Bridge The World

Bridge the World Travel launch and early days…

Bridge the World are specialists in holidays to Australia, New Zealand and various parts of Asia but in the early days they sold ‘bucket-shop style’ flight tickets at vastly reduced rates to what airlines could offer. Bridge the World, was founded in 1988 by Jerry Bridge and Brian Barton after both had learned ‘the ropes of long haul travel’ at Trailfinders Travel Centre in London’s Earls Court road or ‘Kangaroo Valley’ as it was famously known back in the mid 1980’s…Having handed in our notice at Trailfinders, we were asked to leave immediately! The old antique shop in Camden Town needed painting and phones had to be purchased along with desks and chairs but apart from that it was relatively straight forward.

It was an incredibly challenging period says Jerry, “if Trailfinders can do it, we can do it even better”. Coming up with the name of the company was challenging too… Bridge…erm…bridge…bridge and…world bridges…bridge of the world…bridge the world…yes ‘Bridge the World’ – that’s the one we thought sounded the best.

During the early days there was no internet, itineraries were hand written and we didn’t even need to be members of ABTA let alone have an ATOL/CAA license. Bridge the World was established with relatively little start-up capital – all that was needed was the odd well placed advert in the National Press and TNT, a freeby Ozzie magazine and the phones began ringing!

We began by specialising in discounted airfares to Australia and New Zealand and especially became well known for ‘Round the World’ itineraries.

Bridge the World at the end of year one – what a great team…	I would love to be able to say ‘you haven’t changed!’ Anyway, here we are, a year after the launch of Bridge the World…cool, calm & collected….but of course!	Brian, Bruce & Bridge….taking a break for an official photo shoot!
Dave & Cookie..fellow kiwi’s I met in Burma, who came to the UK, crashed on our floor and ended up working for me at various stages…great guys who I still see in NZ….nice T-shirt Cookie!	Florence’s christening – Bruce and I sleeping it off in Jude’s Norfolk garden, well we were working 7 days a week at the time!	The lovely Tanya with baby Florence Bridge – our lucky mascot…born the same year we started up – 1989

…and so the post cards began flowing in…thank you to all our happy clients (no emails in those days)	Lizzie Green….Bridge the World’s first booker hands over the cheque – thank you so much!	Looking good after all that hard work and believe it or not we each had 2 phones on our desk we became ‘multi-tasking experts’ we were that busy…
Brian, Juliette & I enjoying a glass of bubbles to officially open the office for business – February 1989	Early days at Bridge the World and yes, the old antique shop was the perfect size, even though my mother (Mrs. Alma Bridge) commented ‘it’s a bit big isn’t it?!’	Brian and I agree to take on the likes of Trailfinders, we are confident we will succeed!

Yes, we did wear shirt and ties.  We wanted to look professional even though 99% of our business in the first 5 years was for discounted flights made over the phone.	No, although tempted, we did not open up on Koh Samui…these people (like others I could mention..) obviously liked our name!	The old red book, computerless early days when sales and passenger names and details were hand recorded!!
	London/Delhi/Bangkok overland Singapore/Bali/Perth overland Sydney/Auckland/Tahiti/Los Angeles overland New York/London (Aeroflot, Garuda, AirNZ, Kuwait). Jerry taking a booking before the desks had even arrived!

Today, Bridge the World is owned by STA Travel – worldwide student travel specialists for flights, hotels, hostels & day tours. They are one of our recommended travel companies.