Travel Project in the Mornington Peninsula is a family-owned business by Matt and Kadi Coyle. Here, Karryon Luxury chats to Matt about his love of travel and what it takes to run a successful boutique agency in 2024.
There’s a little bit of showman and disruptor in Matt Coyle. It’s easy to envisage him sharing card and magic tricks with passengers at the back of an aeroplane, as he once did during his former years as a flight attendant.
With an entrepreneurial spirit, zest for life, and a love of luxury travel that steers away from the transactional towards the transformational, Matt and his wife Kadi have learned the art of trading in the sweet spot of ‘holiday anticipation’ and, from the very first touch point, making sure to pepper each client interaction with consistent branding, premium service, finesse – and maybe just a touch of magic.
Moving beyond Mount Martha
Matt grew up in Mount Martha on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, which he described as “a sleepy little place.”
Before he reached 18 years of age, he says he was bitten by the travel bug.
“It all started in 1999 when I was in Year 9 on a 10-day school trip to China. I had no idea what I was getting into – all I knew is that I wanted to experience something new. That was my first taste of abroad, and I absolutely loved it. A few years later when all my friends were finishing Year 12, I found myself living in Switzerland on a year’s exchange program, attending a local school and learning German – suddenly my little world of Mount Martha just turned into THE world,” says Coyle.
On returning to Australia, he was firmly focused on his next overseas adventure. Having made friends during the exchange program from Latin America, he decided to head to Mexico in 2004 organising his trip through a Melbourne-based travel agent.
“I booked a flight into Mexico and a flight out of Argentina. I had 12 months to make my way down south. I bought a hammock in Mexico City from a prison, actually, which I was told has the best hammocks, and I just had that and my backpack and I headed south – all before the age of 21,” he said.
The next few years involved travelling, working and saving until one day in his early 20s he saw an advert to work and live in Dubai as a flight attendant with Emirates, a role he held for four years between 2007-2011.
Magic in the skies – and sales
Coyle loved his time as a flight attendant, saying receiving his roster every month was like getting a holiday itinerary.
“It not only exposed me to the world but to working with people from so many different cultures,” he said.
It was during his many long flights when sitting in the galley waiting for call bells that boredom would set in. So he started with one of the free card decks to teach himself card tricks; which then progressed to checking out magic shops around the world to learn different tricks and street magic.
“On board when people would come down to stretch their legs, there I was. I had basically so many people to show and practice on every single time. I really, really got into it.”
Now with four kids (aged between 5 months and 10 years), and when their friends come over, he has a captive audience which has allowed him to practise his craft again.
“To me, magic is about sales. I even link magic in what I do in business. It’s really about being a few steps ahead of everybody and understanding where their mindset is at. I feel like I actually use a lot of the magic in how I create business, and how I operate and sell. It’s not about trickery, it’s just understanding people and human behaviour.”
Launching Travel Project
Matt worked at Air Australia for a while where he met Kadi who would become his wife. He also lived in Brisbane for a time, spending several years working in student flights for Flight Centre Travel Group. In 2016 he relocated to Mornington Peninsula with his young family to launch an Escape Travel store for FCTG in Melbourne.
“I got to the point where I felt for me, the sales side was just too transactional. I was sick of using dollars to sell a holiday instead of just the experiential side. That’s why my wife and I wanted to create something, a space that reflected our vision that travel doesn’t need to be transactional. I wanted to make a space that almost felt like you were on holidays from the moment you walked in…. so Travel Project was born,” he said.
He and Kadi first launched as Melbourne Travel Project in 2019, which fortuitously served them well when travel in and around Melbourne was all that was possible for locals during the pandemic.
They were invited to join the Link Travel Group in June 2023; and a rebrand followed later in 2023 to the current ‘Travel Project’, now based in a retail setting in Mornington Peninsula.
“I was very naive, full of hopes and not knowing what was coming back in 2019. But that constantly innovative mindset that we have and from my previous experience in travel, I really felt that when Covid came through, the rug was pulled from under us – but I realised the floorboards were rotten, so I could rebuild the business. It felt like there was time to build the foundation of something really unique, which is now Travel Project,” he said.
Growing the business
The team at Travel Project is now 17-strong, including Matt and wife Kadi, who heads up marketing.
The retail shop is based in the Mornington Peninsula in a key location; and the Coyles purchased the coffee shop next door.
“That’s really allowed us to tap into the wider community with people coming in every single day, which has been great for us,” says Matt.
Recently, they’ve launched an independent model concept called Roam by Travel Project.
“That’s really growing and it’s my big focus. I feel working in travel, you could work from Rome, Vietnam, Bali or anywhere. We also have two really good, experienced guys: one based in Brisbane, one based in regional Victoria, that are heading up our space in corporate, MICE and retreats. And we’ve got our concierge model and two women working in that space,” he says.
Understanding their product
Working with a business coach even in the early days, Matt says he was challenged to define what their product was. He felt like an imposter as their ‘product’ wasn’t the airline, hotel or tour. He recalls starting to feel a little bit lost and wondered were they just “leeching” off other people’s products.
A key moment came when he realised their product was something “so much bigger and better” and he was able to articulate it.
“You know that feeling that you get the moment it’s the first week of December? It’s not yet Christmas (and whether you like Christmas or not) there’s something in the air… people are talking, things are happening, the concerts are on, the Christmas parties are on? This anticipation and ‘lead up to’ space is our product.”
“While you can’t necessarily transact or put a dollar value on that, you can elevate that space and the lead up moment when people start dreaming and designing their holiday…. that’s the space where we live. The real understanding of what our product actually is has helped move the business forward,” he says.
Travel Project has grown rapidly through word of mouth and referrals.
Matt is always looking for the next best thing in terms of technology and says there’s a lot of dated tech in travel. However, there’s a lot of green shoot opportunities and Travel Project is embracing these to streamline the business.
More than anything, Matt says that their growth is down to the people working in the business.
“The people are the business…and for them to live and breathe that same belief of experiential and not transactional.”
Luxury travel today and running a successful agency
Recently returned from the luxury travel expo PURE in Marrakech, Matt says the luxury travel space is absolutely thriving.
“Not only that, it’s sexy, and it’s just fun. It’s just such a hot industry to be a part of, and you just feel like you’re part of not a dying thing, but just a growing thing,” he says.
Customers are coming to agencies like Travel Project to “showcase the un-googleable”.
He sees that the rise of AI is causing a bit of distrust.
“Bots can create reviews on hotels. So whoever spends the most money on SEO can absolutely just dominate. Why customers are coming to us is to cut through that noise and find the ‘un-googleable’ and products that they didn’t know existed.”
Networking, connecting and getting away from the desk are key for advisors, says Matt.
“You’d be so surprised who you can just meet walking down the street… there’s lots of opportunities everywhere. So just go, speak and get out there….whether it be on the golf course, in the restaurant, in the bars, get your name out there because people buy through people,” he says.
Where to next?
From December this year, Matt, Kadi, their four kids and the family’s cavoodle will hit the road in a caravan to tackle a 12-month driving trip around Australia.
“It might be controversial for some traditional business owners. I’m still going to run the business but I’m also going to grow an independent network this way because I’ll be meeting people remotely who have the exact same mindset as me – which is you’ve got one life to live, your kids only have one childhood, and to get away from the desk,” he says.
“Travel Project will continue its growth because I don’t need to be in an office space to do that. The lead up to this was ensuring that the business is set up and not reliant on me.”
But first, he’s “very, very excited” to be off to the Maldives in November to experience some luxury properties, coinciding with his 40th birthday celebrations.
And as for the absolute top of his bucket list? Antarctica.
For more information, visit travelproject.au
