Nicki Bryan and Hemali Iverson worked together at Baldwins’ shop in Lewes, Sussex, as branch manager and senior sales consultant respectively before setting up their own businesses under the Holiday Village brand this summer.
Paula Nuttall told TTG the new recruits had “hit the ground running” and were already promoting themselves in the local media. “We’re also seeing a lot of big luxury bookings from these two,” she explained. “We’re talking £30,000, £40,000, £50,000 tailor-made cruise bookings.
“The type of bookings we’ve seen from Hemali and Nicki are quite complex. They’re not the kind of bookings you see from someone with a couple of years’ experience. We’re also seeing some lower margin bookings, but they still offer great service and represent great repeat business.”
Bryan said: "A couple were cruise but mostly they were just luxury tailor-made tours to Australia, the Far East and Canada."
She also confirmed she and Iverson looked at several homeworking outfits before contacting Paula Nuttall. “We did look at quite a few companies, but I have a friend Heather Tarrant who I had met on a fam trip years ago who is with Holiday Village. Heather told me how great it is and how much support the business owners get. The appeal for Hemali and me was the support.”
Iverson added: “The support is incredible. I don’t miss working in a shop."
Bryan said she had been thinking about setting up her own homeworking agency business for some time but ultimately felt she could not leave her three colleagues at the Baldwins shop.
“We had such strong team at the Lewes branch," she said. "Our team was brilliant so I didn’t want to leave it. We had a really good relationship with our customers and we were the only agency in the town. A lot of our customers were asking when Baldwins was closing down and where we were going to go.”
Phil Nuttall, chief executive of Holiday Village parent Travel Village Group, hailed ex-high street travel agents who set up their own businesses “aspirational”. “They aspire to be business owners, but they’re going to need help so we support at the start of their journey,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Paula Nuttall revealed Bryan and Iverson were the Holiday Village’s 80th and 81st business owners, but stressed: “We don’t have any desire to get to 100. There’s no recruitment strategy in place. We just want to find the right people.
"We’re seeing a trend of people coming from the high street. It’s very exciting when somebody has that retail experience. But it’s a big leap to go from a guaranteed salary and leaving the house to go to work to all of a sudden working on your own at home. Our agents can access a good community."
