Love To Travel to open its fourth branch

Scottish travel agency Love To Travel is to open its fourth branch and relocate its original shop to larger premises.

The fourth branch is due to open in Main Street in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, in mid-November while its Coatbridge store will relocate to four doors down from its current premises and is set to open from the end of September.

Owner Joanne Dooey said she had set her sights on Wishaw prior to the Covid pandemic and had been actively seeking a prime location for around six months.

The agency’s fourth shop is two doors down from the town’s previous Going Places and then Thomas Cook store.

She said: “I opened and managed that store 26 years ago. I know the town really well; I used to live and work there.

“There are no other travel agents on the main street in the town centre and I know the business is there. At one point there were five agencies in the town.”

The former manager of Thomas Cook in Wishaw has been appointed to manage the new store and Dooey is recruiting three other members of staff.

The Coatbridge store is moving to the site of the former Thomas Cook shop, which was closed under Hays Travel.

Dooey said: “I opened the shop 14 years ago for The Co-op and it’s a far bigger shop, double the size of our current shop, and in a better location. There are more cars that pass the shop and will see the shop when driving past. Our existing shop in the pedestrian area.

“It will be a big morale boost for the girls; two of them worked in that shop for years.”

Love To Travel, which also now has three homeworkers, is benefiting from a boom in popularity of high street agents, said Dooey.

“There are so many people who come to us and said they can’t believe they were doing the holiday themselves for so  many years. We are getting so many nice comments from customers saying they have not used a travel agent for years,” she added.