Helen Smith
Quite simply outside of my family, travel is by far the great passion of my life, I have always loved travelling and exploring new destinations, but these days with a touch of luxury thrown in!
The only thing that comes close, is putting together bespoke luxury travel packages for my clients. Most of my career has involved the travel, predominately working in the aerospace business jet industry, which involved extensively travelling the globe on business.
However, this didn’t cure my travelling bug, it only enhanced it, so a few years ago I decided to follow my dreams and open my own Travel Agency, Elite Retreat Luxury Travel. At the time I was living in Florida and launched my business in partnership with a small travel company based there.
Although I was new to this side of the business, the knowledge and impartial advice that I was able to impart through my own extensive travels and holidays soon built up a loyal client-base, who trusted me completely to manage every aspect of their travel requirements.
I’m very happy to report that Elite Retreat Luxury Travel prospered and went from strength to strength. I’m originally from the North of England and have always intended to return home at some stage, but with the business doing so well, there never seemed to be the right time to actually do this. Then of course came the pandemic and put the whole luxury private travel industry on hold. So, having persuaded my husband now was the time to relocate, we moved to Cheshire in 2020.
However, my clients in the US let it be known that they very much wished for me to carry on managing their travel despite now being based in the UK. Thus, Elite Retreat Luxury Travel was reborn and I partnered the business with Colletts as they provide all the support I need for my speciality of passionately creating luxury bespoke travel packages for my clients.
I’m very proud of how quickly the business has been established in the UK, with new clients already entrusting me to arrange every element of their holidays.