Still serving at 70: the travel veterans who won't quit the industry they love
TTG StaffThis year marked the 70th anniversary of the first issue of Travel Trade Gazette, and as 2023 nears its end, the TTG team wanted to celebrate agents in the industry who are still at the top of their games as they continue to work in their own seventh decades – and beyond.
All are long-standing in the world of travel, despite falling into the industry by chance, or "making do" with being an agent after being told that 17 was “too young to work in an airline”, or making travel their mark in a career change. But the common theme among them is that they wouldn’t do anything else, and a career in the industry remains as fulfilling and remarkable as it did when they started out.
With mountains of experience and knowledge to call upon, and plenty of stories to boot, these industry heroes – much like our beloved Travel Trade Gazette – are showing no signs of slowing down and each of them still loves being a part of our great travel community. Each gave us the time to talk about their fantastic careers and pass on their wisdom.
‘I get a kick out of travel, so I’m not retiring’
When Ken Garrity realised he was too young to work in an airline, he – as he puts it – “made do” with becoming a travel agent. This was in 1968 and he was just 17. Little did he know he would still be doing the same job 55 years later, loving every part of it.
After working as a travel agent in Manchester, Liverpool and London, Garrity set up his own shop in Sale, Greater Manchester, in the early 1980s before deciding to downsize and become a homeworker in 2008.
He tells TTG he has no intention of retiring despite no longer being 17. “Booking a holiday is not just buying a product out of a brochure,” he says. “I use my knowledge that I have built up over the years to put together trips for my clients. And that’s where I get a kick out of travel, so I’m not retiring.”
Over the past five decades, Garrity has seen a lot of changes in the travel industry, but he believes agents are resilient and can play a fundamental role in the sector.
“Agents have the education and knowledge to pass onto clients when they make a booking and that means they still have a great role to play in the industry,” he adds.
Ken Garrity, Ken Garrity Travel
‘I remember snapping the manager’s hand off when he offered me the job’
Despite turning 77 last month, Imp Travel founder Paul Brewer isn’t ready to hang up his boots quite yet.
Brewer, who started the Lincoln-based agency in 1983, received The Travel Network Group’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the consortium’s conference in Munich earlier this month.
It’s a far cry from his first job in the industry – and having to go through six months’ worth of training before he could serve customers.
A council worker with a passion for travel – Brewer would organise trips for local government officers to Paris and Amsterdam through his local agency Ellerman Travel – which he later took a pay cut to join. “I remember snapping the manager’s hand off when he offered me the job – it was a no-brainer,” he tells TTG.
During his time with the agency, he remembers his old manager’s somewhat dubious approach to Travel Trade Gazette. “He was worried we’d look for new jobs in the ads section – so he would throw the magazine in the bin,” recalls Brewer. “When he’d go out of the shop, we’d get them out and read them cover to cover.”
After managing Ellerman’s Scunthorpe and Lincoln branches, Brewer became an area manager before striking out on his own.
Organising tours to all corners of the world became his forte, from a decades-long relationship with the German wine town of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse (one year Imp Travel took three coaches full of customers) to venturing further afield with trips to Peru and the Galapagos, China, Borneo, India and Brewer's favourite destination, South Africa.
Although mainly working from home these days, Brewer still takes great interest and pride in mentoring his son, agency managing director Mark.
“I haven’t said to myself ‘I’m going to finish next year, or the year after that'. At the moment I have no intention of putting my feet up entirely,” Brewer says, adding that he is keen to finish his long-haul adventures with a final visit to South Africa near the end of 2025.
“I’ll still be involved after that. I won’t totally retire – it keeps the brain cells going!”
Paul Brewer, Imp Travel
‘Quite a few customers are the same age – so that's a plus’
GoRiver Cruise specialist James Hill knew he had one more career in him when he suddenly found himself jobless at 56. A relative told him to do something he enjoyed, something that would fulfil him during his autumn years.
Seventeen years later, Hill is a successful homeworker, and tells TTG he wishes he started in travel before entering his sixth decade. “I’ve made good friends in the industry and I love the river cruise product,” he says.
“Before I started in the travel industry, I was running two old people’s homes. Trying to find care home staff was exceptionally hard work. Travel is not as hard work. It keeps things in perspective.”
Hill argues being north of 70 is a help, rather than a hindrance. “One of the advantages of being 70 is that quite a few customers are the same age,” he reasons. “I understand what they are after. I’m empathetic. I know what makes them tick.”
But he admits that he is often grappling with IT issues. “I am a salesman at heart, but I’ve struggled with IT. I still struggle with IT today.
“As the years go by, it does take longer to do the same amount of stuff. If I had grown up with IT, I would have only had to learn the product.”
James Hill, GoRiver Cruise
‘I wanted to take it easier – but it didn’t turn out that way’
When Roddie MacPhee joined Barrhead Travel’s board in 2011, he didn’t imagine he would help to oversee a 20-store expansion plan nearly 10 years later.
MacPhee, 81, celebrated 60 years in travel in 2021, starting his career at Dundee-based Scotts Travel’s in 1961, where he worked for three years. Selling travel in the 1960s was very different, he tells TTG, when unmarried couples sharing a room was taboo. But he got round this, he laughs – with a curtain!
“Selling single rooms was impossible, so someone had the idea of a twin room with a curtain between beds – that was fine with their families!” he says incredulously. “It seems difficult to believe this was a conversation I had to have with parents!”
MacPhee spent seven years at British European Airways – now BA – as a reservations agent, but returned to retail, for 18 years, at Ayrshire-based AT Mays, which was eventually sold to Thomas Cook.
He moved from regional director to marketing director, and AT Mays went from 20 branches in Scotland to hundreds of locations in the UK. It was a “tough” time with intense competition – notably from Lunn Poly and Pickfords, MacPhee says, nodding to one year when discount levels changed four times in one day just to keep up.
A “chance conversation” tempted MacPhee to Barrhead. “I wanted to take it easier – but it didn’t turn out that way,” he laughs. His principal role is working on Barrhead projects centred around property and facilities management.
Stand-outs in his career include his Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association presidency in 1993, “a highlight of any career,” he stresses. He is currently Scotland’s representative on Abta’s Council of Regions.
MacPhee is adamant the travel industry is a remarkable career choice and adds that product quality is now “mindblowing”.
“There was no such thing as a cruise holiday. There were scheduled shippings and people would join those to get to their holiday. Now the world of cruise is exploding.”
Asked what he would tell his teenage self, MacPhee says: “Always listen carefully, to learn as much as possible, to your colleagues and customers.”
Roddie MacPhee, Barrhead Travel
‘Companies used to sell holidays to Majorca for £29’
It was after selling his award-winning travel agency in Bath and travelling the world for a couple of years that Tim Giles realised he was missing the industry and decided to join C the World as an events and special projects consultant.
Giles – who started working in travel in 1966 as he was unsure about what he wanted to do after leaving school – tells TTG he went to work at C the World because he was missing the daily interactions with people that come with working in an office.
“I get up in the morning and I’m going to work, where I talk to people, have conversations and exchanges,” he says. “It makes my life more fulfilled.”
Despite falling into the industry almost by chance, Giles has built an extraordinary career in travel, by firstly managing 12 of Park Travel’s branches and then running his own agency – World Market Travel – for 35 years.
When asked about his greatest accomplishment, Giles said owning his agency has been one of the highlights.
“The highlight of my career would be enjoying the benefits of being the owner of my own business and actually having a very successful one,” he adds.
Giles says that when he first joined the industry, agents used to “sell dreams” for cheaper, whereas now the act of booking a holiday has become less personal.
“It was the dawn of travel: companies used to sell holidays to Majorca for £29,” he explains.
“Now it has become more cutthroat and a much more mechanical process rather than the exciting process of sending someone to a place they have never been before. Now it’s more commercial.”
Tim Giles, C the World
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