Mikey: I’ll bring 1,500 Leaving Cert students on a sun holiday
UCD student aims to corner the market for end-of-school breaks
MOST 18-year-olds would struggle to organise a holiday for a handful of their mates, but budding entrepreneur Mikey Wylde is planning to organise an unforgettable week for around 1,500 Leaving Cert students.
The pitch is simple. Mikey’s claim is: ‘I know how best to spend your Leaving Cert holiday.’
After seeing his friends at school come in with bags full of cash so they could put a deposit down on a Leaving Cert holiday without telling their parents, often using unreliable travel agencies, Mikey, from Killiney, Co. Dublin, thought there had to be a better way of arranging the traditional week away after finishing exams.
Teaming up with online travel agency Click&Go, he has launched LeavingHolidays.ie, a website he hopes will fill a gap in the market to become the dominant platform for teenagers booking their end-of-school break.
He has teamed up with Irish bars at four destinations
Leaving Cert holidays have a reputation for sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and Mikey doesn’t hide the fact that many students will have more than a few drinks in the European sun.
Conscious not to market the holidays as completely alcohol-fuelled, however, he knows that he is marketing to 17year-olds who can’t yet drink and he wants parents on side too, as they’re ultimately paying the bills.
The first-year politics and economics student at University College Dublin started work on the idea at the start of 2017 after his own problems booking a holiday in Kavos, Greece. Pitching to Click&Go founder and CEO Paul Hackett at the start of August, Mikey persuaded the firm to get behind his idea, with the site launching on September 13.
All the funding for the idea has come from the travel company, with Mikey and the firm splitting the cash.
He has done his research. Asking 1,000 recent leavers from across Ireland about their holidays, he’s working out exactly what to offer both before and during the trips.
Mikey plans to develop relationships with companies to give his customers things to do apart from drinking.
He talked about quad-biking and watersports being highlights of his own holiday.
He thinks people will ‘enjoy an hour jet-skiing more than three pints by the pool’ and wants to offer deals on everything that’s worth doing in resorts, whether that is booze cruises or theme parks.
One of Mikey’s ambitions for the company is to become big enough for him to take his girlfriend on business trips to sunny resorts – but Paul told him he’d have to have 2,000 customers before doing that.
Paul and Mikey believe they can get at least 1,000 bookings in the next few months, with 1,500 being a dream scenario.
Average prices are around €700 per person. With 56,000 students doing the Leaving Certificate every year, it’s only a small part of the market, but Mikey is clearly ambitious.
The company has also linked up with an Irish bar in each of its four destinations, Kavos, Salou, Magaluf and Santa Ponsa. These bars will also act as Leaving Holidays’ informal reps in the resorts, said Mikey.