I’m often asked if it’s possible to start a travel business in your spare time, either alongside a fulltime job or whilst having a family.

The short answer is yes, but it’ll take time, patience and determination.

Starting a travel business is an exciting prospect. Creating your own brand, talking about exotic destinations, building bespoke holidays and of course some travel perks for you.

To start a successful travel business, you have to have a passion for travel, this is one of the key attributes we look for in a franchisee, but this alone won’t lead to success. You’ll need vision, personality, drive, enthusiasm, organisation and patience, to name a few, especially if you’re doing it part-time.

Most of our franchisees have started with their own travel agencies alongside another role, using their spare time in the evenings and weekends, to create and build their business. The goal is to grow their business to a size that can sustain & improve their lifestyle, allowing them to eventually move into it full time.

Our onboarding process guides you on all the steps needed to create, build and launch your business, covering both the customer-facing brand, as well as the administration side of being a travel agent.

Each franchisees business takes on average 12-14 weeks to launch, once the business name is established (don’t worry, we help with that too). In-fact we provide guidance & training on every step:

• Creating your business name
• Branding your business
• Your personal branding
• Onboarding checklist, detailing all the steps needed by both parties
• The skills & needed to be a Travel Agent
• The fundamental foundations needed to immerse yourself into the travel industry and work effectively

From setting up a new business, logo design, right through to launching and beyond.

There are a few reasons that a travel business works so well, starting part-time.

1. You advertise at the times you want to receive enquiries.

• • Our training includes how to set up, and run successful online marketing campaigns using Google Ads
  • You can play/pause your campaigns on an Adhoc basis
  • They can be scheduled to run on certain days and times.
  • Meaning, if you’re not available Monday-Friday 9-5, only run your ads in the evenings and weekends

2. Our systems support you
   • When an enquiry is placed on your website, our system sends an automatic email to advise you as well as send a holding email to your customer from your company

      3. Generally, people like to enquire about holidays outside of usual office hours

We asked our franchisees, how they find balancing an employed role with their franchise business.

“Working my business alongside my job was something I thought I would need to do at the beginning. My plan was to keep working until I had built my brand and started breaking even.  Little did I know, my business would start better than I ever imagined.

To make the two work together, I think the key has been hard work, commitment and being organised, listing tasks into priorities and so far everything has been working well plus it helps that people tend to think about holidays at the weekend :-)”

– Siân Partridge owner of  Make Holiday Memories   

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“Starting a travel business during a pandemic might seem silly to some, especially with the world shutting down its travel corridors, but starting our own agency is something we have dreamed of doing long before COVID cropped up.

A rare positive to this pandemic is that working from home has allowed us the extra time we would usually spend commuting into and out of London to focus on the business.

We have dedicated all of our time outside of our 9-5 jobs to this business but our passion for travel has certainly made it an enjoyable experience, and knowing the hard work you put in will bear fruit later on, is a great motivator.”

 – Harry Shirt owner of Travelstylers  

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So, in summary, yes you can start your own travel business whilst in your spare time. To do this you need to:

• Have the right attributes (organisations, passion, drive)
• Have a plan
• Find a franchisor that gives you the time to set your business up
• Expect it to be hard work