Travel company Not Just Travel plans to double in the next twelve months

Not Just Travel, one of the fastest growing companies in the travel industry, has announced bold plans to double in size over the next twelve months. Not Just Travel offers tailor-made holidays through its 800-plus agents who work from home. As consumer confidence returns, and more people set up their own businesses to enjoy the benefits of working from home, March has been a record month for the company both in terms of franchise sales as well as holiday bookings.

Co-founder Steve Witt said Not Just Travel will double in size through the creation of four new divisions in the business, which will be unveiled over the coming months. Each one of these four new divisions will act like separate businesses, “but together, will make Not Just Travel the dominant force in our industry.”

Together, the new divisions will boost the company’s recruitment, sales, referral and customer offering - all of which will drive more profit for its members. Not Just Travel is also adding a suite of new features to continue to improve customer experiences. In addition, the company has invested significantly into new technology to support business and customer growth; a business management platform as well as a customer database made bespoke to Not Just Travel.

The company will be recruiting more corporate team members as well as expanding the company’s franchisee and homeworking base.

Steve Witt said: “We have done incredibly well during the pandemic. We’ve continued to maintain, invest and grow the business. Our trade partners have been telling us how strong our holiday sales are compared to our competitors. In fact, we’ve been privy to information that shows our Year-On-Year or Month-On-Month sales have been as much as double our closest competitors.”

Record month for holiday sales

Steve Witt says: “In March we achieved 50% more holiday sales than January. That’s previously unheard of in travel sales as normally the January booking season, known as Peaks in the industry, equates to 50-100% more bookings than any other month. In fact, March 2021 was our busiest month in 14 months and nearly double our average month for the last two years.

“We sold more holidays in Jan-Mar 2021 than we did the last six months of 2020. Average customer bookings values have increased significantly to £4356 per booking, up from £2800 per booking back in 2019. It really does show how there is so much pent-up consumer demand for travel, as well as how consumer confidence is bouncing back.”

“People are also booking further in advance. Over 60% of our bookings are for future seasons i.e. from Winter 21/22 onwards. In the past that would be more like 20%. Our top selling destination is the UK, selling at a ratio of 3:1 compared to our next top selling destination which is the USA, and believe me, we are selling a lot of holidays to the USA right now.”

Record month for new franchise members

March 2021 was the busiest month for franchise sales since January 2018 - double Not Just Travel’s monthly average for the last quarter and three times the average for the last 12 months. The travel giant also had more qualified enquiries in the last month than any other month since January 2019.

New Chief of Staff role

Heading up the four new divisions is industry heavyweight Cherie Richards, whose new role as the company’s Chief of Staff enables Cherie to have a much wider influence over the entire company while giving more support to both Steve and Paul as they expand the business.

As Chief of Staff, Cherie, who joined Not Just Travel in June last year as Chief Business Development Officer, will be largely responsible for the day to day business, operations and adding a new sense of energy to the business ahead of the predicted “travel boom”.

Co-founder Steve Witt says: “Cherie has a bold title with a bold new remit. As we come out of the pandemic, Cherie will be developing a new culture throughout the entire Not Just Travel family.”

Steve Witt says: “The last 12 months have been tough on the entire industry, but we’ve used the time to plan and prepare for rapid growth over the next 12 months. This consistent success throughout the hardest times means we can be confident, bold and expand ahead of the travel gold rush. This is a new beginning for the travel industry and the next two years will be a boom time. As a result, we will see an even bigger and stronger family of staff, travel consultants and homeworkers, each focused on helping even more customers find their dream holidays. As part of this, we look forward to creating more opportunities for those people already in travel to be involved.

Steve continues: “Obviously, when you are much smaller, it’s easier to double or even quadruple in size. In fact, in our early days we were seeing triple-figure growth at times. But now, at our size, even 10% growth would be fantastic and most companies would be very excited by this. However, our plan to double in size blows away all competition.”

“When we started just after 9/11, when no-one wanted to travel but we went on to build a hugely successful travel business. Today, there has never been more demand for travel, it’s just been difficult to go anywhere. The next few years are going to be the most exciting time for anyone in travel and we plan to make the most of it.”

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Steve Witt is available for an interview. Please contact me to set this up: jo@jellyrockpr.co.uk T: 07977 714 787.

About Not Just Travel

Not Just Travel is one of the fastest growing travel agencies in the UK selling bespoke, tailormade holidays via its more than 800 agents working from home. Having access to in excess of 400 suppliers, the company is a member of the Hays Travel Independence Group in addition to having its own preferred supplier relationships. With its head office based in Bournemouth, Dorset, Not Just Travel was founded in 2001, and incorporates recruitment arm The Travel Franchise to appoint travel consultants.

For more information see www.notjusttravel.co.uk or www.the-travel-franchise.com