How Kelly Sunshine Travel Grew Into Their Success

When it comes to running your travel business, there are a variety of ways that you can grow. We’ve discussed members who start slow and build up to a full-time committment, and businesses who dive straight into the deep end. Kelly Tracey and Kelly Sunshine Travel are a fantastic example of a travel business with a more steady journey that grew into the great success you see today.

Who Are Kelly Sunshine Travel and Kelly Tracey?

“My journey into travel started in June 2023, when I registered with InteleTravel as an independent homeworking agent under my own name, Kelly Tracey,” Kelly said. “Kelly Sunshine Travel came a little later as the business found its identity and I joined PTS in December 2024. The funny thing is, I never actually planned to become a travel agent – that story starts with singing and Sunshine Mondays!”

Kelly Sunshine Travel is an independent, home-based travel agency. They arrange all types of holidays, but Kelly has developed a particular passion for cruising, group holidays, solo travellers, and clients with additional mobility or accessibility needs.

Many of their clients are over 70, although they look after families and younger travellers too. They now have five homeworkers operating their own businesses under Kelly Sunshine Travel as their host agency. What matters most to Kelly and the team is that clients feel looked after by a real person, not processed as a booking number.

Does Kelly Sunshine Travel Plan to Grow?

“I’d love to grow, but carefully,” Kelly said. “For our first eight months, three of us worked together to build the kind of homeworking business we’d have wanted to join, learning from the frustrations and barriers we’d encountered ourselves. We now have five homeworkers, each with their own strengths and niches.

“My priority is finding excellent specialist suppliers that fit those needs and building proper relationships with them, rather than having an enormous supplier list for the sake of it. I’m selective about who joins us, too. I want to preserve that old-fashioned travel agency relationship in a modern homeworking business: personal conversations, real interest and clients who remember how well they were treated.”

How Did Their Journey With PTS Begin?

“I first heard properly about PTS through Grant Lawson, whom I met at a travel trade event around a year before joining,” Kelly explained. “Anyone who’s met Grant knows he could probably sell snow to the Eskimos! Joking aside, he was patient and knowledgeable. I’d ask questions, disappear for a few months, then come back with more, and he’d always make time. He understood why leaving a large consortium was difficult when I still needed to look after existing clients.”

Kelly wasn’t originally looking for exactly what PTS offers. She was certain she would join another consortium with a little more freedom, but similar support. She had outgrown the consortium she started with after an “affordable introduction” to running her business and needed to expand. “I wanted to choose my own suppliers, build bespoke itineraries, manage commission, and develop Kelly Sunshine Travel in my own way, while still having a reliable payment system and support behind me.”

That is what ultimately lead her to speaking to Grant and becoming a member of PTS.

Where Did PTS Provide The Most Support to Kelly?

“My biggest challenge was restriction. Previously I had to use an approved supplier list and fixed commission levels. Clients sometimes found a comparable holiday online at a lower price, and although they wanted my personal service, I couldn’t adjust the commission to make the price work.

“I didn’t want to move from one restrictive model into another with a different name. I wanted the room to run a genuinely independent agency.

“With PTS I can select the right supplier, adjust my commission where appropriate, combine different elements of a trip, and sometimes include extras such as airport parking or fast track as a gift from us. I couldn’t do this before. It means I can be more flexible without losing sight of providing a proper service.

“I give my homeworkers that same freedom. My one rule is that every booking must cover the relevant fees and costs and make commercial sense for both the agent and the agency. I want them to build successful businesses without feeling stifled.”

Where is Kelly Sunshine Travel Now?

“Since moving to PTS, I’ve been able to retain bookings that might previously have been lost because I couldn’t make the commercial side work,” Kelly said. “We’ve grown our team, developed our own identity and expanded our cruise and group business. I’m proud of our repeat clients and recommendations, but I don’t judge success only by booking numbers. I want people to feel that their holiday is as important to us as it is to them.”

As she mentioned earlier, Kelly didn’t originally intend to be a travel agent, let alone own a consortium. “The reason I became a travel agent is probably the most important part of my story,” Kelly said. “I was a professional singer for over 25 years. In 2019 I launched Bring Me Sunshine, singing in care homes and palliative-care settings. Then COVID arrived, so I took the music outside into gardens and car parks. I got to know residents’ families and carers, too – sometimes I’d sing for an hour and spend another hour chatting through my car window. Those friendships grew into ‘Sunshine Mondays’ were we meet every week now on Monday afternoons. We started with about seven people and now have around 60 members, with roughly 45 attending regularly each week.

“One afternoon people started talking about how much they missed travelling. Some were alone, some had mobility needs, and some simply felt too old. I thought, ‘Why shouldn’t they travel?’ I tried to find an agent to help us as a group and struggled to find anyone willing to take it on. Then I kept seeing adverts for homeworking travel agents. It cost around £150 to try, so I thought, ‘What have I got to lose?’ I couldn’t find a travel agent for the group, so I accidentally became one myself!

“That purpose has never changed. One of my lady clients is in her seventies, whose husband couldn’t travel,  and wanted to see her son and grandchildren in Tokyo after years apart. We helped arrange airport assistance and support so she could make that journey alone. Seeing her enjoy those two weeks with family wasn’t just a booking – it was a privilege. To me, Bring Me Sunshine, Sunshine Mondays, and Kelly Sunshine Travel are all about helping people feel connected and making memories. Getting older or needing extra help shouldn’t automatically make the world smaller. And if I can persuade someone to try a cruise along the way, even better!”