Baldwins Travel, Tonbridge

Baldwins Travel, Tonbridge
South East’s Top Agency 2020

The Tonbridge branch of Baldwins Travel is a tightly run ship, with cruise-loving manager Trevor Ridler at the helm, ably assisted by a crew of seven experienced consultants who each have at least 12 and up to 50 years of experience.

The past 12 months have seen the team travel on educational trips as far afield as the Caribbean, Maldives, Lapland and Thailand, to name a few. Consultants work hard to share their experience on social media while they’re away, and internally when they get back; the store made eight bookings for Saga’s new ship within a week of two of the team being onboard last summer.

There has also been a focus on encouraging clients to travel responsibly in the past 12 months, with a flyer of sustainable travel tips made available to cruise passengers, and with a special window display to mark Abta’s Make Holidays Greener campaign.

Always striving to find ways to “wow” their clients has helped Tonbridge branch achieve 80% repeat business; this might include a bottle of prosecco for honeymoon clients and sending flowers to long-standing clients on milestone birthdays and anniversaries.

Consultant Donna, meanwhile, has earned the nickname “mobility queen” among the team, thanks to the extraordinary lengths she goes to to ensure her scooter-using older clients have the right sort of mobility vehicles waiting for them when they travel.

The Tonbridge team is a tight-knit one who love spending time together, including an annual starlit-movie-and-camping night in Trevor’s own back garden. The team and its brand is also omnipresent in the local community, taking part in school fairs and carnivals, sponsoring the local rugby club, and fundraising through the Tonbridge Dragon Boat Race and plenty more besides.

It’s been a year of real business success for the branch too, with a plethora of successful client events, a more successful strategy to convert enquiries gathered at weddings fairs, and with one of the team building considerable families business through a local mums’ group on Facebook. All of this helped see this ambitious high street store grow its sales by a remarkable 14% in 2019.

baldwinstravel.co.uk