A backpacking trip to Vietnam in 1991 was the turning point in Craig
Burkinshaw’s life.
He was born in Doncaster, where his father was an electrician in the mines,
but at 18 he went to study at the London School of Economics. On graduating
he spent several months travelling around the world with his girlfriend, the
highlight of which was a month in Vietnam.
“Vietnam was just starting to open up,” he said. “There were lots of
restrictions about where you could go, and police permits were needed to go
everywhere, which made it very exciting and interesting.”
When he got back to London, Burkinshaw took a series of temping jobs with the
aim of saving up £2,000 so he could go back to Asia. Before he reached his
goal, though, he decided to try and get back to Vietnam by a different
method. He placed an ad in The Sunday Times travel section offering his
services as a tour guide for free if the people he took with him would be
prepared to split his travel costs.
His ad generated 12 phone calls and from them he managed to get five people
who were willing to take him on as their guide.
The adventurous month-long trip went well and so, as soon as Burkinshaw
returned to London, he placed another ad in The Sunday Times, and then
another. He took four more groups of people to Vietnam, taking temping jobs
in between each one, until he realised he might be able to turn his passion
for independent travel into a business.
He mentioned the idea to his flatmate and fellow LSE graduate, John Brewer,
who agreed to become his partner. So in 1996 the two of them pooled their
savings, with Burkinshaw putting in £2,000 and borrowing £15,000 from his
parents, and Brewer selling his car for £5,000 and borrowing £15,000 from
his mother, giving them £37,000.
They moved to Northampton, so they could live rent-free in the flat above a
post office owned by Brewer’s mother. Burkinshaw said: “We lived in the
attic and set up a little office in the first-floor room.” From the start
they decided that the key to their success would be to create tailor-made
holidays for people who didn’t want to go on group tours.
To get more cash into the business, they decided that Burkinshaw would work on
the venture full time and create the first catalogue, while Brewer would
work full time as an IT contractor, putting all his earnings into the travel
firm, which they called Asian Journeys.
However, they soon found it was hard work drumming up business. Burkinshaw
said: “We didn’t have any client base, any reputation or any brand so we had
to build from absolutely nothing.”
In the end it took five years before the company started to take off. During
that time Burkinshaw and Brewer continued to live in the flat above the post
office while Brewer worked in IT and Burkinshaw tried to grow the business.
He said: “What we thought would happen in two years took five or six years.
John was earning nearly £100,000 a year in IT contracting which he put into
the business. It was absolutely crucial. Without that we would undoubtedly
have failed.”
Eventually the firm turned the corner and when they added new destinations in
Latin America it began to take off. Burkinshaw thinks a lot of it was down
to good timing.
“In the 1980s people started to go to quite adventurous destinations but they
tended to go on group tours,” he said. “In the 1990s people who wanted to go
to places like Vietnam and Peru didn’t want to go with 30 other people. So
we were in the right place at the right time.”
By 2000 they were doing well enough to move into a proper office in
Oxfordshire and, because they were adding on more destinations, they changed
the name of the business to Audley Travel - after a village near their
office.
The company now employs 200 people. In its latest published accounts, for
2006, it had a turnover of £37m. Typical Audley Travel customers are
professional couples in their fifties.
Now 38, Burkinshaw puts the secret of his success down to sheer determination
– and a love of what he is doing. He still goes travelling by himself for
several weeks a year.
He said: “The market I have ended up in isn’t an accident. If I could earn
more money by running some sort of bucket shop I wouldn’t do it because I
would get no satisfaction from the product. I am really interested in
quality.” He has this advice for budding entrepreneurs. “Be prepared for it
to be really hard work. There will be some knocks and it will take longer
than you expect. Make sure your plans are realistic and don’t just run them
by your friends. Find a third party who is prepared to ask tough questions –
even if it is not what you want to hear.
“There is nothing worse than seeing someone just go for it and throw
everything at it when they haven’t really thought it through properly.”
