Why GoToBeach
Most travel websites are tech companies that happen to sell holidays. We’re hoteliers who happen to have a website. A small Mediterranean specialist for Turkey, Greece, Malta, Morocco and Egypt — with real product knowledge, personal service, and ATOL-protected flight-inclusive packages.
The short answer
Book with GoToBeach if you want a smaller, more personal Mediterranean holiday specialist rather than a faceless booking engine. We focus only on Turkey, Greece, Malta, Morocco and Egypt — destinations our product team knows directly. You get help choosing the right resort area, hotel, room type, board basis, flights and transfers, with ATOL protection on flight-inclusive packages under licence 11211.
GoToBeach is best for you if…
- You want advice from someone who actually knows the destination.
- You prefer a curated hotel portfolio over thousands of anonymous listings.
- You want flights, hotel and resort transfers arranged together.
- You value ATOL protection on flight-inclusive packages.
- You want personal service before, during and after travel.
The industry we joined doesn’t really exist anymore
Most of our team has been in travel for between fifteen and forty years. We remember when the industry worked differently. When the person you booked your holiday with had personally stood in the hotel you were booking, had eaten in the restaurant, had walked the beach. When recommendations meant something because the person making them had skin in the game.
That industry is still there, in pockets. But the centre of gravity has moved. Most holidays sold in the UK today come through search engines with hotels attached — vast aggregator platforms that list thousands of properties their teams have never visited, run by people who genuinely believe the algorithm knows better than the human.
It often doesn’t.
What you get when you book through these channels is a transaction. The transaction is efficient. The transaction is usually price-competitive. The transaction is also frequently disappointing in ways the headline price doesn’t reveal — transfers stripped out and added at checkout, “standard rooms” that turn out to be garden-view rooms next to the bins, hotels listed under photos taken before the last refurbishment cycle missed its deadline.
At the big operators and the aggregator platforms, you are a number. With us, you are a customer. Our aftersales is one of the strongest things about the business — when you need to reach us during your holiday or after you’ve come home, you do, quickly, and you reach the people who actually know your booking. Not a script. Not a queue. The people who put it together.
We’re trying to remember what the older version of this industry felt like. Not nostalgically. Practically.
“We’re trying to remember what the older version of this industry felt like. Not nostalgically. Practically.”
— Thomas Kaplan, GoToBeachWho we actually are
GoToBeach is the trading name of Caria Holidays Ltd, a UK-registered tour operator holding ATOL licence 11211. ATOL protects flight-inclusive package holidays if your travel company fails. It covers the services listed on your ATOL Certificate. It is not travel insurance and does not cover every possible disruption — but it is the legal protection that gets you home and your money refunded if anything goes wrong on the operator side of a flight-inclusive package.
That’s the legal scaffolding. The interesting bit is the people.
There are six of us on the product side. Three — Thomas, Eleni and Raşit — have spent the bulk of their careers in hotels: managing them, contracting with them, working at hotel-side commercial roles before moving to the operator side. The other three — Özgür, Sharon and Paul — bring complementary depth across contracting, sales-and-marketing, and senior travel industry governance.
We are not a venture-funded startup. We are not a holding company with thirty brands. We are not a call centre. We are a small company doing one thing properly — specialist Mediterranean holidays — for British holidaymakers who want a knowledgeable agent at the other end of the phone.
The team is small enough that you can usually reach the person who handles your destination directly. If you have a Greece question, Eleni will be the one answering. If you’re booking a Turkey hotel, you might end up talking to Özgür, Raşit or Thomas. There is no head office somewhere else. We are the head office.
Five destinations, deliberately
Which destinations does GoToBeach specialise in?
The choice of destinations isn’t accidental.
Every member of our team has spent significant professional time across some combination of Turkey, Greece, Malta, Morocco and Egypt. These are markets we’ve grown up in commercially. We know which hoteliers honour their commitments, which destinations have moved on price, which resort areas have changed character over the past decade and which haven’t.
You will notice the list doesn’t include Spain. Spain is the single largest UK outbound market, and at first glance it might seem strange that a UK travel agent wouldn’t sell it. Here is the answer.
We don’t know Spain. Not the way we know Antalya, not the way we know Crete, not the way Paul knows the dive sites off Sharm El Sheikh. To sell Spain we would either have to learn it from scratch — which would take years before our recommendations could be trusted — or list Spanish hotels we’ve never visited and write copy from press releases. We’re not willing to do either today.
Spain is a beautiful country to take a holiday in, and saying we don’t sell it today doesn’t mean we won’t ever. The day we’ve built the same depth of personal knowledge in Spain that we have in our current destinations — with the right people on the ground, the same level of inspection visits, the same direct relationships with hoteliers — is the day Spain becomes part of the GoToBeach portfolio. We’re not there yet, so we don’t pretend to be.
The same logic applies to every other destination we don’t currently sell — the Caribbean, South-East Asia, American city breaks, long-haul cruise. They might be excellent holidays. They aren’t ours, yet. If that’s what you’re booking today, you will be better served somewhere else, and we will tell you that openly when you call.
The five destinations we do know, we know deeply.
Turkey
Antalya, Belek, Lara, Side, Alanya, Kemer, Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye, Kuşadası, Didim, Dalaman.
Greece
Crete, Rhodes, Kos. Resort coverage including Hersonissos, Chania, Heraklion, Rethymno, Faliraki, Lindos, Kardamena, Mastichari and Tigaki.
Malta & Gozo
Mellieha, St Paul’s Bay, Qawra, Bugibba, Sliema, St Julians, Gzira, Marfa, Victoria.
Morocco
Agadir and Marrakech — beach resort and imperial city.
Egypt
Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh, Marsa Alam, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Nabq Bay, Hadaba, Safaga.
These are the maps in our heads.
The team
Six people on the product side. Each with a specific area of responsibility and a specific area of personal knowledge. These are the people who decide what GoToBeach sells and how.
Twenty-eight years in European travel, with senior roles across some of the largest pan-European tour operators before joining GoToBeach. Thomas inspects Turkey three to four times a year — Antalya, Belek, Lara, Side, Bodrum, Marmaris, Kuşadası — and contributes to Greece, Malta and Morocco product decisions. He writes most of the comparative pieces on this blog. His view on a hotel is the one most of the team defers to.
Born and raised on the island of Crete, Eleni began her travel career as a resort representative in Greece — the role that builds the kind of ground-level knowledge a desk-based product manager cannot replicate. She is responsible for GoToBeach’s entire Greece operation. Every Greek hotel we sell, she has personally selected. Every contract bears her signature.
Thirty years in Turkish tourism, with senior hotel-management roles at properties on the Antalya coast and directorial roles at UK-side tour operators. Raşit knows the Antalya coast the way most people know their own street. A motorcyclist, his weekend rides to coastal towns and inland villages produce the restaurant recommendations that appear on our Turkey content.
Özgür is responsible for the commercial relationship with every Turkish hotel on the GoToBeach portfolio — negotiations, allocations, rate sheets, payment terms, the unglamorous infrastructure that determines whether a holiday actually arrives at the price advertised. Turkey is our largest destination by hotel count, with more than fifty properties under contract, and Özgür is the person who keeps that portfolio working.
More than sixteen years across travel-industry sales and representation. Cert TS, Dip TS, BA Hons. Sharon runs the agent-facing relationships and oversees the marketing function. She is also the person who keeps the rest of us honest about how customers actually encounter the brand — versus how we think they do.
More than forty years in UK travel. Career began as a travel agent in Sheffield, with senior commercial roles at a long sequence of UK tour operators and travel businesses. Currently Finance Director and Vice-Chair of the Education and Training Committee at the Institute of Travel and Tourism (ITT), sits on ABTA’s Membership Committee and serves as Campaign Ambassador for the Family Holiday Association. Paul sits on the GoToBeach board and leads on Egypt and the Red Sea — a destination he knows with particular depth as a lifelong diver. He visits Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh and Marsa Alam multiple times each year.
And beyond the six
The six names above are the product team — the people who select hotels, negotiate contracts and decide what appears on this site. Beyond them, GoToBeach operates with a substantial wider team covering air operations and flight contracting, legal, customer service and the call centre, data entry, IT and technical infrastructure. The names on this page are who decides what we sell. The people behind the booking experience — the ones who answer your questions, secure your seats, process your documents and look after you in resort — extend well beyond them.
How a hotel ends up on this site
There is no algorithm in this part of the business. The process is roughly this.
A hotel ends up on GoToBeach because someone on our team has direct, current commercial knowledge of it — through inspection visits, contracting relationships, or both. For Greece, that’s Eleni. For Turkey, that’s Thomas, Raşit and Özgür between them. For Egypt, Paul. For Morocco and Malta, Thomas leads with contributions from the broader team.
We visit. We stay. We eat in the restaurants, swim in the pools, walk the corridors. We talk to the General Manager about the year ahead, the planned refurbishments, the issues from the prior season. We negotiate the contract on the back of that direct relationship. If the inspection raises concerns we cannot resolve, the hotel doesn’t end up on the website.
This is slow. It is the reason GoToBeach has dozens of hotels per destination, not hundreds. The big aggregator platforms list a hundred Antalya hotels because their teams need to list a hundred Antalya hotels — the model demands volume. We list the Antalya hotels we have current personal knowledge of. We refresh the list as we visit new properties and drop the ones that have slipped.
The same model applies to allocation. We buy direct from properties we have known for years. That gets us rates the aggregators don’t see, last-minute allocation released back to us first, and the ability to actually call the General Manager when a guest has a problem on the ground.
“We list the hotels we have current personal knowledge of. The big aggregator platforms list a hundred because the model demands volume. We list dozens because the model demands honesty.”
— Raşit Eti, GoToBeachWhat is included in a GoToBeach package holiday?
Plain English on what a GoToBeach package includes:
Flights
From your UK departure airport to the destination, on scheduled or charter carriers we have allocation with.
Accommodation
In hotels selected, contracted or reviewed by our product team. Many are inspected personally and updated regularly — where we have recent first-hand notes, we use them in our hotel descriptions. We tell you the room category, the board basis and the view before you pay.
Resort transfers
Included on our package holidays where shown in your booking details, and confirmed before you pay. We don’t hide transfer costs until the final checkout step.
Hold luggage and seat selection
Charged separately by the airline. We show the exact cost at booking, not after.
ATOL protection
Flight-inclusive packages are protected under ATOL licence 11211. You receive an ATOL Certificate that lists exactly what is protected.
Price-match policy
Same hotel, same dates, same room type, same board basis, comparable flights, same baggage and transfer inclusions, same ATOL protection — if you find it cheaper elsewhere before booking, send us the quote and we’ll review it under our price-match policy.
A UK-based team on the phone
During UK office hours. Calls are answered by the team member responsible for your destination, not a script-reading agent.
Deposit structure
£30 per person plus the cost of the flight at the time of booking. Flight prices are dynamic and we secure your seats immediately, so the flight element is paid at booking. The remaining balance — hotel, transfers and any extras — is split into instalments leading up to your departure date.
What you don’t get: hidden costs at checkout, fictional 5pm hotel check-ins, three-day customer service response times.
The content commitment
Every piece of writing on this site is reviewed, edited and approved by our own product team. We don’t publish anonymous mass-produced travel copy, paid hotel placements or unverified press-release descriptions.
If a hotel description on this site sounds enthusiastic, it’s because the person reviewing it had reason to be enthusiastic. If it includes a critical observation, that’s deliberate too. We’d rather flag a four-star resort’s tired room décor honestly than write around it. The point of the page is to help you decide.
This matters for two reasons. First, because the alternative — generic mass-produced travel content sloshing around the internet in increasing quantity — is genuinely harmful to readers trying to make holiday decisions. Second, because the value we provide is the ability to tell you the honest picture, and that value evaporates the moment we start writing from press releases.
Every blog writer and content contributor is listed on our Our Blog Writers page with their full background and credentials. If you want to know who is behind a particular piece, the byline is there.
Who we’re not for
The honest list.
If you want a holiday in a country outside the five destinations we currently offer — Turkey, Greece, Malta, Morocco and Egypt — we unfortunately don’t have anything for you today. That doesn’t mean we never will. As our team grows and we develop the depth of knowledge in new destinations that we have in our current ones, the portfolio expands. But we don’t sell what we don’t know, and right now those five are it.
If your priority is the absolute cheapest sticker price visible on any search engine, you might find a marginal saving with one of the very large aggregator platforms. We compete hard on price, but we will not compete on stripping the package down to mislead you on the headline.
If you want to book entirely without speaking to a person, we are probably not the smoothest experience. We have a website. The website works. But the strongest version of GoToBeach involves a phone call to someone who knows your destination — and that costs you no more than the silent version.
If you want a faceless transaction, plenty of platforms will give you one. If you want to know who you’re booking with and why they sell what they sell, you’re in roughly the right place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GoToBeach a real company?
Yes. GoToBeach is the trading name of Caria Holidays Ltd, a UK-registered company holding ATOL licence 11211. Our office is at 12 Savoy Parade, Southbury Road, Enfield EN1 1RT.
Is GoToBeach ATOL protected?
Flight-inclusive package holidays booked through GoToBeach are protected under our ATOL licence (number 11211). You will receive an ATOL Certificate that confirms exactly which services are protected. Accommodation-only or transfer-only bookings sit outside ATOL — we tell you which protection applies before you pay.
How is GoToBeach different from a big tour operator or an aggregator?
We sell only five destinations and our team has direct personal knowledge of the hotels we offer. Aggregator platforms typically list thousands of hotels their teams haven’t visited. Large national tour operators usually balance multiple competing constraints — high-street footprints, owned-hotel programmes, mass-market distribution. We don’t have those constraints. The trade-off: we don’t sell destinations outside our five.
Can I really speak to a person?
Yes. Calls during UK office hours are answered by the team member responsible for your destination. Phone: +44 208 211 00 01. Email: info@gotobeach.co.uk.
Do you offer a price-match guarantee?
Yes. If you find the same hotel for the same dates, in the same room type, on the same board basis, with comparable flights, same baggage and transfer inclusions, and the same ATOL protection at a lower price elsewhere before booking — send us the quote and we’ll review it under our price-match policy.
How much deposit do I need to pay?
The deposit is £30 per person plus the cost of the flight at the time of booking. Flight prices are dynamic and we secure your seats immediately, which is why the flight element is paid upfront. The remaining balance — hotel, transfers and any extras — is split into instalments leading up to your departure date.
What if I want to book a destination not on your list?
We will tell you to book with a specialist for that destination, and we’ll usually be able to point you toward a sensible one. Selling outside our current knowledge would not serve you, and we are not interested in doing it — today. As we expand the team and the depth of destinations we know personally, the portfolio will grow. For now, we stick to what we know.
Where can I read about the team in more detail?
Our Our Blog Writers page goes into the credentials and background of each member of the team in more depth, including their specific destinations of focus and how to read their writing on this site.
Speak to a Mediterranean specialist who actually knows your destination. Five destinations. Six product specialists. ATOL 11211. Personal service before, during and after travel.
Call +44 208 211 00 01— Thomas Kaplan, GoToBeach. Caria Holidays Ltd, 12 Savoy Parade, Southbury Road, Enfield EN1 1RT. ATOL 11211.