Move is just the ticket for Sunderland travel specialist

The husband and wife team founded ticketrangers.com last year, to help families afford their dream holidays.

Phil, an IT manager from Boldon and Julie, from Town End Farm, were inspired to launch the business after booking their holiday to Florida in 2015.

Having found it difficult to plan trips in advance, they identified an opportunity to launch a website specialising in the best deals on theme park and attraction tickets.

“We had been to Florida before we had children, but it wasn’t really until we booked up to take our son for the first time that we truly realised how many different websites were out there to buy tickets from and finding the best deal was nigh on impossible,” said Julie.

“Instead of trawling through hundreds of pages for hours on end, we decided to ask for recommendations on a forum for people who frequently holiday in Florida.

“Within days, hundreds of users from across the world had replied and we couldn’t believe how many people had shared similar experiences to ours.

“We created a spreadsheet to collate the recommendations and shared it via Google Drive so that others could view and share it.”

When they returned from Florida, the pair had saved hundreds of pounds and decided to thank those who had helped pull together the spreadsheet and were amazed at the feedback they received.

Julie, who runs the website full-time, said: “We saved hundreds of pounds thanks to many long hours of research ahead of our visit and we knew we had found a real niche with the company.

“Launching a business is always a risk, but Phil and I really felt like this was something that could be of great help to other Florida holiday-makers out there.”

Having initially set up the business from home, the pair quickly outgrew their spare room and knew it wouldn’t be long until they had to open a dedicated office of their own.

Thanks to support from he city council’s business and investment team, the company moved to the Regus Centre at Doxford International Business Park last September.

City council leader Coun Graeme Miller said: “Sunderland’s growing tech sector continues to go from strength-to-strength and Ticketrangers.com is a fine example of this.”