What does the business do?
- TravelUp is a leading UK travel agent, working with more than 200 airlines and 400,000 hotels. The business was founded in 2004 by Ali Shah to ensure customers get the best deals on flights, hotels and package holidays.
- TravelUp caters to all budgets and major destinations through its bespoke deal finder technology, which searches masses of different suppliers simultaneously to quickly find the best available deals.
- While covering destinations all over the world, the business is a leader in long-haul flights, working closely with airlines including British Airways to service destinations including the Far East, US, Asia and South Africa.
Who owns the business?
- Ali remains the 100% shareholder and has grown the business organically since inception in 2004.
When, why and how did start (this includes social and commercial context in which the business started and is operating)
- When Ali left his home in Pakistan’s Sialkot for London in 2002, he spoke no English, had no money, and had no experience of the local travel market. He learned English by keeping the television on all day and night with subtitles running.
- Having worked in a travel business in his native Pakistan, he set up an online travel agency, then a novel concept, from his living room in the UK, seeing an opportunity to give consumers better deals on their holidays.
- TravelUp began life as a Teletext-based leisure travel agent, specialising in Asia and Australasia holidays rather than short-haul fly-and-flop breaks.
- When the company started, it did not have access to any airline net rates and had to rely on its customer service ethos, with Ali sending a hand-written thank you card to every customer.
- As the use of Teletext declined, Shah opened a shop in Reading, but he soon realised that technology was the way to scale up rapidly. He hired two Sri Lankan developers to build a website and a bespoke booking system, E-Traveller, which is still the backbone of the business. Shah later added a call centre in Pakistan.
How has it developed?
- From operating as a one-man band on teletext, Ali has grown TravelUp into a business with a turnover of £327m, working with airlines and hotels all over the world. The business now employs more than 170 people globally, with 70 in the UK.
- The business really began to take off from 2014, when Ali began selling holidays to North and South America and short-haul packages. He even started his own hotel booking operation.
- Having started as a long-haul specialist focussed on Asia, TravelUp now services every continent and flights of all lengths, from holidays to Greece and Cyprus (changing due to current covid restrictions) France and Spain, to Singapore and America.
What external factors (ie social changes) have influenced the company’s beginning and its development
- Technology and the growth of the internet have been key to Ali’s success. Ali found working as a travel agent in Pakistan in the early 2000’s to be more of a challenge, as the industry was not digitised in any way.
- Moving to the UK gave him access not only to more sophisticated technology, but also to a population who were embracing the possibilities of the internet, and the growth of online experience. That social change is evidenced by the fact that almost all holidays are now booked online in 2020.
No of staff employed/ new jobs created
170 people globally
-
- 70 people in the UK
- 90 people split across two call centres in Pakistan
- 10 people split across two development teams in Palma Mallorca and Sri Lanka
- (Pre Covid and inclusive of Furloughed team members)
What is its USP?
- Securing better deals for consumers on long-haul flights remains the USP of the business. TravelUp is the agent of choice for many who have family on a different continent, or for those going on a major long-haul holiday.
- Bespoke technology that can find and merge the best deals available.
What is the most innovative aspects of your business? Can be strategy, way of operating, what you actually produce is unique, partnership strategies?
- Our booking system was developed in-house, this is another of our major USPs and the backbone of what makes the business so strong. It allows us to be nimble and stay ahead of the competition, while we have no added costs of working with an external developer.
- Having that capability in-house is also what has driven the creation of our unique ‘real-time refund check’ function on the site. This is automatically plugged into all the airline booking systems, enabling consumers to check the state of their refund. Nobody else has developed something to match this yet.
What challenges have you faced in regard to the above and why, how have you overcome them?
- Simply, the speed at which the covid crisis escalated created a challenge. Building these systems takes time, and it took us around 7 weeks to create the real-time refund status check system. In normal circumstances that would be fast, but with travel bookings being cancelled by the day our challenge was getting a system in place to deal with the overwhelming requests and enquiries quickly enough.
What is your business strategy (managing growth etc) and how have you developed that?
- To improve what we have got right
- Analyse, focus and build up on that
- And then expand.
How important is the internet and e-commerce to your business, how has it helped?
- E-commerce and the internet have been the backbone of the business, ever since Ali developed the website. TravelUp’s success is in large part due to Ali understanding early on in the journey of the company that the best chance for scalability was to concentrate on the online model, rather than a high street presence.
- This ultimately comes down to the technology of online being so much quicker and more efficient than the high street model, thus once the website was effective and up and running, the business was able to grow quickly.
What are the most successful products and aspects of your business and why?
- Our relationship with airlines is a key to what has made us so successful. Our partnership with British Airways is a good example, we are their principal long-haul partner and recently Ali cemented the relationship by becoming British Airways’ General Sales Agent in Pakistan. This was a monumental moment as BA resumed flights to Islamabad for the first time since it suspended its operation in the country in 2008.
Where do you clients come from, has that customer base changed?
- Our customer base is very diverse. Initially, it was more focussed on those going on holidays to Asia or Australasia, or UK residents who had family in those regions. Now, the global nature of our service is reflected in our customers, who come from all over the UK and all walks of life.
- We are also diverse in age range, a significant portion of our customers are in the 26-30 age range and are couples seeking to go on a life-changing long-haul trip. That’s something we expect to see more of in the coming year or so, with a spike in visits to the Far East.
Major turning points in the business – what have they been and what has been the result (such as the move to bigger premises)
- Acquisitions have been common factor in the development of the business. From the smaller acquisition of Bravo Travel an agency based out London Victoria that focused on South Americans that wanted to visit friends and relative to the acquisition of package holiday brands like Holiday Genie and Bookable Holidays. All the acquisitions gave the business a chance to diversify and they came with additional contracts be those with airlines or hotels but most importantly it gave the business access to some fantastic team members.
Forecast turnover and rate of growth
Not one to answer at the moment.
Describe investment you have taken, any grants, what areas have taken the bulk and why
- The growth of the business has been organic, with Ali preferring to retain control of the business and its direction.
So far what are you most pleased with, good business moves, anything you might have done differently
- The pure focus on technology and agile development has always been one of the greatest and most exciting things and it continues to be so. To be presented with a challenge, be that airlines going into administration, new developments as data accessibility or even COVID-19. To lead a team that can come up with an impressive technological solution, develop it and deploy it in a short space of time always makes me smile as it is this agility that gives us a strong competitive advantage.
- The team that I have been lucky enough to surround myself with. Over time we have developed a strong team both in terms of the leadership team that have worked for some of the biggest travel companies and in the team members that make the business run. That is why in December 2018 I launched the EMI scheme within the business for all employees.
what are your development plans and why
- While there will always be a requirement for human interaction, we want to provide 100% transparency to our consumers and let them be their own boss of their travel plans. Our vision is that customers will be able to plan, research, book, manage, adjust, add, remove, essentially do whatever they want, whenever they want with their booking. And this includes while they are in resort not just pre departure. By providing customers the tool to have this level of power and control we are confident that we can provide not just the best deals but the best customer experience available.
Covid struggles
- Pre-pandemic, TravelUp processed over one thousand bookings per day – and handled 2,500 enquiries. When flights were grounded due to COVID-19, over 122,000 customers had flights cancelled – resulting in an unprecedented volume of refund requests. To cope with the volume of customer enquiries, TravelUp has restructured the business and introduced new ways of working. It reopened phone lines as soon as safe to do so and increased the customer service team from 15 people to 60, and has become the first travel agent to develop its own fully automated online refund process.
Trust Account Campaign
- TravelUp has launched a campaign to stop passengers being denied airline refunds in the future. The company is lobbying the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), MPs and Government Ministers to propose a ‘trust account model’ where payment for customer tickets is ringfenced until flights depart.
- Many passengers have experienced frustrating delays over the last few months trying to get their money back after flights were cancelled due to coronavirus. Some airlines refused to issue refunds at all and have only offered credit vouchers for future flights.
- TravelUp, which passes ticket payments straight on to airlines, found itself having to battle to get money back on behalf of customers.
The firm is proposing the CAA introduces a new system, in association with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), so money is only transferred to the relevant airline once the flight has departed. This would enable funds to be returned quickly if the flight does not leave.
