Meet Marc And Michelle Harlow of Downtown Howell, Michigan

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marc And Michelle Harlow.

Hi Marc and Michelle, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our journey to owning an Irish goods store and becoming tour operators started with the discovery of Marc’s Irish ancestry. Having learned of that later in life, Michelle began buying Marc Irish-themed gifts for birthdays and Christmas, and eventually, we became good friends with the former owner of our company.

Then one year as we were approaching a milestone anniversary, we decided to take a trip to….wait for it….Ireland! We still agree that it was one of the best vacations of our lives. Moving on a few years, we decided to take a family trip to Ireland. We contacted the former owners only to discover that they were planning to retire, and could not help us. They asked if we knew anyone that wanted to buy a business, and we responded that we would. We all walked away laughing.

After a few days, the thought of buying the company and carrying on the fine tradition they had begun was to tempting to ignore. After checking our resources, we determined we could do it, and went ahead with the purchase. We have not looked back since.

After spending a tour season as apprentices, we were on our own, and began tapping into the extensive Irish-American community in the Metro Detroit area. At the same time, we decided to revive the retail business side at our location in Fowlerville, Michigan. The tours began to grow and word of mouth was spreading the word about us, and we started receiving calls about touring.

We further dove into the Irish-American community, volunteering with clubs and being present at many Irish events and concerts, along with sponsoring an Irish music radio show. Our marketing really consisted of word of mouth, and it worked quite well.

We relocated to our current downtown Howell location, and then the world stopped. Covid presented significant challenges, especially since we could not tour for several years. Fortunately our retail store survived until we could start touring again, and then things grew at a rapid pace, due to pent up demand for travel. It has remained consistent ever since.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Maintaining our business has had its challenges, of course. When Covid hit, we had just relocated out store to Howell, Michigan, which was closer to home and provided a location with better foot traffic than our previous location. We had our grand re-opening the day before the State shut down. Fortunately, we were able to re-open by early summer, and the Howell community was very proactive in supporting its downtown businesses, initiating a number of “shop local” incentive programs. That kept us alive until the pandemic subsided.

An ongoing challenge is based on the economy and how it is doing at any given point during the year. Our main business is travel to Ireland, so as pressures build on the economy and there is less disposable income, our tours suffer. To date, we have been able to continue our tours even with smaller numbers at times.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our specialty is offering travel to Ireland and Scotland, and Wales in 2026. What sets us apart and what we have built our reputation on is personalized service. We are very hands on in our approach to securing guests, and in most cases meet personally with potential customers prior to them booking a tour with us. We also travel with our tours, and are able to offer personalized service throughout the tour. The same goes with booking a family tour – a private tour for a specific group. This clearly sets us apart from other tour companies, particularly tour companies with global reach.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
We feel that the industry will expand in the years to come as more people choose to spend their money on experiences rather than things. This will present its own challenges, though, as there are many companies in the business ready to fulfill those dreams. AI will certainly come into play in developing potential client lists, marketing and actually booking tours. While we will take advantage of some of the newer technologies, we will stick to our objective of providing personal service.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://triskeltours.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BridgetGallaghersTours