THE founder of the UK’s first black owned Entertainment travel company for touring artists and Sport stars today urged other black entrepreneurs to follow in her footsteps.
Manchester-based Hannah Mursal founded ME Travel (Murs Entertainment Travel) in 2013 and has gone one to forge an impressive client base including platinum selling musicians and sports stars.
Her agency has supported an array of chart-topping acts from rock bands The Courteeners and The Horrors to US RnB singer Jhene Aiko or pioneering British DJ Trevor Nelson.
As an independent agency, ME Travel can offer a bespoke service to artists embarking on tours or sports stars needing travel help during their downtime.
Ms Mursal is blazing a trail in the entertainment travel industry as the only agency run by a woman of colour and based in the UK.
She has now called on other ambitious, young entrepreneurs from black backgrounds to follow her and shake up the travel and logistics industry in the wake of this statistics coming to light.
She said:
“BLM movement has highlighted the lack of black travel agents in entertainment travel and surprisingly M E Travel is the only black owned entertainment travel agency in the UK.
“It is shocking to me that there are only a handful of black tour managers in the industry. In comparison to other areas of the industry, next year the live industry is going to come back bigger and better with venues struggling to find open dates “
Ms Mursal founded the agency after earning vital experience in a previous role getting VVIPs from A to B.
Her agency has become the one-stop shop for bespoke planning and logistics for artists embarking on national and international tours involving a DJ and his bag to large numbers of people.
She deals with everything from booking hotel rooms for travelling artists and their entourage, 5am bus breakdown calls to arranging excess baggage claims at airports. When one client needed their beloved Huskie from Orlando Florida to Paris France, ME Travel arranged transportation and paperwork.
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“Hannah deals with anything thrown at her and tackles problems head on, things that would take me hours. One phone call and she’s done it.”
Ms Mursal said:
“After seven years I have had the highs and lows of touring and owning a business.
“M E Travel’s main focus is music touring worldwide. We mainly look after European and US artists touring the world. Tours can be anything from 7 days to 3 months, travel parties start from 2 people to 50 people.
“It is exhausting, exciting and hard but it is so rewarding. You know you are helping an artist with millions of fans perform to the best of their ability. Being a Travel agent is such a small cog in the mechanics but a vital one to insure a smooth logistical process “
The success of ME Travel has been built on in depth knowledge of the music and travel industry, great relationships, and commitment.
In 2017 it was named runner up in the Most valuable buyer category by travel industry stalwarts Private Luxury Forum.
Ms Mursal has branched out into representing sports stars as well as musicians – and while the focus on quality is the same, the requests can be a little different.
She added:
“Most of the logistics with sport clients is trying to support them and their family’s needs tailoring a VVIP service during their time off.
“It is a slightly different approach but the focus on quality is at the core of whatever we do.”
Murs Entertainment Travel is an independent travel company catering to the Sports, Media and Entertainment industries. We look after you logistically from the minute you make the enquiry. No ask is too much.
Hannah Mursal, born in Saudi Arabia to a Sudanese father and English mother. She moved to Hull, UK at the age of 11. Moving from Saudi was a culture shock, from a multicultural society to being one of the only black families in Hull. 1 of 5 siblings made Hannah ambitious and driven to succeed. Hannah knew she wanted to be in the music industry and ran away from home to London straight after college. While in London she joined the BMG street team and helped out at the 2003 MOBOs. After 10 years in London Hannah traded the fast pace lifestyle for the Cottonopolis Manchester. In 2017 Hannah won runner up for the Most Valuable Buyer, Private Luxury forum. She is also part of the Manchester Natwest Accelerator programme. As an avid member of Women in CTRL she is also trying to help change the rights for Women in the music industry.
