NEW businessman Keith Roberts, pictured, is helping to encourage Welsh as a practical, workaday language in a place where relatively few of his fellow citizens can speak it at all.

Travellers and holidaymakers can ring him on his dedicated Welsh phone line to book holidays in Welsh with the one-man, internet travel agency he has started at his Newport home.

He is the only representative in Wales of the England-based franchise business called about2travel, which he has joined with marketing help from Prime-Cymru, the agency which helps the over-50s set up in business.

And as far as he and his Prime-Cymru mentor and adviser Keith Jones can discover, he is also the only travel agent in Wales offering the Welsh-language service.

With a background in electronics, he had spent 25 years in account management, travelling all over the world for a multinational company.

He left with the intention of setting up his own business, and his travel and technology background came together in the internet travel agency.

In less than two months at his home in Ridgeway Park Road, he is taking a steady stream of orders.

"There was no way I could set up an English site when I knew I could actually do it in Welsh," he said.

"I have always wanted to set up a business in Wales because there is enough of a market to justify it.

"I didn't want it to be even bilingual: I wanted a Welsh identity and an English identity. "For someone to pick the phone up and talk to me in Welsh and receive all the correspondence in Welsh is a practical thing, but unless I give a good service it doesn't matter whether it's in English or Welsh.

"I had two options when I began - either starting from scratch on my own or franchising." About2travel provides him with the software and the data bases. They designed his website (www.teithio.com) and provide consultants.

From the consumer's point of view,Mr Roberts says he differs from High Street agents in that he is dealing with the independent traveller who wants to set arrangements up himself.

He also specialises in unfamilar destinations, especially those that are not widely known or popular.

Franchise members agree on pricing so that they don't undercut each other in the group.

The data base is everything; for example, it has 4,000 different cruise options, whereas - he claims - a traditional travel agent might just introduce a customer to the cruise brochures that happen to be in the shop.

He contacted Prime-Cymru because of the Welsh language angle and for advice on marketing.

The result is connection to some big websites and advertising in Welsh language periodicals and exposure at eistedffodau and events such as the Royal Welsh Show.