Operations and product director Garry Butcher told TTG the Glasgow-based consortium was taking a more “measured and structured” approach to recruitment, with a focus on working with "the right people".

Butcher said Merlin was looking for new members with a minimum two years’ experience with the confidence to create their own packages and help Merlin expand its luxury long-haul and cruise operations. “We’re not playing a huge numbers game,” said Butcher. “We want to have the right people to work with.”

Merlin was founded in 2019 by Butcher and business partner Alistair Stewart, alongside the owners of homeworking agency Blixen Travel, and grew to 11 members,

However, two years and a pandemic later, its membership had almost tripled in size to 28. Butcher said the secret behind Merlin’s initial success was offering people who had been made redundant due to Covid a way to stay in travel, or a route back into the sector.

“There was a lot of talent and expertise [lost]," said Butcher. "[So] there were opportunities there for us to provide the tools people needed to continue to trade and to focus on the horizon where things would come back to some sort of normality. So that’s what we did, we grew our membership numbers from there.”

Over the past two years, Merlin’s numbers have gone up significantly. In 2022, the consortium acquired 16 new members, necessitating a move in February to new headquarters and recruitment of two more people to help administrate rising business volumes.

Butcher said agents were attracted to Merlin’s competitive proposition; in addition to being a member of Protected Trust Services and holding an Atol, Merlin does not have any non-compete or tie-in clauses, meaning its members can leave whenever they want without having their commission cut.

“It’s a more progressive approach,” Butcher added. “We want people to want to be with Merlin Travel Group and stay with us because it’s working for them rather than them thinking they have no option.”