The Co-Founder of one of the fastest-growing companies in the travel industry has predicted a ‘gold rush’ in the next two years with a boom time for the sector.

Steve Witt was speaking after revealing plans to double the size of Not Just Travel over the next 12 months which, he claimed, “blows away all competition.”

The Bournemouth-based company offers tailor-made holidays through its 800-plus home-based agents.

The doubling in size is through the creation of four new divisions in the business, which will be unveiled over the coming months.

Each one of the new divisions will act like separate businesses, “but together, will make Not Just Travel the dominant force in our industry” said Steve.

Together, they 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 and has invested significantly in new technology.

This will support business and customer growth, a business management platform and also 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 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.

“In March we achieved 50 per cent 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 per cent 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 £4,356 per booking, up from £2,800 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 per cent of our bookings are for future seasons i.e. from winter 21/22 onwards.

“In the past that would be more like 20 per cent.

“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.”

March 2021 was the busiest month for franchise sales since January 2018.

It was 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.

Heading up the four new divisions is industry heavyweight Cherie Richards.

Her 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 fellow Co-Founder Paul Harrison as they expand the business.

As Chief of Staff, Cherie, pictured right, 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.

Steve said: “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.

“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.

“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.

Co-Founders Steve Witt and Paul Harrison

“But now, at our size, even ten per cent 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, 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.”

Not Just Travel, which has access to more than 400 suppliers, is a member of the Hays Travel Independence Group in addition to having its own preferred supplier relationships.

The company was founded in 2001 and incorporates recruitment arm The Travel Franchise which appoints travel consultants.