Hands on approach to a brilliant holiday

Love to Travel runs a successful holiday club which sees them accompany long standing customers some of whom are elderly, have an illness, lost their partner or are on their own.

Owner Joanne Dooey originally set up Love to Travel in Coatbridge two years ago, before opening a second branch in Brandon Parade East in January, the same unit she started her career in when it was Lunn Poly 30 years ago.

She said: “We started the holiday club with a day trip to St Andrews and filled a bus so we thought we’d try a weekend in Dublin and that went well too.

“Last year we took 30 people to Benidorm and in November we are going back with nearly double that number so it is going from strength to strength.

“I believe it is a unique service for staff from a travel agency to accompany customers on the trip, and is something that we as an independent can do that the big operators can’t.

“We find that a lot of people, particularly when they are elderly, worry about travelling, but we are with them every step of the way to ensure they are looked after and have the best time possible.

“There are obviously other holidays run for seniors, but many of our customers have little interest in going on them as they won’t know anyone, whereas this is all people from the local community.

“It has proven so popular that we are now getting the children of the people from the first trip who are in their 50s coming along, and we will continue to run trips so long as there is the demand, if there is the interest to do ten a year then we’ll make it happen, and are already planning the next one for March.”