market.

Sloan cut her interviews with residents together to create a five-minute video outlining why she should open up in the "affluent" Essex village, which she then used to successfully pitch for £8,000 from Jet2holidays’ Scale Up Your Street campaign.

Filming residents in Coggeshall "sealed the deal", Sloan told TTG, and convinced her it was the right location for her first shop. “I’ve already got clients in Coggeshall too," she said. Sloan will pay £650 a month rent, but won’t have to pay any business rates for the premises.

Sloan launched Halstead Travel from her home in 2017 but started thinking about opening up a shop of her own while she was working at a Tui store in Suffolk. “I worked for Tui for many years and was the assistant manager at the Sudbury branch for a year,” explained Sloan.

"That’s when I really understood how to run a travel agency shop. I absolutely loved my time there, and that was when I started thinking about opening a shop.” 

Sloan said she did "loads of research" about opening a high street business during her years homeworking, and during a year-long stint with ROL Cruise following her spell with Tui. She decided to take the plunge after hearing about the Jet2 initiative, which the airline and operator teased at its annual conference last year and launched in March.

She pitched to an experienced panel featuring Don Bircham, who grew his Hays Travel North West franchise to nearly 50 stores before selling up in 2023, and Nicola Evans, whose agency Seaside Travel now has a dozen shops, her pitch revolving around her video interviews with Coggeshall residents.

Halstead Travel will open its doors in Coggeshall, a village of nearly 7,000 residents, on 13 September in a "small" listed building.

Sloan revealed she ruled out opening in nearby Halstead itself, despite her business carrying the Halstead name, as well as Braintree because both towns already have several travel agencies. “I wanted to open somewhere small and quiet but had a strong community feel,” Sloan said.

She hopes to capture the attention of passers-by  with eye-catching window displays, making use of the £8,000 she secured from Jet2. However, she noted: “It’s a listed building, which will restrict me a bit – particularly with the light boxes in the windows.” 

To promote the opening, Sloan plans to run a raffle – and will hide as many as 10 “golden tickets” around the village with the details of various prizes.

Sloan is still working through the details and is approaching suppliers, including Jet2holidays, for support. However, she hopes to give away prizes including an all-expenses-paid spa day and tickets to a local comedy night, as well as money off holidays.

Sloan, who is a member of The Travel Network Group’s homeworking outfit Independent Travel Experts (ITE), will remain with the consortium when she opens her shop and will use the brand’s Abta number.

"A lot of people, when they open their first shop, they get their own Abta number, but I’m not going to do that,” she said. “I’m going to stay with ITE because they’ve been so supportive about my decision.”

Sloan said she will recruit for a part-time role, which she hopes she will be able to make full-time in January once she’s had time to assess the shop’s performance and its needs.

However, she did confirm her 13-year-old daughter will work in the shop on Saturdays. When asked about opening hours, she said: “With my homeworking business, I’ve generally found there are lots of enquiries Monday to Friday – virtually, of course – but my days are long. I start at 6am and finish at 11.30pm some days.

"But I don’t really get any enquiries on Saturdays or Sundays. So when I open the shop in September, it will be more beneficial to open at 8am and finish at 5pm or 6pm. We will be open from 8am to midday or 1pm on Saturdays and we will be closed on Sundays – Coggeshall is like a ghost town on Sundays."

Throughout her 28-year travel career, Sloan has combined selling holidays with work as a TV and film extra. She has a regular stint on EastEnders. But she will stop working as an extra temporarily to ensure the shop opening is as successful as possible.

"The reason why I started my own travel agency business is because my mother passed away suddenly aged 55,” she explained. “It was then I realised I wanted to spend more time with my family.”

Asked if Coggeshall will be Halstead Travel’s only branch, Sloan replied: “The plan is to open more shops – 100%."