talking shop ECCO TOURS TRAVEL ACADEMY - SOUTH AFRICA Agents learn to earn
ECCO Tours, one of the largest ground handlers packaging together South African holiday products, invited over 60 agents to its seventh annual Travel Academy. Steve Hartridge joined the group in Cape Town
“It's been a very
educational week. My South Africa product knowledge has vastly improved”
WHAT IS ECCO TOURS? THE COMPANY IS A FULL-SERVICE GROUND HANDLER FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA. IT WORKS WITH SEVERAL UK TOUR OPERATORS TO BUILD PROGRAMMES AND CUSTOM-BUILD TRAVEL ITINERARIES AND PROVIDES ON-GOING TRAINING TO TRAVEL AGENTS
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WHAT DOES THE ECCO IN ECCO TOURS STAND FOR? ENVIRONMENTALLY CONCERNED COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION. HOW TO GET IN TOUCH? SEE
WWW.ECCOTOURS.BIZ. OVER 1000 PROPERTIES SHOW LIVE AVAILABILITY. THERE’S ALSO A LIVE BOOKING ENGINE.
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Flight, STA Travel, Southall Travel and Bridge the World, as well as partner sellers from several other countries flew to South Africa with Emirates and kicked off their week in KwaZulu-Natal. Highlights in KZN included a welcome dinner at the Fairmont Zimbali, with Zulu dancers, and a night at Granny Mouse Country House in The Midlands. The group then travelled to Cape Town and headed straight to the top of Table Mountain, for a champagne drink, sunset and cloudless vistas, before enjoying a welcome dinner at The Table Bay, a Sun International property. Before settling into four days of daily
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workshop sessions, the agents went on site inspections at several Cape Town hotels featured in their companies’ South Africa programmes. These included the One&Only, whose rooms and swimming pool are the largest offered by any Cape
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gents from key ECCO Tours retailers, such as Trailfinders, Travelbag, Travel 2, Lotus-Dial-a-
Town hotel; the Mount Nelson, the longest-established hotel in the city with 130 years of history behind it; and O on Kloof, a boutique hotel in Bantry Bay, Cape Town. For many of the presenting product suppliers – which included hotel groups, safari lodges, guest-houses and transport providers like luxury train operators The Blue Train and Rovos Rail – the presence of so many key sellers in South Africa was timely. “The last three years have been tough
from the UK, but we are starting to see a recovery,” said Joe Cloete, General Manager, Shamwari Group. “Most of our UK suppliers are telling us that business is on the up and the first quarter of this year has been very pleasing,” he added. The agents also recognised the benefits of a week of product immersion. “It was my first trip to the country and the whole experience was excellent. The Academy has given us both knowledge and insights how to sell the country,''
said Dougie Wilson, Africa and Middle East Reservations consultant for Travel 2. “The week was well structured, the suppliers were excellent and we learned about a breadth of
product...my knowledge of South Africa has vastly improved,” said Heather Colborne, an assistant Product and Purchasing Manager for Travelbag, ECCO Tours Managing Director Norma Meyer described the week as an "unqualified success". She said: "Each year the Academy goes from strength to strength. It is an intense week, with plenty of fierce competition among the agents for the fabulous prizes on offer, but everone leaves with much more knowledge of the destination." The business end of the week culminated in an awards dinner, hosted by South African Tourism, held at The Bay Hotel, which also staged the workshop sessions. The following morning the agents set off on a programme of fams to the Garden Route, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
TRAILFINDERS AGENT WINS RETURN TICKET There were fabulous prizes up for grabs for those agents who best managed to strike the right balance between expanding their product knowledge by day and enjoying the night spots of Cape Town and Camp’s Bay by night. On offer to the most attentive agents winning daily quizzes were holidays such as eight nights in Cape Town and the Western Cape and eight nights in KwaZulu-Natal that included a safari at Thanda Private Game Reserve. There was also an accumulative ‘points table’ that ran throughout the week – and the star carrot on offer should have been enough to make any agent buckle down to nightly revision sessions. The overall winner was Jonathan Goodall, from Trailfinders' Cardiff office. Jonathan is now looking forward to a
return trip to Africa that will include two nights at the Mount Nelson Hotel, two nights at Mont Rochelle Hotel in Franschhoek in the Cape Winelands, a
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