Great News! Welcome to the Spring Edition of our Travel Magazine It is now more than 12 months on since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and all of our lives have been affected accordingly. I hope you and all of your family have been able to keep safe and well and let us all hope we are now getting closer to when we can get back together with loved ones, enjoy life more normally and of course travel once again. Over the past year we have looked to continue to run our business by offering continued service across all of our branches. Whilst we have had to reduce our operating hours and level of staff to keep costs low with no income coming in to the business, I hope you would all agree when you have needed us we have been available to help as always. It has also been heartening to still see so many customers booking up for the future and we know the demand for holidays and cruises has never been stronger when it is safe to do so. I am sure you will have seen on the news many travel agents closing down on the high street due to the pandemic. All at Fred. Olsen Travel have faith in the high-street and not only are we not looking to reduce our portfolio of shops I am incredibly excited to announce we are expanding our network ready for when non-essential retail can re-open on the 12th April. In East Anglia we have a brand new Fred. Olsen Travel opening in Beccles, Suffolk. It is a fantastic market town we have been keen to open up in for a long while and I am so pleased that the Fred. Olsen company are continuing to invest in the high street, it is a fantastic vote of confidence for our business. At times like these it was an opportunity to roll up my own sleeves and to keep costs as low as possible, myself, my Managing Director, and some of our retail staff have donned their overalls, grabbed their paintbrushes and refitted and refurbished the branch ourselves. We are excited to be continuing to grow in these toughest of times and the reason we can is from the continued trust and faith our customers have shown in continuing to book holidays for the future. Along with our new shop in Suffolk we have also recently acquired the travel agency, Milford Travel, in Hampshire. This agency is being incorporated into our Lymington branch which is just 5 miles away and the Milford Travel staff are moving with their business to continue to offer their excellent service to their regular customers and continue to grow our brand and portfolio further on the South Coast. We are continuing to invest and grow our business as we know when we can all holiday and cruise safely once again not only will the demand be huge but that more people than ever before will want to speak to a travel professional when booking their holiday and cruise to get all the advice, reassurance and financial protection of booking with an ABTA & ATOL bonded company. Holidays might still be on pause right now but we have once again produced this magazine to show you some of the great products and offers available to you, to book now, with peace that your booking will have flexibility and financial security if it cannot go ahead as planned. We hope these will be of interest and that not only will you book your next holiday with your local Fred. Olsen Travel or TravelQuest branch but you will also recommend us to your friends and family for their future trips as well. Together we can continue to rebuild and grow.
Kind regards
Paul Paul Hardwick Head of Commercial
We are planning to re-open all of our retail branches on Monday 12th April. Until we know more from the government about how and when travel will restart we will remain working Monday to Friday 10am until 4pm to begin with but hopefully as holidays recommence we will look to increase our hours and in particular open up on Saturdays for your convenience. We will look to keep customers informed and updated on our website, emails and social media so please make sure you are signed up to receive our latest news. We will of course be making sure that we will be keeping all of our customers and staff safe so will be implementing our staff commitments and customer guidelines so please familiarise yourself with these in advance. We will also be operating a managed entry system which is designed to limit customer levels to maintain social distancing in-store, if you would prefer to make an appointment to guarantee a time to speak to your travel agent please just call your branch in advance to book. We cannot wait for you to return to our stores and look forward to your visits in the coming weeks.