Sykes Holiday Cottages is one of the UK’s largest independent holiday letting agencies; a successful travel business with strong year-over-year growth and ambitious growth plans. Offering more than 17,000 holiday homes across the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, we are immensely proud to say we took over 1 million customers on holiday last year alone.
Founded 27 years ago, Sykes is one of the best-known travel brands in the UK, having won the British Travel Award for Best Large Holiday Cottage Booking Company for seven consecutive years (and counting) and being recognized by the London Stock Exchange Group as one of the “1,000 companies to inspire Europe” amongst an impressive string of industry awards and accolades.
Our story began in the Yorkshire Dales at a small family-run letting agency and has since rapidly expanded into one of the fastest growing technology firms in the North West, now employing over 800 people across the UK and New Zealand, the majority are based at its headquarters in Chester.
We are constantly striving to stay at the top of our market and our amazing success has been underpinned year-on-year by continuous investment in our people, our service and our best in class technology platform. With c.19,000 properties in multiple geographies, Sykes has ambitious plans to continue to grow its worldwide footprint through a highly successful M&A plan and organic growth strategy – setting our sights high aiming to become the number one provider in UK breaks (a pledge we are on track to reach).
Over the past 3 years we have successfully integrated an additional nine regional businesses into the Sykes family, as well as our first international acquisition, welcoming Bachcare in New Zealand in 2019 – a feature that will continue to be a key growth market sparking our international footprint.
Despite our success, our people and culture are what sets us apart from other businesses and has helped us earn our title as one of the Sunday Times’ ‘Best Companies to Work For’ for two years consecutive years. Our unique culture is something we strive to retain and is ingrained heavily in each and every one of our employees from day one of their Sykes journey. One of our strongest areas of focus remains in instilling our five Company Values into every aspect of our business which despite our rapid growth, still stays at the heart of everything we do. By Achieving Together, Communicating Honestly, Growing and Learning, Earning Trust and Driving Innovation and Change, we have been able to remain true to our original ethos set out 27 years ago and ensuring we stay true to our Customers, Owners and Colleagues alike.
We ensure we don’t simply pay lip-service to our Company Values and drive increasing attention into developing our strong company culture. Whether this be through our Cultural Orientations, Personal Development of each of our employees, our impressive list of L&D Workshops and not forgetting the sheer investment into employee satisfaction, our company culture is cemented within our identity and ensures we remain an employer of choice year on year.
