How this family tour operator has navigated turbulence over two generations

Ian Duffy and Patricia Sexton launched Royal Irish Tours in 2001 from Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, because the immigrant couple from Ireland saw that Canadians wanted to book travel to the Emerald Isle with people who knew the country firsthand.

As Ian, 68, and Patricia, 65, eye retiring from the specialist tour operator 25 years later, their four children are each involved in the business. But with rising fuel costs, shifting booking habits and global disruptions reshaping today’s travel industry, the family is navigating a generational handoff in a more expensive and unpredictable market.

RIT books more than 10,000 travellers a year for trips across Ireland and the United Kingdom. It has annual revenue of more than $25-million, about 30 employees and offices in Ontario and Dublin. After years of operating with an informal division of labour, the company is turning the family-run, all-hands-on-deck business into a more structured operation.

“We started off with everybody doing everything and we still carry that mentality,” says the founders’ son Conor Duffy, 39, who as vice-president helps lead strategy and operations. “But we’re a growing company. We’re in the process of establishing clearer roles.”

The shift is part of preparing RIT to gradually operate with less daily involvement from its founders, even as the industry is increasingly influenced by international uncertainty, higher costs and travellers with less patience for delays and service gaps. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic brought global travel to a near standstill, while rising fuel prices and broader economic pressures are now affecting airfares and guest expectations.

RIT’s longstanding habit of putting money aside in strong years helps it weather the recurrent turbulence that is intrinsic to the industry, says Ian, who immigrated to Canada in 1988 with his family. During the pandemic, for instance, the company was able to keep all its staff. “We always have a buffer there to prepare us for stuff like this because some new problem always comes up,” he explains.

Wayne W. Smith, a professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University Ted Rogers school of hospitality and tourism management, says tour operators such as RIT have regained relevance in recent years as travel has become more unpredictable.

“People are realizing that if your flight gets cancelled and you booked it yourself on [a website such as] Expedia, you could be on the phone to who knows who for who knows how long to get a solution,” Dr. Smith says. “Whereas with a smaller business, you create relationships and you know you’re going to get a different level of service. In an uncertain world, that’s very helpful.”

Ian says that he and Patricia originally saw room for a Canadian company that could sell Ireland with deeper knowledge than larger operators that offered trips to destinations around the world. “When we launched our first brochure, it was literally the only brochure in all of Canada just focusing on Ireland,” he says.

Expanding into Scotland in 2005 because of customer demand felt natural, he adds, given its cultural and geographic ties to Ireland. RIT added England and Wales in 2008, further expanding its reach without moving away from its specialist focus.

In the early years, Conor and his siblings Sinead, Ronan and Lorcan helped with everything from stuffing envelopes to filing paperwork and delivering mail while their parents worked through weekends building the company.

Though there was never an expectation that the enterprise would become a career, the siblings drifted in gradually after years of informal exposure. “It was never really an intentional thing,” says Sinead, 31, now reservations and operations manager. “Our parents never said, ‘This is the role for you or the path for you.’”

Conor worked part-time at RIT while studying general arts at York University. “The more time I spent around it, I started to understand it more,” he says. “It made me want to be a part of it.”

Of the siblings, only Lorcan, 36, works outside the family business, as a chartered professional accountant, but he supports RIT as a contract accountant.

A major transition came in 2016, when Ronan, now 34, moved to Ireland to establish the company’s Dublin office. Until then, RIT would book clients in Canada and then hand them off to a local operator overseas. Having a base in Ireland gave the business more control to manage suppliers, logistics and client issues more directly.

RIT deliberately does not position itself as a bargain provider. “We’re not really trying to compete with the cheapest-priced tour or the cheapest-priced hotel stay that you can get online,” Conor says. “We’re building packages and building a whole experience.”

Maintaining that level of service matters even more as travellers spend more and expect more in return. Patricia says that repeat customers and referrals drive much of the company’s business, about 98 per cent of which is from within Canada.

Despite continued instability across the travel industry, the family says demand has remained high. “Our numbers are still increasing year-on-year, in spite of everything going on in the world,” Ian says.

That pattern is familiar in the travel industry, Sinead adds, where difficult periods are often followed by renewed demand. “Travel is really resilient,” she says. “It always finds its way to get back to being strong again.”

For Ian, the goal was always to build a business that could continue beyond its founders. “All along the idea was for this business to be there for the long-term, for whoever was interested,” he says. “We didn’t set it up to finish it when we reach retirement age.”