"A big lesson for me has been to always put yourself out there – put in the effort, keep turning up to things – you never know what can happen."

So reflects founder and chief executive of disability-friendly travel specialist Limitless Travel Angus Drummond after a last-minute Zoom pitch landed an £800,000 investment from business magnate Nigel Wray, former owner of Premiership Rugby giants Saracens. 

Hard work and seeing where things lead could well serve as an unofficial playbook for Drummond’s journey with Limitless to date. 

After being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy aged 22, ex-investment banker Drummond quit his job and travelled the world, founding the operator in 2015 to help others in the disabled community “travel without limitations”.

“Now we can really scale up,” Drummond tells TTG. “It’s given us the foundation to put our pre-Covid business plan back on track.”

It’s an exciting time for the Birmingham-based company, which is set to move into larger offices at the end of the month and is aiming to achieve 10,000 passengers “in the next two or three years”.

Agent focus

Limitless’s growth plan includes targeting consumers in North America and expanding its cruise offering, as well as offering more ski holidays and complicated bucket-list itineraries. 

A major part of the plan is upgrading its technology; Limitless is poised to launch an online booking platform which Drummond believes to be the first of its kind, allowing customers to guarantee accessible rooms and the other essential needs.

Increasing automation, he says, will not only allow the operator’s team to offer a higher level of service, but also enable closer ties with agents.

“We do a very small amount – it’s the odd booking here and there,” says Drummond. “Taking team members off the phones means we can build those agent relationships. It’s an important growth area for us. We find agents want to be able to better cater to disabled travellers, but it can be difficult.”

“Agents want to better cater to disabled travellers – but it can be difficult” Drummond says Limitless plans to create a training programme to help agents sell to disabled travellers in the right way. Attitudes towards disabled travellers have improved, but work is still needed after setbacks during the pandemic.

Drummond highlights prevalent issues around a lack of accessible transfer providers and support from airports and airlines.

“Pre-Covid, there was great progress being made, then the pandemic came and disabled people were the first to suffer – and we’re seeing that now travel is resuming,” he says. “Travel is not as slick as it was and we need to overcome that.”

As Limitless grows, Drummond wants to spend more of his time campaigning on disability issues within the industry, such as for better accessibility in aviation. 

However, while looking to the future, Drummond is still able to reflect on how far the business has come, and the power of its inclusive mission.

“When our customers go away with us, they’re more active than they have been in years,” he says, passionately. “They come back and realise, ‘I’m not going to accept not being able to do the things I want to do’.”