About Us

Company History

Lancing Travel was formed on 28th April 1966 by Joseph Langdell. Joe moved to Worthing in the late 1940's after completing his service in the army throughout WW2. With little money, Joe started himself a small greengrocery business travelling to Covent Garden Market each morning and returning to the south coast and delivering to local hotels. This developed throughout the 1950's into a prominent chain of successful fishmongers and greengrocery shops.

In the early 1960's, Joe was offered a franchise with British Rail to sell train tickets. This started out with himself at a single desk in the strand post office Worthing assisted by his daughter Marolyn. At this point his son, Malcolm, took over the operations of the greengrocery business. Joe had a good eye for opportunity, and it was the dawn of the jet set era, with air travel becoming more affordable to the masses. Joe decided to expand and began to sell holidays abroad.

At this time the package holiday we know today was not quite on the market, therefore people who wish to travel abroad would need to manage their own arrangements whilst away. With a vast majority of the population not even having passports, people were understandably sceptical about the prospect of going abroad as a couple or family and not understanding the local area, not speaking the language or being able to contact anybody for help. Joe therefore started offering all in personally escorted tours around the world.

The travel business quickly grew and became a family affair, in the late 1970's Malcolm joined his father Joe and his sister Marolyn in the travel business. This evolved further with the opening of branches in Worthing and Littlehampton.

In the early nineties, Joe decided to consolidate operations to the Lancing office as due to a loyal customer base, retail presence was not required in so many locations and a decision was made to close these stores in order to reduce overheads and pass the savings on to customers. Joes Granddaughter, Cheryl, also joined the business in 1994.

Joe continued doing personally escorted tours right up until his 90th birthday in 2009. He sadly passed away in May 2012 having never retired and still working a 6-day week doing the job he loved.

Cheryl now looks after the business as a 3rd generation of management and works alongside Sue who has worked for Lancing Travel since 1973 taking a career break in 1979 to raise her family and then re-joining the team in 1993. The business has continued to encourage the family links with the 4th generation, being Joe's great grandchildren.