9:46a.m. 14th November 2007

BYOkids travel wins buisness award. Leah Squire with her boys, Joshua (left) and Nathan.

BYOkids, a Tewantin-based travel company that started as a hobby before turning into a business just 12 months ago, was recognised as the best new business in the country at the Australian Small Business Champions awards in Sydney last weekend.

Owner Leah Squire said it had been an astonishing journey, particularly because the venture started virtually by accident.

“We (Leah and husband Paul) were fairly lucky in the property market a few years back. We made a profit on a few blocks of land, and rather than invest it, we decided to go travelling,” Leah said.

“The boys (Joshua 11 and Nathan 10) were at Eumundi Primary at the time (early 2006) and the teacher wanted us to send back information about where we were and what we were doing.”

Leah set up the www.byokids.com.au website and started doing regular blogs on the family’s journey through the South Pacific, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Word quickly spread among parents about the website with the Squires posting articles which included information on free family fun, restaurants with kids entertainment, staying sane on your next road trip ... anything and everything on how to have a great holiday with your kids.

“It was just a hobby really, but in the end we got so many requests we decided we’d better turn it into a business,” Leah said.

“There was just nothing out there with information on kids and travel, so we decided to become a licensed travel agent. We’ve got three full-time travel consultants, plus I work full-time from home and Paul works part-time in the business.

“We’re getting between 1000 and 2000 unique visitors to the website every day. We want to increase that tenfold and double the number of consultants over the next year or so.”

Not only can visitors to the site book their holidays, they can also book rental cars, accommodation ... even buy goods through affiliate companies.

“Affiliate marketing is relatively new. It’s actually being done quite badly in Australia,” Leah said.

The site also offers information, 600 pages of it to date.

That number will be ramped up soon, with the Squires, all four of them, about to head off an another adventure.

“We’re going to Macau, Hong Kong, China, Borneo, Malaysia, Langkowi and Bali ... it’ll take a couple of months all up,” Leah said.