Name: Roger Blake

Business name: Liberty Travel

Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9am until midday

When did you open your business and why?

We OPENED the business on January 7, 1995, so this is our 25th year – but unfortunately there has not been a lot of celebrating going on for us.

I worked for another company in Oswestry previous to that, and so I decided eventually to do it for myself.

It’s something I have always enjoyed and has been successful up until this year – it has obviously changed dramatically over the past year because of the pandemic. But the past 25 years have been very good.

Why in this location?

I WORKED for other travel agencies in Ruthin, Wrexham and Oswestry and I really liked the town here. I like the mix of business here – the industrial estate provides a good base for business travel and in terms of holidays, the whole spectrum of customers differs a lot.

Tell us about your business

I SUPPOSE we’ve never specialised in any particular area – we offer every aspect of travel, whether that be business, adventure, travelling or cruises.

You tend to find some years that certain sectors will suffer, but then other sectors will do really well. I think the theory from the beginning was not to put all of our eggs in one basket and offer as much as we can.

But to be able to do that, we needed staff with a lot of experience and that’s something we’ve always had – we have six of us here who have worked in travel for a long time, so we can all turn our hand to anything.

We’re the only truly independent agent, other than Owen’s Coaches, that doesn’t belong to another major group.

We are part of ABTA so we can offer any holidays which are suited to our customers.

Up until this year, cruises seemed to be the fastest growing sector. This isn’t just the big cruises, but also some smaller ones which go to some interesting destinations.

I think people are cautious to book for the rest of the year because of various countries being shutdown. But next year looks very good because people have moved their plans to next year instead. We all have our fingers crossed next year will be a good one.

We would like to say thank you to all our loyal customers. We have had the best support and nothing but praise for the way refunds and amendments have been handled during the pandemic.

What is your proudest moment?

I’d SAY making it to 25 years in business. Even though we haven’t been able to celebrate as we would have liked to, it is still a great achievement.

Any strange requests?

We HAVE had people asking about car hire when they’re heading to Venice which is quite amusing. We get people wanting to travel to plenty of different places, like to the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific ocean – they are the most remote islands in the world.