Three Years In, and Sat With the Giants: Our Agent Achievement Awards Story

On Thursday 9 July, more than 650 people from across the travel industry filled the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge for the Agent Achievement Awards.

And there we were. Finalists for Homeworking Agency of the Year (Medium).

We didn't win.

We're going to tell you about it anyway, because the story isn't the trophy.

Look at who we were sitting with

The Agent Achievement Awards are the ones that count in this industry. They're voted on by the travel trade itself. You can't buy your way onto that shortlist, and you can't blag it.

The names in our category are businesses that have been building for decades. Household names. Serious operations with serious infrastructure behind them.

We are three years old.

Three years ago this was an idea. No agents, no bookings, no brand. Today we're on a shortlist with the most established homeworking agencies in the country, put there by an industry that has watched what we've built and decided we belong in that room.

That is not a consolation prize. That is the whole point.

We were told we were "One to Watch". So we went and did it.

Back in 2023, we were named One to Watch.

It's a lovely thing to be called. It's also a slightly loaded one, because it's a bet on your future rather than a verdict on your present. Plenty of businesses get called One to Watch and then quietly aren't.

So we took it as a challenge.

Since then we've grown to a community of franchise owners across the UK. We've built the Travel Agent Academy so anyone can start with zero travel experience and be trained properly. We've become ABTA members selling ATOL protected packages. We've built booking websites, marketing suites, quoting and payment systems, and taken the admin off our agents' desks so they can actually sell.

And our agents have delivered. One of them, Bonni, just hit £500,000 in holiday sales in six months specialising in Disney holidays.

Three years on from being told to watch this space, the industry looked again and shortlisted us against the biggest names in homeworking.

We think that counts as living up to the name.

Why this matters if you're thinking about joining us

Choosing who to build your travel business with is a genuinely difficult decision. Everyone's brochure says the same things. Everyone promises support.

Awards shortlists are one of the very few external signals you get. This one wasn't voted for by us, or by our marketing budget. It came from the trade.

What it tells you is that the support, the training and the systems our franchise owners get are, in the judgement of the industry, up there with businesses that have had twenty years to get it right.

We got there in three.

What happens next

We're not going to pretend we weren't gutted for about an hour. Then we got over it.

Because being a finalist at three years old means the ceiling is a lot higher than the room. We'll be back, and we'll be building all year to make sure of it.

Congratulations to every finalist and winner on the night. It was a genuine privilege to be there.

To our franchise owners: this shortlist is yours. You are the agency. Thank you.