A homeworker who has just opened her first high street shop is ‘gobsmacked’ by the level of demand a week before Christmas – and is already considering a second branch.
Arrive Relax Travel owner Angie Akister has relocated her homeworking business from Southend in Essex to a 17th century building in the central thoroughfare in Harleston, Norfolk.
The shop opened its doors on December 12 after undergoing a major refurbishment since the start of November and has been inundated with customers wanting to book in person, with sales ranging from a last minute break to Lanzarote to a multi-centre trip to the Philippines.
Even prior to opening, Akister said locals were asking what the shop would be and were enthusiastic about the business, which is the only travel agency in Harleston.
“I just can’t believe we are as busy as we are the week before Christmas, I am gobsmacked. We thought we’d have a soft opening in December. We didn’t want to open in peaks,” said Akister, whose husband Max is helping in the shop with paperwork and marketing.
She added: “We have been surprised by how wide and varied the holiday requests have been. We have had so many people say they are so pleased to have a travel agency in the town because they don’t want to book online.”
Akister has employed one of her homeworkers, Jan Peters, to work in the shop and still has one remote homeworker. She hopes to take on another full-time member of staff in the shop and an apprentice later next year.
“It’s going to be a bigger workload than we initially realised but I think it would be silly to take someone on immediately. We need to see what the turnover is and the margins,” she said.
The agency sought out a location after deciding it was time to move on to the high street. Arrive Relax Travel joined the Travel Trust Association, part of The Travel Network Group, as a homeworking business in 2018 and at its height had eight homeworkers, which was scaled down to three during Covid.
Akister said: “We felt it was the right time for our business to open a store but we didn’t feel Southend was the right location as there are a couple of agents there already, so we decided to go north.
“We wanted somewhere with a real community. We came across Harleston, liked it and saw it had an empty premises. We are filling a gap in the market here with the nearest agency 40 miles one way and 10 miles the other.”
She added: “The week we moved here, Harleston was featured on the BBC series Escape to the Country. We’d actually looked at all the properties they showed on the programme for our own house but found another one that was 15 minutes’ walk from the shop.”
The agency has focused heavily on multicentre and cruise bookings as well as staycations up to now but in Harleston has taken a wide variety of sales. “It is going to take us a while before we work out where the shop’s strengths lie,” said Akister,
However, she is already considering a second shop.
She said: “If this shop does well then we will look for a second premises, set up the same way and with the focus on customer service and being active in the community.
“Opening a shop for us is an adventure, a new challenge, and you have to make the most of it. It’s not the easiest thing to do but I am loving it.”
