A north Staffordshire travel business is on a recruitment drive after enjoying its busiest January on record.
Trentham-based Blue Bay Travel reported its best trading day since before the pandemic on January 31, after the government axed testing for vaccinated travellers and scrapped quarantine for the unvaccinated.
January also saw the long-haul travel specialist receive the highest volume of bookings in a month since January 2020, while bookings for the second half of the month – between 16 and 31 January – were the highest Blue Bay Travel has seen in its almost 20-year history.
Now, as part of the company's growth plans – and on the back of the January boom – Blue Bay Travel is recruiting for 10 new positions, including full and part-time personal travel advisors and a full-time customer relations advisor, all of whom can opt to work from the Trentham Lakes office or remotely.
Other roles include a full-time, office-based product assistant and promotions assistant, a part-time office-based finance administrator and a full or part-time administration agent, also based in the office.
Alistair Rowland, chief executive for Blue Bay Travel, said: "The government's overhaul of the Covid-19 testing and quarantine rules in early January was a real game-changer and we've enjoyed a bumper month as a result.
"January was a record-breaking month in terms of website traffic, and we also received the highest volume of online bookings in a month that we've ever had."
Alistair revealed that Blue Bay Travel's most popular destination for bookings right now is the Maldives as customers "treat themselves to barefoot luxury travel and total escapism" after two years of lockdowns and restrictions.
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Mexico, Dubai and the Dominican Republic are also proving popular, particularly because they will accept unvaccinated holiday-makers.
He added: "As a business, we're proud to have been able to retain all our colleagues during the pandemic period and now we are ready to hire more.
"The January boom has accelerated our growth plans and we're actively looking to recruit for a range of positions. We want passionate, energetic and smart people to join our dynamic team this year, as travel makes its well-deserved comeback."
Blue Bay Travel was launched in 2003 by Stuart Wilson, who remains group executive director. Today the company boasts a 120-strong workforce which is led by Alistair Rowland, who joined the company in 2020.