Belfast Briefing: travels agents can still have a healthy glow

It is that time of year when most people start dreaming about warm, sunny beaches or faraway destinations.

But for Sandra Corkin it is a 24-hour, 365-days-of-the-year obsession.

Corkin happily admits that her life revolves around holidays – not that she ever takes much time away from work these days. But she has built a £15 million-a-year business making sure that other people do.

Corkin is the founder and owner of Oasis Travel, one of the North's largest independent travel agents.

Today she is making room, in an already crowded trophy shelf for her latest award – she has just been named the Business Person of the Year in the 2015 Belfast Business Awards.

Four months ago she also walked away with the business person of the year trophy at the Lisburn City Business Awards.

However, according to Corkin, there is “always room for more”.

Corkin maintains that the awards are never won solely by her, and says: “We’ve got a great team at Oasis.”

However, what she does believe is that every award validates that the company “is getting it right” when it comes to their customers.

Support

She set up the Lisburn headquartered business 31 years ago, when she was just barely out of her teens with financial backing and support from her father.

He sadly passed away just a few years later leaving Corkin determined that she would not fail his confidence in her.

“My Dad gave me a really good foundation for the business. He helped and advised me in the early days and he always warned me not to grow the business too fast, and even though I had opportunities to do so I didn’t.

“I’ve always loved travel – I love travelling myself and from day one I’ve always believed in giving honest advice to people.

“I think part of the success of Oasis over the last 30 years is that because the whole team loves travelling we know what we are talking about – we know the destinations we are selling because we’ve been there and seen them for ourselves, and we believe in telling people what’s really good and what isn’t,” she says.

Corkin’s business, which has grown to five branches across the North and an expanding telesales operation, has flourished despite the growth of online holiday sales.

“In one sense the closure of high street travel offices has created opportunities for us in Northern Ireland. I think there is probably a third of retail travel agencies now compared to what there was 10 years ago,” she says.

“We had to be different to survive, we had to offer our customers something extra to stay ahead of the competition and we did that by specialising in high-end holidays and cruises, but also being able to offer detailed product knowledge on everything from family holidays to city breaks.”

Invested

Corkin has invested heavily in her team who she says has “grown up together” – some have worked with her for more than 20 years.

“I do believe that a happy staff equals happy customers. This is a service industry, people are coming to us to book holidays – they want happy, well-informed, well-travelled people helping them.

“People are spending their money with us and we want to be sure that they are going to have the best experience possible, that’s why even when they are on holiday we are always at the end of phone wherever in the world they are. I think that is why we have so many regular clients that keep coming back to us,” Corkin says.

The majority of her business is firmly in the leisure sector – although she does also operate in the business market too providing corporate travel services.

Because Oasis holds a tour operators licence the company is able to purchase wholesale cruise and airline deals and create personalised holidays.

Corkin believes this is a potential growth area for the business – particularly when it comes to attracting customers from outside of Northern Ireland. She already has what she describes as “very good” customer base in England.

“We’re definitely going to develop our telesales and online business – which will in turn be supported by our retail operations.

“I believe there will always be customers who will want the personal touch, the face-to-face reassurance, so that’s why both are important to me.”

Turbulent years

Although the North’s economy has been through some pretty turbulent years recently Corkin says in her experience it has not restricted her customers’ desire to fly off on holidays – in fact if anything her business is continuing to grow year on year.

“I feel that in Northern Ireland holidays are a big priority – people don’t see a holiday as a luxury, they see it as a necessity. Perhaps it has something to do with our weather,” she says.