Morgan Hartley, owner and managing director of Goodlife Florida Villas and a former TTG 30 Under 30, has opened his own travel agency in Market Harborough.
The new business, Goodlife Travel, is a joint venture with his life partner, Ella Wright, with whom he has an eight-month-old daughter, Ophelia.
In setting this up, he revives a family business, the online agency Goodlife Travel, which closed in 2016. This new iteration, however, is a completely new limited company, with the backing of Hays Independence Group.
In an exclusive interview with TTG, the pair explained that they were inspired to act after the premises became available, which felt like a rare opportunity in the affluent market town.
“There are not many empty shops that pop up in Market Harborough so we thought, let’s just go for it,” said Morgan. “We’re in a listed building here. It’s a beautiful little shop with a lovely fireplace and other character features.”
It was formerly a clothing boutique, and in a neat twist of fate, somewhere Ella had worked while she was at college: “It felt like a real 360 moment when the shop became available, because obviously it has a special place in my heart,” she said.
They confessed it was harder than they thought to secure the shop, because they had to convince the landlord, who knew nothing about travel, of the viability of a high street agency.
Market Harborough’s high street has a rich mix of independents and popular brands such as The White Company and Jo Malone. In terms of competition, there’s a Millington Travel already on the high street, and a Your Co-op Travel set back from it. There's even fortuitously a jewellery store next door, which puts Goodlife Travel front of mind for newly engaged couples thinking about honeymoons.
“It’s a nice mix on the high street,” said Morgan. “We feel it’s the perfect place for a shop.”
Match made in travel
Ella’s background is travel. She worked at Walt Disney World in Florida for two years, then in Greece for Tui, and she also did a Lapland season. “All the magical destinations,” she laughed.
She met Morgan while working for Ever After Holidays, a Disney specialist, for which Morgan’s Goodlife Florida Villas was a supplier.
They were both from the same area in Lancashire and in the same school year, so they knew a lot of the same people. As their romantic relationship developed, they shared their dream of opening an agency together.
Eight months ago, Ophelia was born, and this new venture brings Ella’s maternity to an abrupt end, with the couple planning to share childcare between them on a temporary basis while they establish the business.
“Ophelia’s going to nursery in September, thank goodness,” said Ella. “We’ve only been open three days now and it’s been harder than we thought. She’s usually a little angel. We’ve already taken her to Disney World and on a cruise so I think she’s just a bit bored in here.”
“She is good for business though,” added Morgan. “People like to see a bit about you personally on your business social pages. In my LinkedIn post about our opening, I called her our ‘head of cuteness’.”
Despite the couple’s passion for Florida, their sales strategy is broad, and they plan to sell a wide range of holidays. Within 20 minutes of opening on Monday morning, they had received a Nile cruise enquiry, which is still open, and their first actual booking was a family holiday to Portugal.
“We don’t want to box ourselves into a specialism,” said Morgan. “We want to catch people as they’re walking past.”
They plan to work hard to embed themselves in the Market Harborough community, and Morgan is already dreaming of a mini empire, with a five-year-plan for a second store.
“That’s definitely my vision,” he said. “We need to start building our number of staff here first, and once we’re established, we’ll look at different areas, but the challenge will be to find a similar area to where we are now.”
Inspired by a father's legacy
He also intends to continue running Goodlife Florida Villas, and reassured agents that it’s business as usual there. The business was set up by his father, Geoff Hartley, who passed away in 2022.
“A lot has happened in a short space of time,” said Morgan, in reference to his dad’s death, taking over the business, meeting Ella and moving from Burnley to Market Harborough. “My dad taught me everything I know, so it’s easy to think, what would he do now. He started many different businesses and he used to say, the only way you know whether it was a good time or not is when the time has passed.”
When Morgan was moving his office into the new agency, his dad’s caricature was in a frame that broke, and hidden behind that picture, he found a gold medal certificate awarded to his dad for being a top selling USA agent.
“It was a nice sign, to find his award, and take it with us into the new agency,” he said.
Carrying on the name Goodlife Travel felt like an automatic choice. “We didn’t really think of doing anything else,” he said. “It felt like a little nod to my dad as well."
