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'Retail is in our blood': 5 homeworkers reveal why now is the time to jump onto the high street

High street
Harry Kemble
26 September 2025

It took Hays Travel Personal Travel Consultant (PTC) Gareth Holloway just six weeks during the summer to decide the time was right to open his first bricks and mortar shop.

Homeworkers jumping onto the high street

(L-R) Aspire Travel's Thrapston branch; Travel Chaps co-owners Matt and Ashley Phillips; Holloways Travel's Ray Hudson-Evans and Gareth Holloway; Rod and Clare Stege, of CLS Travel; Halstead Travel's Arline Sloan

Selling holidays from his South Wales home, Holloway made £100,000 in sales during his first month as a PTC. However, he couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that he could make more on the high street.

Holloway has long been a prolific seller; in fact, it was the high levels of bookings he was achieving while managing Hays's Cwmbran branch that prompted him to think about becoming a PTC.

He will open his shop in Abertillery on Wednesday (1 October) with his partner Ray Hudson-Evans, who also works for Hays as a forex sales development manager. “I'll be doing the selling, Ray will do the admin," Holloway told TTG.