- Our Story
- Travel with Confidence
- Tailor-Made Travel
- How We Work
- The Team
- Terms & Conditions
- Carbon Offsetting
Our Story
Since launching in 2010 Holiday Architects has set out to really listen to our clients – we get to know you, we get to know your travel needs and we design the perfect holiday to match. By operating in this manner, and avoiding the standard off-the-shelf packages offered by many other travel companies, we’ve become one of the fastest-growing and most-trusted tour operators in the UK. Underpinning all of this is the expertise of our team: each committed to servicing their specialist destination, backed up with a dedicated country website packed full of unique hotels, quirky excursions and engaging holiday suggestions. Every one of our team has visited their destination many times (often even lived there), has many years’ experience in the travel industry and is carefully chosen to fit with our friendly and helpful team culture. This means when discussing your travel plans, you’ll have the peace of mind that you’re not only speaking to a genuine expert but a real person who cares about you and your holiday.
We believe we are better than anyone else at listening to your travel aspirations and turning them into perfectly designed holidays, but of course that is not always easy to substantiate, which is why we were extremely proud in 2019 to be named Wanderlust magazine’s ‘Top Tour Operator of the Year’, for the second year running, gaining a 100% satisfaction rating from their readers. Competition at these awards is fierce, so winning brings us a great deal of pleasure and pride as it means we have lots of very happy clients!
Don’t just take our word for it though; you can read more about our clients’ experience of Holiday Architects by visiting our Trustpilot page found here.
Travel with Confidence
It’s undeniable that the travel industry was hit incredibly hard by Covid-19. But, we’re a resilient bunch and are so excited to be back doing what we do best – designing tailor-made holidays for you, our wonderful clients. As we navigate this new normal, we understand that planning a holiday may raise more questions and worries than it has done in the past. And that’s why we’re here and arguably more valuable than ever before. When you pick up the phone and book a holiday with us, you book with the confidence of knowing a real live human is on the end of the phone at all times, ready to help answer any questions or solve any problems that may arise.
To find out more, visit our Travel with Confidence hub here.
Tailor-Made Travel
Tailor-made travel starts with a blank sheet of paper and a conversation with one of our experts, and finishes with a holiday that’s been designed specifically for you. Nothing is set, nothing is off-the-peg, or off limits. You depart when you want, see what you want, stay where you want. It used to be that tailor-made travel was a relatively expensive way to go on holiday, but this isn’t the case any more: and we’ll make sure we stick to whatever budget you give us for the trip.
How We Work
Everything we do is designed specifically for you, and that design process starts with an initial conversation. We like to have that conversation to get to know you and understand the key things you want to get out of the holiday and we find the best way to do that is a friendly chat over the phone (or email if you prefer), where we take the time to really listen to what it is you want from your trip. We’ve travelled to our specialist destination many times, so we’ll also provide plenty of inspiration and ideas that we feel may best suit you. It’s because of our knowledge and experience that we are also able to offer honest advice about a destination, as we’ve most likely stayed in that certain hotel or gone on a particular quirky excursion ourselves; this will ensure you are able to make the right choices for your trip.
Next, your dedicated specialist will carefully design you an itinerary, with a price, and send that to you within 48hrs. This is very much a first draft and we can revise as necessary until we’ve got it exactly right for you. This is where we differ from our competitors as you’re not just going to get a standard itinerary, but something which is designed to your requirements with care. We take huge pride in our clients having the best possible holiday. Upon booking, you can rest easy, as your money is 100% protected either by our ATOL bonding or through our Trust My Travel membership. Things don’t end there though, as our dedicated team is here on the phone and on the ground; to provide you with great service and peace of mind throughout your trip, so you can focus on your next discovery.
The Team
Fenton has clocked up the air miles over the years, having been fortunate enough to spend time travelling around over 80 countries. Most globetrotters of this magnitude would be hard-pressed to name a favourite destination, but Japan is his unequivocal winner.
His current obsession with the Land of the Rising Sun began with a mild fascination of Edo-period history, castles and architecture, odd-flavours of KitKats and frothy matcha tea. It has now reached new heights as he attempts to master the nuances of Japanese grammar, amasses t-shirts adorned with ukiyo-e and sumi-e art, and has even named his cat Kyoto.
Fenton firmly believes that Japan is the most rewarding country to visit, with the kindest and warmest inhabitants, spectacular and diverse scenery, mouthwatering cuisine… and undoubtedly, the most efficient and enjoyable railways on Earth. He will happily spend hours convincing anyone he meets to go there too, and returns year after year to discover exciting new places to shout about.
When he’s not enjoying this wondrous place first-hand, he’s most likely to be found in his native Welsh countryside – though possibly from the comfort of a quiet village pub, cider in hand.
Emma caught the travel travel bug straight out of university and after wandering solo across the world for a decade she came to join us at Holiday Architects to share her expertise! Japan was by far one of her favourite destination to travel through, mostly due to her passionate love of food – she’s a ramen addict through and through!
Emma definitely recommends getting off the tourist trail in Japan, and a lot of the country’s magic lies in the lesser-visited cities and the beautiful countryside, all of which Emma adores. If you’re a hiker (like Emma) then she has plenty of fantastic day trips she can recommend for you to see the lush green paradise that Japan’s not normally known for.
When she’s not globetrotting, Emma can be found at home in the Cotswolds with her Beagle x Collie Lyra, stomping over Britain’s green hills and finding the best local pub lunches around.
Behind the scenes, Fenton and Emma are (ably?) assisted by the two company founders, Damien and Andrew. Both of them had an expat upbringing in the dim and distant past, so it’s almost inevitable they’ve ended up establishing a travel company. Damien is heavily involved in the marketing side of the business, whilst Andrew takes care of day-to-day things, like making the coffee.
Terms & Conditions
Carbon Offsetting
As much as we love it, we’re aware that travel comes at a cost. So, as a company we are committed to doing our bit to create positive change with our trips. That’s why we’ve partnered with carbon measurement and reduction specialists, Path Net Zero, to offset the emissions created by our holidays. Path Net Zero have created a data-backed carbon calculator that allows us to measure the carbon emitted by the trips we design around the world. After a long testing period we’ve calculated the offset cost to be around 1% of a Holiday Architects trip value. As we are 100% tailormade and create every clients’ trip from scratch, it’s impossible to be totally accurate on this, but we’re doing our best!
