There is a moment in most people’s lives where a passion they have always had starts to feel like something more than a hobby.
Where the thing they do naturally, the thing friends turn to them for, the thing that makes an ordinary evening feel genuinely enjoyable, starts to look suspiciously like a business. For Katy and Dean, that moment came after eleven years of living abroad, dozens of countries explored together and a shared love of travel so deep it had practically become their identity.
They are not travel industry veterans. They are a couple from the same village in the UK who met on the streets of Kathmandu while Dean was hiking to Everest Base Camp and Katy was travelling around Nepal, fell in love over a shared obsession with exploring the world, and eventually decided that building a travel business together was the obvious next step. They joined The Travel Franchise in April this year and have already secured over £25,500 worth of holidays alongside two full time jobs. This is their story.
If you’ve ever wondered whether someone without a professional travel background can genuinely build something successful with The Travel Franchise, Katy and Dean’s story is just the proof you need. They are doing exactly that, alongside full-time jobs, in their evenings and weekends, and they are already succeeding in ways that surprised even them.
A love of travel that was always pointing somewhere
For eleven years Katy taught in Qatar, spending every school holiday travelling the world on her own terms. She was not the kind of traveller who books a resort and stays put for a week. She would choose a country and travel the whole of it, going deep into a destination rather than simply passing through. Over time she became the person her friends and family turned to whenever they needed advice on planning a trip, and she found herself enjoying that just as much as the travel itself. That love of exploration only grew when she met Dean three years ago in Nepal, where they discovered they shared exactly the same passion. Dean moved out to Qatar for Katy’s final year before they returned to the UK together, bringing a combined obsession with travel and a very obvious idea for what to do next.
“We’ve done lots of travel planning and booking for our friends as well. We think we’ve got quite experienced and pretty good at it. We decided to try and do it as a full time job.” Katy
When they moved back to the UK last summer, the question of what to do next had a fairly obvious answer. They had the passion, they had the knowledge accumulated over years of serious travel and they had already been informally doing the work of travel consultants for the people around them. What they needed was the right structure to turn all of that into a proper business.
They looked at several franchise options before settling on The Travel Franchise, and the decision came down to one clear reason. The model worked for where they were right now and where they wanted to be in the future. Both of them are still in full time employment, Katy supply teaching and Dean working as an electrician, so the ability to build part time before eventually transitioning to full time was not a nice-to-have. It was the whole point. When they spoke to Paul and heard how the Elite package was designed to support exactly that kind of journey, the decision became straightforward
“It just made sense because we knew before we joined that we definitely wanted to have our own business and to be in the travel industry,” Katy explains. “The Elite package just suited us a lot more in terms of where we want to be now and in the future.”
Building momentum before the business even launched
One of the most impressive things about Katy and Dean’s start is that they did not wait for training to finish before they began building their client base. Before they had even completed their five-day induction, they were already having conversations with friends and family, telling people what they were about to do and planting the seeds of future bookings. By the time they qualified, several people were already ready to book with them straight away.
Their social media played a significant role in this. Years of travel photographs, beautiful destinations and genuine adventures had quietly built a level of credibility that no marketing campaign could replicate overnight. When they announced the business on Facebook, the response was overwhelming. Friends and family flooded the comments with enthusiasm and something more valuable than enthusiasm, trust. People who had watched them travel for years felt entirely confident handing their holiday plans over to them.
“Most of the comments said, I couldn’t think of two better people to do this. You’re always on holidays, you’ve always got lovely pictures. The response from all our friends and family was just massively overwhelming and we’re so grateful for them.” – Katy
That combination of early preparation and authentic credibility helped them reach Bronze status remarkably quickly and secure over £25,500 worth of bookings in their first few weeks, results that would be impressive from anyone, let alone two people building entirely around full time jobs in their evenings and at weekends.
The reality of building a business around a full time job
Katy and Dean are candid about the fact that they are currently building their travel business entirely in their evenings and at weekends, fitting it around two full time jobs and the demands of everyday life. For many people the idea of taking on a second commitment on top of a full working week would feel exhausting. Katy and Dean describe it entirely differently.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re coming home and doing a second job because we just enjoy doing it. We tend to go to countries and travel around the whole country rather than just go to one place, so we’re planning holidays for ourselves anyway and really enjoying it.” Katy says.
And that, more than any statistic or business case, captures something essential about why travel works so well as a franchise opportunity for the right person. When the work genuinely excites you, when the subject matter is something you would be reading about and talking about anyway, it stops feeling like effort and starts feeling like progress.
Their long term plan is clear. In a few years they see themselves both stepping down to part time work before eventually moving into the travel business full time. They are not rushing that transition. They are building the business properly, growing their client base sustainably and letting the results accumulate until the business is strong enough to make the leap on their own terms rather than anyone else’s.
What the right support actually looks like
Before they joined, Katy and Dean shared the same concern that almost every new franchisee has. Whether they would be competitive enough, whether they would know how to find customers and whether the business would actually work for people coming in without a professional travel background. Training went a significant way towards answering those questions.
“The training really boosted our confidence,” Katy says. “When we were being shown how to use all the systems we found it very easy and it just gave us a bit of a confidence boost.”
Beyond the initial training, their business consultant Paula has been a genuine and consistent presence in their journey. They have weekly meetings which Katy describes as one of the most useful parts of the whole experience, not simply as a space to troubleshoot problems but as a structured moment to reflect on the week that has just passed, review what they have booked, discuss the conversations they have had with clients and set goals for the week ahead. Paula is also available on WhatsApp between meetings for anything that cannot wait, whether that is advice on a specific client situation or guidance on a supplier they want to explore.
“It’s kind of like a reflection for us to look back on the week we’ve just had and think about what we can do going forward,” Katy explains. “Setting goals between ourselves and with Paula. Those meetings have been really handy.”
That kind of consistent, personalised support is what separates The Travel Franchise from the experience of starting a business alone. Katy and Dean are not figuring things out in isolation. They have a dedicated business consultant who knows their goals, understands their situation and is as invested in their progress as they are.
What their story means for you
Katy and Dean aren’t travel industry professionals. They are two people who love travel, who moved back to the UK with a clear idea of what they wanted to build and had the good sense to find a model with the right support behind them. The results they have produced in just a few months are a straightforward illustration of what this business is really about. Not having the right background or the right contacts before you start, but having a genuine passion for travel, a willingness to follow a proven model and the drive to build something that, over time, gives you the freedom to live life on your own terms.
“We’ve been really enjoying it. It really doesn’t feel like work.”
If you have been wondering whether someone in your situation could do what Katy and Dean are doing, the honest answer is that the only meaningful difference between you and where they were a few months ago is that they decided to start.
