Posted:23-November-2023
The Travel Franchise's visionary co-founders win award for outstanding leadership and rapid growth
CO-FOUNDERS of The Travel Franchise and Not Just Travel, Paul Harrison and Steve Witt, were this week recognised as two of Britain’s best business leaders at The Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
With around 5.5 million businesses in the UK and only 250 entrepreneurs shortlisted and invited to the big gala dinner in London, it’s an incredible achievement to be nominated, but out of just 20 awards, Harrison and Witt won the South West Scale Up Entrepreneur of the Year category, a highly competitive title recognising the best businesses throughout the South of England, stretching from the furthest east of Surrey to the west of Dorset.
Having such a high calibre of leadership has contributed to the success of the business which has navigated the rocky ‘start-up’ phase to become firmly established as a leading figure in both the franchise world and travel.
Not only has The Travel Franchise been voted one of the top 10 franchises in Britain in 2023, beating big-name brands such as Vodafone but it has been named Best Travel Franchise, Best Homeworking Agency and it is also one of the fastest growing franchises in the UK with over 200 people, many new to travel, investing in a franchise with us this year so far.
“This award is the cherry on a huge cake. Testament to our exceptional trajectory of solid and sustained growth,” says Paul. “Almost one person every working day has joined us this year so far and we are still seeing unprecedented demand even as we approach Christmas as many people want to invest, train and launch a business before ‘peaks’ the January-to-March period when agents typically book more travel than any other time of the year.”
The company has gained a reputation for being innovative and dynamic, with a focus on training and supporting people new to travel to launch home-based travel agencies. The model has seen a growing number of diverse entrepreneurs with backgrounds in a wide range of industries (including NHS workers, couriers and teachers) who have transferable skills successfully scale up quickly.
This year Not Just Travel consultants have shattered sales records, doubled holiday sales, tripled cruise sales, and enjoyed a huge surge in commission with some agents regularly taking over £100k+ in holiday bookings a month and some, such as Mark and Isobel McCardie, hitting the £10 million mark this year!
Some agents have also won prestigious awards for their success including David Walker, Ross Johnson and Ben Casey, while others such as Gemma Outram are hitting the headlines for impressive cruise sales and providing inspiration to other consultants who are currently training with the company’s cruise division to become experts in selling cruise.
The company has also gained a reputation for its innovative initiatives such as its overseas mentorship retreats with over 100 agents currently in Cyprus with co-founder Steve Witt undertaking workshops and tours of the island to boost their ability to sell more holidays.
Says Paul: “2023 has been a record year for our agents in terms of awards, cruise bookings, holiday sales and commission, and the trend shows no sign of abating with the company outperforming sales’ forecasts by an impressive 30 per cent.”
The company has recently launched a new WOW travel deals app and recruited several heavyweight travel names including Derek Jones and Chris Harrison.
“But anyone who knows Steve and I also knows we’re not stopping here. We have incredibly ambitious plans for the next few years.”
If you would like to know more about The Travel Franchise visit www.TheTravelFranchise.com where you can order a free magazine to be delivered to your doorstep. There are a few training places left for its virtual 5-day training in January 2024. Its Elite package (£14,995+vat) includes free mentorship retreats abroad and the chance to get your franchise fee refunded via its Money-Back Challenge.
Interested and want to know more about The Travel Franchise?
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