Travel Counsellors 8 years on...

Another milestone to celebrate! This month we celebrate our 8th anniversary since setting up Travel Counsellors in Ireland. Our very first Travel Counsellor here was Lorraine Lawless, from Dublin, based in Meath, and I am happy to say that she is running a thriving business to this day. Lorraine also won an award at our recent conference for having the most cruise sales.

We brought a new way of doing business to the travel industry in Ireland. It's not just about homeworking, what makes us unique is that we don't compete with our own agents. We've no shops or call centres so we spend 100% of our time and energy supporting our Travel Counsellors. Our website doesn't sell holidays; instead it supports our agents and points customers to them so they can grow their businesses. We've helped to keep more talented travel professionals in the industry as they're able to focus on the elements of being an agents that they really love. Our professional approach has given credibility to homeworking within the travel industry in Ireland.

I believe our success has had a huge impact on the industry as a whole, as throughout Ireland's economic woes we have continued to grow, unlike many others. At Travel Counsellors we talk a lot about bucking the trend, and yes we have, but we've gone far further than that here in Ireland. We have contributed €110 million in sales to the Irish travel industry since 2005. We've grown from sales of €4.5 million in our first year, and we're on track to achieve sales of almost €19 million in 2013.

We've had a surge in recruitment this summer with six new recruits joining, bringing our total number to a record high of 52. We've lots of exciting developments being launched including our consumer and recruitment films, new websites and brand refresh.

Exciting times ahead for us here in the Cork office and for our 52 Travel Counsellors around the country.