There comes a time in everybody’s life when you have to run your own race.
Be master (or mistress) of your own destiny. Call the shots. That kind of thing.
For travel veteran Debbie Rains, that moment came on April 1.
“It wasn’t an April Fools joke,” she tells me from her office in Townsville. “On that day we were officially Gallivanter Travel and an independent.”
With more than 35 years of experience, Debbie felt the time was right to establish her own agency. She’s certainly come a long way from her first job in travel, working in reservations for TAA.
“I got the travel bug pretty much out of school and it just went from there, My first husband had a travel agency and I started doing the books and reservations there. When we went our separate ways, I kept the business and it just started to grow.”
Debbie consolidated and expanded her business under the banner of several travel franchises, including Harvey World Travel, Escape Travel as part of FCTG and more recently Travel Associates.
“We stayed with Travel Associates for four or five years but then Flight Centre Travel Group were changing yet again, doing away with franchise and moving into the independent space.
“It was going to be just another upheaval so we decided at that point to take charge of our own destiny and if we’re going to make a change, let’s make a change to our own brand and our own independent space so that we have a little bit more control about all those sorts of changes into the future.”
Part of Debbie’s frustration of being part of a network franchise was the restrictions it imposed on developing and marketing her own business.
“We couldn’t have our own website, for example, or our own online booking tool. There was quite a lot of technology that we were unable to add to our business.
“Even though we were regional and pretty much operating in our own space up here, it felt like we were a bit restricted.”
The seeds of Gallivanter Travel were actually planted during COVID when Debbie successfully sold 26 domestic charters to Uluru and launched a weekly newsletter to engage with clients. It was called The Gallivanter.
“We just started building on that, creating a better database, talking to people directly and getting a stronger client following. We wanted to do other things so we decided to move forward under our own brand.”
Decision made and name chosen, Debbie then had to go through the process of rebranding her four stores: two in Townsville, one in Mackay and one in Rockhampton. Did she ever worry that the move could backfire?
“Up until making the final decision there were a lot of pros and cons to consider and questions going through my head. Is this the right thing to do? What if things don’t go as planned?
“I guess the catalyst was that we pretty much looked after ourselves during COVID anyway so we just backed ourselves again.
“Look, there was a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of angst, a lot of soul searching but everything’s going well and we’re really happy.”
One of the other reasons Debbie decided to become an independent was with an eye to the future. Her son is likely to take over the reins (pardon the pun!) when the time comes. For now though, business is booming.
“It’s been a bit like famine to feast, coming out of COVID, and now I’m very optimistic about the future. People have been booking two or three trips at a time and we’ve exceeded our pre-COVID numbers.”
While Gallivanter Travel may be in its infancy, the agency is already planning for the future, including cruise ship charters, a business travel department and, at last, their own website with a new cruise portal.
“We’re training up more people to make sure we have the resources we need going forward and we’ll be looking to expand our presence a bit more geographically and also in the digital space as well.”
It would seem there is plenty of gallivanting to come in the future.
