Buckley Travel owner Jacqui Bowring has revealed plans to open a third shop, in June, which she expects to be the agency’s top-selling branch.
The store in Chester will join sites in Buckley and Hawarden, both in north Wales, which opened in 2007 and 2023 respectively.
Bowring said: “I always said I wanted a shop in Chester, because I’m Chester born and bred.”
She plans to train her 25-year-old mechanic son to work in the store alongside another agent initially, with potential for a further four members of staff to be recruited in the future.
The expectation is that the shop will offer a mix of the holidays sold in the existing branches.
About 75% of bookings in Buckley Travel are Jet2 trips, according to Bowring, while most of Hawarden Travel’s business comes from long-haul bookings and luxury trips through a range of operators.
The new shop will be outside the town centre and will offer free parking.
Bowring said the location should mean the branch attracts attention from passing traffic, including doctors travelling to the Countess of Chester Hospital.
She added that the new branch would probably out-sell the existing shops in time.
Asked whether she might add a fourth shop, Bowring said she had no plans to expand, but did not rule it out.
“I don’t want the business to grow so big that it loses the personal touch, but I’m not going to say no [to potential expansion] because I don’t know what ideas I might have,” she added.
Bowring originally ran Buckley Travel on behalf of two businesswomen, but bought the agency from them in 2014.
Two years ago, she gave a 10% share of Buckley Travel to her long-time colleague Michelle Shone. The pair then opened Hawarden Travel on a 50:50 basis.
Bowring was one of the winners of Travel Weekly’s Cover Stars competition last year, and her photo is set to appear on the front of next week’s magazine.
