Member Article

North West entrepreneurial duo launch World War 1 and 2 battlefield tour company

North West entrepreneurs Gareth Abbott and Nicholas Walmsley have this month launched Esprit Tour Services delivering personal battlefield tour packages to World War One and World War Two sites across Western Europe and helping former military personnel into work after receiving a loan from BFS Start Up Now.

The BFS Start Up Now is the North West arm of the government’s national £150m Start Up Loans programme that is delivered by Business Finance Solutions (BFS).

The Manchester and Knowsley based company is employing a growing number of ex-military personnel as their battlefield tour guides in an attempt to help reduce the number of unemployed ex-military personnel.

Nicholas, age 22 from Greater Manchester and Gareth, age 22 from Liverpool already employ five people and have plans to increase that figure as the business develops.

Esprit is currently working with the Royal British Legion in Manchester and Liverpool to provide the company with potential guides.

Esprit Tour Services cover many of the most poignant battlefields of the 20th century from the Somme and Ypres to sites in Normandy and Berlin.

Gareth said: “During the remaining three years of the centenary of the First World War, it has never been more important to ensure that the sacrifice given by so many is never forgotten, and people continue to remember these historical events.

“The Start Up Now loan has enabled us to develop the business much faster and to employ more ex - military personnel to run the tour packages.

“We have also been able to develop other services such as Esprit in the Community CIC and develop our work with underprivileged groups.

“We will be continuing to use our tour packages as a real force for good as the business grows.”

Director of Business Finance Solutions, Paul Breen, said: “In Esprit Tour Services, Gareth and Nicholas have developed a business that offers a hugely valuable service – to the clients they are working with, to the ex-military personnel who are securing jobs and to the community groups which are able to benefit so much from the battlefield tour experience.

“Start Up Now is working with many innovative, hard-working and community minded new businesses just like Esprit Tour Services, with loans and on-going business development support that will ensure that they have a great future ahead of them.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .