The agency, which secured a place in this year’s TTG Top 50 Travel Agencies, opened the doors to the new branch on Monday (3 July). "It’s a nice feeling to open the new store, especially as it’s in our home town," managing director and co-founder Scott Murray told TTG.

"We’re glad to be able to give local customers a more convenient location to shop with us. A lot of our clients have been travelling from Nairn to our other branches in Forres and Elgin, so we are hoping they will benefit from this additional location."

The shop, which will be managed by co-founder Sarah Murray, has hired four additional agents, one of which a transfer from the Forres branch. "As a result of them coming over to Nairn, we’re now looking to hire more agents at the Forres site," Murray added.

The agency will also look to hire additional administrative and backroom staff in its Forres and Inverness locations to further support frontline agents working across the brand’s portfolio of high street stores.

The new Nairn shop, which will focus on luxury trips, comes as part of the firm’s continuing expansion following the agency’s rebrand from Inverness Travel to Murray Travel in 2021. It then went on to open two new branches in Elgin and Forres in 2022 as part of an ambitious three-year growth plan.

This growth looks set to continue, though, with Murray keen to continue increasing the firm’s network of high street locations in the coming years. "We want to expand the network, but right now we are looking for the right opportunities," he explained.

"That could be by taking over an agency where the owners might be selling up, or retiring or closing post-Covid, providing they are in an area that makes sense for us, we would consider it."

Murray is also on the lookout for sites where the agency can open from scratch. "It will probably be a mixture – perhaps one store we take over, and one we build from the ground up," he concluded.