The history of Macleay Valley Travel
goes back to 1988, when Alan
Davies sold his Nissan car dealership & John Deere &
Kubota
dealership in Kempsey. He started travelling extensively and discovered
that he seemed to have a better idea of putting overseas tours together
than did the professional travel agents.
Being too young to retire, Alan purchased Macleay Valley Travel in
Kempsey. At that time this was a one employee agency. After he
purchased the agency he noticed that the few agencies that were selling
fully conducted overseas tours, were charging exorbitant prices for
these tours - particulary if the tour leader was a "name" from the
fields of sports or politics.
There was clearly an opening in the market for value-for-money
conducted tours and Alan decided to fill this market niche.
The first tour in 1992 had only five tour participants. But since then
the business has rocketed to over 90 tours per year with several
thousand tour participants. For Alan the most pleasing aspect of the
business is that at least 60% of new clients are a direct
result
of recommendations from existing clients.
On the 1st July 2011, Alan's son Bryn took over as
the manager of Macleay Valley Travel. Bryn commenced working at
the travel agency on a part time basis on the 1st July 2005. In
addition to this Bryn was a police officer in the NSW Police Force
for ten years, having worked at Kempsey, Crescent Head and Port
Macquarie. Bryn was also a Private in the Army Reserve, but left these
positions upon taking full time employment with Macleay Valley Travel.
Bryn has a diploma in Tourism and is a Justice of the Peace. He is
married with one son and resides in the Macleay Valley area, where he
was born and raised.
Alan still has a significant role within the business, particulary in
regard to planning new tours.
Today, Macleay Valley Travel has a staff of ten people.
Please
click on this link to view the Awards and
Achievements that Macleay Valley Travel
