Amy spent 15 years in financial services doing work she describes as “as boring as it sounds.” She was based in London but most of her team worked in Leeds, which meant a significant chunk of her life was spent commuting back and forth between the two cities. It was a career she had fallen into straight out of university and one she had never really chosen.
But a cruise holiday to Greece changed everything.
“It was while sailing that I had the epiphany to start a travel business,” she says. “I’m well-travelled myself and people were always asking me for my advice or views on their holidays. It just made sense.”
She joined The Travel Franchise in July 2024 and started building her business alongside her full-time job, and did not quit her corporate career until December 2025. By December 2025, she didn’t need her corporate job any more and became a full time travel business owner.
From side hustle to nearly a million pounds in sales
In her first full year Amy secured just under £1 million in sales. Not as a full-time travel consultant with years of industry experience behind her. As someone who started part time, around a demanding corporate job, while learning the industry from scratch.
This year she has already hit £650,000 in sales and the year is far from over.
How did Amy manage to turn her side hustle into such a success?
Amy hit the ground running from the start, reached out to her existing network, and within her first year had secured a £50,000 Maldives booking from a friend who had remembered what she did and came back ready to book. A £40,000 luxury trip came through a relationship she built with the owner of a Facebook group of 20,000 travel enthusiasts, using The Travel Franchise’s Partners in Travel programme to create an entirely new referral stream for her business.
She also achieved our Money Back Challenge in her first year, securing a full refund of her £14,995 Elite franchise fee.
“I knew I could do it,” she says. “So I backed myself. And I went for it. I’m so glad I did.”
What the business has given her back
Amy is based in rural Kent now, having left London and the commute and corporate world behind and has never been happier.
“I hated asking for permission to have annual leave and having to say no to free trips because I didn’t have enough leave,” she says. “Now I have been on complimentary trips to Mauritius and Turkey, I am looking at a complimentary ski trip, and have been invited back to Mauritius again as a thank you for my many bookings to the island.”
The people around her have noticed the shift too.
“People notice the difference in me. They say I light up when I talk about travel. And they’re right. This doesn’t feel like work. It feels like I’ve finally found what I’m meant to do.”
Amy didn’t have travel industry experience or a sales background when she started. She began part time alongside a full-time job in a completely unrelated field. And she built a business that is now approaching seven figures in annual sales.
What she did have was a genuine passion for travel, a willingness to follow the process, and the discipline to show up consistently even when the early months were tough.
“You don’t need travel experience. You don’t need to know everything. You just need to be willing to show up and follow the process. That’s what I did. And it’s been life-changing.”
If you have been wondering whether this could work for someone like you, Amy’s answer is about as clear as it gets.
