How Love Travel Adventures briskly builds bespoke trips with Wetu

The short version

Love Travel Adventures, an award-winning family-run tour operator in Scotland, cut their itinerary build time from two hours to under 20 minutes by moving from Word and Canva to Wetu. It now uses Wetu's Itinerary Builder and TravelKey for every destination it sells.

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Power Points

• Faster builds: Itineraries that took about two hours in Word now take 15–20 minutes.

• Partner-powered: Their South African ground team builds in Wetu and transfers trips straight across.

• Itineraries that sell: Sample Wetu itineraries for every destination are embedded on their website, so prospects can easily see exactly what they'll get before they enquire.

• Fewer worries: Travellers get every document on their phone through TravelKey, three weeks before departure.

• Fast support: New accommodation is added "within no time whatsoever" when Craig asks.

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A business born when the world ceased travelling

Craig Bones has worked in travel since 1999. Starting his own company had been the plan for years. Then the pandemic hit, the world stopped travelling, and suddenly there was plenty of time and space to build it.

Love Travel Adventures launched with a clear belief that people would travel again, and they'd want something more personal than an off-the-shelf package. Craig and Heather run it as a small family business, and they tailor every trip to the traveller.

That focus extends to where they sell. Clients regularly ask for Thailand or the USA, and Craig says no. "We feel that would dilute what we're really good at," he explains. Instead, they stick to destinations they love (South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand and the Maldives), backed by strong ground teams in each country. It's working: the business has already won two awards for small boutique operators in Scotland and the UK.

What was slowing them down?

In the early days, every itinerary was put together in Word and Canva. The business was new, and Craig hadn't yet found a platform that fitted how he wanted to work.

So that meant a lot of typing, inserting and formatting, over and over again. A single itinerary could take around two hours. For a business that promises a personal, made-to-measure trip every time, that's a lot of hours spent on documents instead of clients.

And the stakes are high. Love Travel Adventures' clients are often booking once-in-a-lifetime trips, like a bucket-list Botswana safari. "They're going to be spending a lot of money," Craig says. The itinerary is the first bit of proof that their money is in good hands.

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What changed with Wetu?

The introduction came through Love Travel Adventures' ground team in South Africa, who already built their itineraries on Wetu. Seeing it in action, Craig decided to use it for every destination he sells, not just South Africa.

That partner connection now does a lot of heavy lifting. Wetu lets one business send an itinerary straight from its Wetu account into another's, where it arrives as a fully editable copy. So, when Craig's South African ground team builds a trip in their own Wetu account, they send it directly to him. Nothing gets retyped. "I've then got the Wetu already established," Craig says, "because they're dealing with the real fine detail for me right from the outset."

From there, Craig tailors it to the individual traveller, finishing with the images that make each document feel like theirs.

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The results?

Two hours down to 20 minutes

The biggest change is speed. "What used to maybe take two hours doing a Word document can now actually take fifteen to 20 minutes maximum," Craig says. Even with final checks, he's done in about half an hour.  

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Clients take notice

Ask Craig how clients react, and the answer comes straight back: "It is the wow factor." Because every trip is bespoke, the Wetu itinerary isn't a template with names swapped in. "It's their itinerary, it's not ours, it's theirs," he says. "We've put it into Wetu to just take it up a whole new level."

Love Travel Adventures has made that part of how it sells, too. Sample Wetu itineraries for each destination now sit on its website, so prospective travellers can see exactly what they'll get before they enquire.

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Peace in their pocket

About three weeks before departure, Craig walks clients through the TravelKey app: log in, check the itinerary, download the documents. "Having all the information on your phone" gives travellers peace of mind, he says. It also gives them a clear chance to spot anything that needs fixing before they fly.  

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Support that answers fast

Selling destinations beyond Africa means Craig sometimes needs new accommodation added to Wetu. "All it needs is dropping them a line, and it's done within no time whatsoever," he says. That speed has changed how he works with the team: "It makes you not afraid to ask those questions, because you know the level of response that you're going to get back."

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Craig's advice to other UK operators

For Craig, a big part of Wetu’s value is that it never stands still. Wetu keeps evolving, using the latest tools to speed up how operators work, and that matters to him. Having spoken with the Wetu team about what’s in the pipeline, he says, “It’s really quite an exciting time.”

Where the great itineraries begin

Spend less time formatting and more time on the trips that win you awards. See how Wetu's Itinerary Builder and TravelKey can do more for your business.  

Book a demo →

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