Trailfinders Travel Centre
Award-winning national tour operators, Trailfinders, appointed the interior architectural design consultancy Lustedgreen to create a fresh new look for their Kensington travel centre.
The newly refurbished travel centre sits on Kensington High Street, across from its sister Premium and Cruise travel centre. The two sites are flagships in terms of their interior design and the recent refurbishment work fell in line with a reorganisation of the product offers at both centres.
The new store has become their worldwide travel centre encompassing all travel needs from bespoke travelling to many specialist travel needs such as cycling holidays. Working with the main contractors, Daw Green Contracts, Trailfinders began planning the project at the beginning of the year and work was completed in mid-July. “The duration of the project was only five weeks and whilst the shop was closed, access was still required to the Travel Clinic and Visa departments, and general office downstairs throughout,” said Graeme Lusted, Partner at Lustedgreen.
The interior design company have been working with Trailfinders since 2001 and have designed most of the stores around the country, from Aberdeen down through to Exeter.
“As a Flag ship we’ve evolved their brand environment whilst retaining key elements from other stores,” added Graeme.
The site itself has a double shop front width, allowing the layout to be changed completely to create a more comfortable customer experience. The centre’s 20 client-facing desks have been re-designed to enhance the individual customer service Trailfinders prides itself on.
The new rounded and Corian-topped desks are surrounded by a curved timber slatted screen to create a sense of privacy and personal space. Each desk has a client-facing monitor to allow relevant images and videos to be shown. The travel centre functions as a retail and office space with the two areas visually separated by a large, back-lit image of an idyllic destination which is the centre’s focal point, highly visible from the busy street outside.
Throughout the design, Lustedgreen used washed oak to provide muted warmth in order to create the more welcoming atmosphere. The interior of the store now has a brighter and more welcoming atmosphere with a neutral palette colour scheme. “By taking a slightly more neutral route, it allowed the wall graphics around the perimeter, which are chosen to depict the different areas Trailfinders specialise in, to stand out,” Graeme added, “we wanted to create a degree of calm authority and professionalism to the interior,” That reflects Trailfinders’ award-winning service.
Alternating with the wall graphics are 55 inch LCD monitors that features the company’s range of specialist holidays and services.
One of the main challenges of the project was to make the store stand out when compared to other travel agencies. “With a lot their competitors within a few doors of Trailfinders, the challenge was to create something which was within the corporate guidelines of Trailfinders but make it stand out and this is something we’ve achieved.”
