Homeworkers prosper from post-pandemic luxury travel boom

A particular point of difference will be the opportunity to specialise in group travel through a sub-brand with a tailored online booking platform, due to launch this October.

“If someone, for instance, wants to work with a gym and offer yoga tours, it will help them grow this niche,” explains Griffiths.

In future, Your Endless Travel will accept recruits from outside the industry, pairing them with established homeworkers as mentors, who will receive some of the newcomer’s commission split in return. “For us it’s about trying to build a community. The relationship would be officially for 12 months, but hopefully would continue,” says Griffiths.

Streets ahead

Among those who have added homeworking to a bricks-and-mortar retail agency is Travel Four Seasons. It has a lounge-style shop in Harpenden plus 11 remote associate team members. The homeworking side began in 2016 with an approach for a local agent with her own leads seeking flexibility around childcare.

Director Sean Fletcher explains a more recent move of consortia gave the agency greater control over technology, suppliers, Atol and payment terms. It felt logical to welcome other homeworkers looking for a “refresh” or smaller team environment, he says, adding he is totally committed to the hybrid model.

“We operate predominantly in the south of the UK and, whilst it’s a costlier proposition around here, I think retail will still see a resurgence over the next few years,” he says. “Post-covid working patterns mean you can now operate retail premises over four or five days instead of six or seven.”

He believes the homeworking sector will grow more quickly, however, and is optimistic the boom could feed, rather than fight, the luxury sector.

“Quality new agents will be attracted to the low-cost entry models and then move on to more dynamic operations to scale up their business and cater to luxury clients at times to suit both,” he predicts.

Indeed, he also believes former agents who switched professions in the pandemic are more likely to be enticed back to travel via homeworking. Miniple Baldwins is another upmarket business newly welcoming home-based franchisees alongside its high street expansion.

Recruits to its new brand The Travel Specialist will be both experienced and new to the industry, with an up to 80% commission share available for the former, besides access to its supplier relationships.

Time to evolve

Longer established homeworking organisations are meanwhile evolving through the formal pooling of members’ expertise.

At Travel Counsellors, 56% of agents, including the 10 best performing ones, now use TC Teams. The system evolved around 2021/22 from individuals helping others book certain destinations or holiday types. A platform now enables mini teams to work together.

TCs share enquires, advertise their specialisms and split commission on collaborated bookings, but each agent keeps their original client. Some create micro travel agencies with a fixed team and bring in others as enquiries demand.

One Canada expert has worked with 50 different colleagues and earned more in commission splits this year than his salary at a major tour operator.

“TC Teams is probably the best evolution of our business model in the past 10 years,” says Harding. “Our conversion has probably trebled, because you get a specialist who is answering the quote.”

Collaboration is also being using to create central resources. Last year Travel Counsellors launched TC Journeys, a library of more than 250 successfully used complex itineraries others can download and tweak. This will work in tandem with soon-to-be-upgraded technology to make quotes more interactive, with embedded links, maps and video content.

It’s a similar story of collaboration at Designer Travel, where new internal database the Fab Bank pools the agency’s Personal Travel Experts’ tips from the field, such as restaurant, excursion and room recommendations. As part of its newly adapted educational strategy, homeworkers commit to this formal sharing of feedback.

Slicker dynamic packaging is another luxury homeworking focus. 360 Private Travel, founded in 2012, has a global network of Travel Designers which it matches to membership clients who spend upwards of £25,000 a year on holidays.

Besides preferred supplier relationships, 360’s Travel Designers gain access to an in-house operator and villa company. They can also use the central flights team and opt to pay for admin and concierge support.

Hemisphere, a recent homeworker spin-off from Seventy Ten Travel, which was founded in part by ex-Kirker employees, terms itself a “host tour operator”. It concentrates on providing financial protection and back-office support to self-starters, who use their own brands under its umbrella.

Travel Counsellors now acts as its own operator for two-thirds of bookings, aided by further investment in its own Phenix technology. “We can control the margin and we can control the customer experience,” Harding explains, adding that this strategy has also attracted recruits from tour operators.

Changing times

The drive for professionalisation has never been greater, as the growth of the homeworking sector presents challenges beyond competition.

Designer Travel’s Matthews raises concerns about the number of start-ups apparently favouring quantity over quality, and the commitment of agents attracted by the “self-serving” idea of discounting their own holidays or TikTok claims that they can earn good money in just an hour a week.

“Everyone’s trying to be a homeworking company. We’ve been doing it for 17 years. We’ve built a whole structure... and lots of processes that are all about homeworking. A lot of new entrants are trying to get very big, very quickly without that stable foundation,” she claims, pointing out that even industry outsiders joining Designer Travel spend 12 months being mentored in its academy.

“If they’ve got mass numbers and people with not as much experience, they’ll need a much bigger support team and then they’re giving high commissions away and then the model will break,” she predicts.

But she worries about wider perceptions too. “It feels like the estate agent world from years ago. If we’re not careful, as an industry we are going to get a really bad reputation.”

Similarly, Travel Counsellors’ Harding says the biggest challenge in the sector is ensuring “the credibility of our travel planners doesn’t get tarnished”. Your Endless Travel’s

Griffiths feels there should be clearer industry training standards to avoid “horror stories” and bemoans the lack of a dedicated travel industry MP.

Legacy companies are redoubling their efforts to stress quality. Designer Travel’s homeworkers this year voted to change their name from Business Associates to Professional Travel Experts.

Travel Counsellors avoids the generic term “homeworker” for agents across the sector, preferring “independent business owners”. It refreshed its luxury brand identity last year across all its marketing.

Also, recognising enquiries via social media as its biggest trend of the past five years, it has introduced a central team who “productionise” TCs’ video footage for a slicker look.

In a similar vein, Designer Travel last year encouraged its agents to become “professional influencers” by providing them with tripods, lights and training to create attractive content.

Meanwhile, Cartology Travel’s Huxter expects to see polarisation in the sector, with more deals like Travel Counsellors’ acquisition of Holidaysplease becoming part of the mix.

“I think we will see two trends in terms of agencies as the bigger host agencies consolidate and buy up more companies, getting bigger. Then on the opposite end we will see more small companies opening in contrast to the large ones and keeping things more personal,” he predicts.

He too worries about collateral image damage from an influx of undertrained agents, but he’s optimistic the flipside could be giving more luxury brands the impetus to drive up quality.

“There is going to be even more of a need for everyone to distinguish themselves and hopefully that means more unique experiences and offerings for clients.”