{"id":17653,"date":"2023-02-10T18:00:39","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=17653"},"modified":"2023-02-10T13:35:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:35:23","slug":"from-raf-helicopter-training-with-prince-william-to-planning-holidays-on-the-go-why-i-love-my-new-job-as-a-travel-consultant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/from-raf-helicopter-training-with-prince-william-to-planning-holidays-on-the-go-why-i-love-my-new-job-as-a-travel-consultant\/","title":{"rendered":"From RAF helicopter training with Prince William to planning holidays on-the-go\u2026. Why I love my new job as a travel consultant"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Want to travel and have the flexibility to work at the same time, wherever you are in the world?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the biggest reasons why former RAF crewman, Chris, loves his new job as a travel consultant.<\/p>\n

As his partner lives in Berlin, he divides his time between the UK and Germany, while also satisfying his wanderlust by globetrotting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to over 103 countries and running out of new places to visit,\u201d jokes Chris, who has a passion for off-grid adventure travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t many places on the planet that I haven\u2019t been to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flexibility of the job is a huge factor for me,\u201d he adds, explaining that joining The Travel Franchise on our most affordable Lite option enabled him to change career, even though he had never worked in the travel industry before.<\/p>\n

Chris, who served in the Air Force for over 12 years as a helicopter crewman after training alongside Prince William, has had a colourful life flying in the back of Chinook helicopters.<\/p>\n

With a sobering perspective on life, he made the most of every period of time off during his military career to travel.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s no surprise that he has had a few tales to tell about his offbeat travel explorations and how to get out of tricky situations \u2013 a skill that should put any globetrotting customer at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to pay a fisherman to smuggle me off an island off the east coast of Africa when flights were grounded\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also driven a .9 litre car from the UK to Mongolia with a cuddly toy elephant on the roof (a nod to his squadron\u2019s emblem),\u201d he says nonchalantly.<\/p>\n

Although the holidays he organises for clients tend to be less intrepid, he loves curating trips rather than using off-the-shelf solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe standard sunny higher-end holidays are inspirational and easy, but I like the challenge of putting something a little more complex together,\u201d says Chris, who has a passion for Africa and safaris.<\/p>\n

One of his recent \u00a320k bookings was for a two-centre safari in Tanzania followed by a beach break in the Maldives. Although there are no direct flights between the two, Chris found a solution.<\/p>\n

Chris also knows New Zealand well having worked there alongside the country\u2019s air force (the picture of him wearing a Union Jack dress was taken when he left).<\/p>\n

For Chris, bookings really began to take off when he began working full time and upgraded to our Elite package.<\/p>\n

Increasing his presence on social media has helped grow business, as has networking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met one client at an event in London. She wanted to get married in Jamaica and sent all her guests to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has also begun to sell cruise after he attended NJT\u2019s Seminar at Sea, a week-long cruise onboard NCL Prima with workshops on how to sell cruise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve travelled the world but I had never been on a cruise ship. It was a great opportunity, I loved it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI created a low-cost advert on Facebook and got my first cruise booking.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does Chris plan in the future?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy with the increase in sales \u2013 I\u2019ve seen my business grow 300% year-on-year from January 2022 to January 2023 \u2013 and want to plan more creative trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually I might become an adventure tour operator and become one of NJT\u2019s suppliers creating the trips I want to do myself. I\u2019d also love to live in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Chris could\u2026<\/p>\n

As the boss of his business he can choose his own hours and work anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

A dream combination and far less stressful than flying around in Chinooks.<\/p>\n

Want to change careers and travel the world? Take 10 minutes to discover how. Watch our video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to travel and have the flexibility to work at the same time, wherever you are in the world? That\u2019s one of the biggest reasons why former RAF crewman, Chris, loves his new job as a travel consultant. As his partner lives in Berlin, he divides his time between the UK and Germany, while also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1490,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-travel-franchise","category-leisure-franchises"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Angel-Falls-Venezuela.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}