talking shop THE OFFICE - HASLEMERE TRAVEL Trade success built on experience and service
Gemma Antrobus Haslemere Travel Founded 22 years ago in the heart of the Surrey commuter belt, Haslemere Travel deals with an ‘affluent
client base of discerning travellers’. The award-winning agency, which specialises in tailormade holidays, recently landed the Specialist Travel Agent of the Year award from AITO. Using a combination of good old-fashioned face-to-face advice and 21st century social networking, the agency of 11 staff is geared for more success in 2011. We asked managing director Gemma Antrobus for some of her 'trade secrets'.
What is the company’s work ethos? We work as a consultancy. We’re not ‘brochure rackers' and we try not to let customers browse and leave without having spoken to one of us. It’s about going above and beyond just booking a holiday. We also act as a concierge service by, for example, making restaurant reservations and organising children’s clubs. We send clients a ‘welcome home’ card and follow that up with a phone call a week or two after if we don't hear from them.
How do you nurture your staff’s knowledge? We have 160 years of travel experience between us. We try not to 'pigeon-hole' staff into one region or destination, but spread our knowledge equally. We do skills and customer service training through our partners AITO and Advantage Travel and we take part in as many roadshows and product launch
events as possible. We have a staff meeting every Monday morning and once a month we invite an operator to talk at it. We accept only educationals from companies we work or can work with and we keep in close contact with these companies to let them know what gaps in our knowledge we are looking to fill.
What are Haslemere's biggest challenges right now? The biggest challenge is to keep our brand at the forefront. We know there is fierce price-led competition out there from the internet, as illustrated by Jedward's recent travelsupermarket ads! – which is no doubt keeping the pair of them in hair gel! We can give our customers so much
more because of the relationships we have in the industry. We attend shows like the International Luxury Travel Market and PURE Life Experiences in Marrakech to build relationships so we can call on favours and make the best out of a booking.
How do you use social networking and the internet? We use Twitter and Facebook, not to be controversial or popular but to be knowledgeable and relevant to our customers in as many mediums as possible. It allows our brand direct access into homes and gently nurtures it. Our website is updated regularly and we try to stay current with features like ‘Follow in our Foosteps’, which takes an event or a TV programme as a starting point for a discussion on travel. We recently did a piece following on from the royal engagement, profiling the safari camp where William proposed to Kate.
Comment...
"The AITO conference in January revealed a good start to 2011 but my wish is that booking patterns will start to stabilise this year, and move away from price-led last- minute purchases. We need to bring back service- orientated sales and remind people why agencies offer better value."
What’s selling well? India, Australia and New Zealand, and South America is coming back after a lull. Oman is another favourite which is outstripping Dubai. High-end fly and flop destinations like the Caribbean and Indian Ocean are also selling. We organise a lot of cultural short breaks, as second or third holidays, with Croatia popular right now.
Future plans? We are getting more homeworkers involved in our business. They are dedicated to travel – not just because it fits in with the school run! You can teach anyone to use a GDS system, but you can’t teach passion for travel.
Haslemere Travel 2/4 Petworth Road, Haslemere Surrey GU27 2HR
www.haslemeretravel.co.uk
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