Our story

Blue Cube Travel was started in 2003 by Mel Phaure, Kenny Stirling and Neil Fraser. All three had worked together for several years for a TMC in central London, this was the era of travel management that was decadent, where client meetings often meant long nights out, (if you are young and have aspirations to see the world Business Travel is a great place to be working in!) Mel, Kenny and Neil loved the client-focused agency, their friendship was forged there and they never planned to leave.

But sadly, all good things come to an end, the owner became terminally ill and finally, the company was sold to a much larger TMC. Mel, Kenny and Neil missed the unique atmosphere in which the company had flourished and after several long conversations and a little wine, plucked up the courage to do it themselves. The next day, they remortgaged their homes and Blue Cube Travel Ltd. transformed from an idea into an entity.

Our name

Definitely, without hesitation, this is the question we get asked the most! We’d love to come up with something really inspirational for you here but our memories of the night in question are a little hazy (wine played a key factor in the early days), so we shall be honest, as we always are and tell you what we remember!

We knew we wanted something different, but we didn’t know what! Conversations turned to imagine what the world would look like devoid of blue (I mean, a natural transgression in conversation, right?) – no blue sea, no blue sky, no blue anything. We decided that the world definitely needed “blue” and that the 3 of us representing the different areas of the business would naturally be a triangle? ah no, of course, wine logic – a “cube”. (I mean Blue Triangle doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?). Blue Cube. It worked and it stuck. These days we answer to Blue Cube, #TeamBC or BCT – but really we don’t mind what you call us, as long as you say nice things!

Our beginning

We started life in a dingy basement in West Kensington, focussing more on the post-code and less on the building. It was too small for the 3 of them, so Neil had his desk in the corridor – a great way to meet other businesses in the building, as we later discovered! The office was prone to flooding, but we didn’t care, it was the start of something exciting and we were so keen, we just wore flip-flops!

Back then travel still required printed tickets, we’d dive around London getting them to our clients, even flying ourselves to get their paperwork or meeting them airside with their spare passport. The aim was to make ourselves indispensable, nothing was too much trouble. We were not a travel booking service, we were a concierge travel management service. Our clients loved it, most of our earliest clients are still our clients today and that initial belief that we are here solely to assist our clients still flows through our veins.

Accra

The decision was not only to support Felix, but we also have a lot of experience in Sub-saharan African travel so this allowed us to expand our operation and support those clients locally. It’s not always been easy, but we now have a small team that supports our own network (BCTN) and partners with Lufthansa City Centre International (LCCI). We are proud to be Blue Cube Ghana.

Present day

Blue Cube now employees 43 staff, housed across four sustainable (and beautiful) offices, allowing us to offer our staff of today a relaxed, spacious and invigorating environment. That said, we are also adaptable and we are currently working remotely which (with humble thanks to our incredible Kevin Trill and his team) has been tried and tested as part of our disaster recovery plan.

Sometimes described as disruptors, we prefer to think that we are inspiring a much-needed change within our industry. One that puts clients at the forefront of everything and sets a new standard in corporate travel management. Come join our revolution! Viva Blue Cube!