EDITOR’S COMMENTS
NEWS Hot Stories
04 – Carnival UK ‘adopts’ agencies; Club Med angers agent; Barrhead eyes England sites; two operators fail; Kuoni opens store in Gateshead
News Digest
08 – Carnival joins Tipto; Burma offers online visas; MSC Book launches; Hot Hotels voting opens
Special Reports
10 – Intrepid backs animal welfare 12 – Agents step on board Quantum
Event Preview 14 – Learn to fight fraud at seminar
Big Interview 18 – Paul Evans as Lowcost turns 10
NEWS YOU CAN USE
Product News 21 – Prestige adds properties
Hotel News 22 – Warner holds group open days
Operator News 24 – Cosmos adds Andorra for ski
Cruise News 28 – Cunard’s 2016 world cruises
Destination News 28 – Win a place on Qatar fam trip
All For You 42 – Virgin, iPad, cruise, Barcelona
Readers’ Lives 45 – Joanne Dooey, Love To Travel
Mystery Shopper 52 – Agents search for week in sun
ALL ABOUT YOU
Letters 36 – Grand UK, BHX, Thomson, Cook
Comment 38 – Morgan: ‘Say no to big data’
LUCY
HUXLEY Editor-in-chief
Build relationships that benefit agents
couple of weeks ago, I wrote in this column about how all the big data in the world should never be a match for the personal touch offered by travel agents.
A
Now it seems suppliers are getting really personal too. P&O Cruises’ new ‘adopt a travel agent’ initiative will see
17-page PREVIEW page 55 DESTINATIONS Malta
73 – Festival-goers can make the most of Malta with a short break 77 – Upsell to make it special
JOBS AND CLASSIFIED
79 – Vacancies and business services TRAVELWEEKLY BUSINESS
News
87 – Two firms collapse in a week 88 – PwC tests tourism’s impact on destinations with Tui Cyprus study
every single employee in Carnival UK encouraged to befriend their local agency in the town they live (page 4). Bosses say it’s all part of its strategy to build relationships with smaller agencies as it looks to find new-to-cruise customers to fill its increasing capacity. The line says it wants to get to know individuals and not just view them as numbers on spreadsheets in the hope it can understand and help them. But it was quick to stress the visits would never be “intimidating” or staff under any pressure to do the “hard sell’. Unfortunately, another supplier’s attempts to get to know agent partners better this week seems to have backfired and come across as just that (page 5). Club Med mystery-shopped trade partners – then told one off
for not recommending its holidays. The agent, who claimed his Club Med sales were £100,000 up this year, felt that rather than being subjected to such an exercise, he should have been shown appreciation. Maybe some agents welcome such an approach and find the constructive feedback useful for their businesses. But while personal touches can be really welcome, if you get too close to someone’s business, you can run the risk of alienating them. Like most things, it ultimately boils down to not what you do, but how you do it.
lucy.huxley@
travelweekly.co.uk WHAT LUCY DID THISWEEK 1
2 3
Phoned our Travel Trade Photographer of the Year winner – I have never heard anyone so ecstatic!
Caught up with P&O Cruises’ Christopher ‘Edge’ Edgington on his first anniversary in travel
Joined many friends from the travel industry at GailKenny’s ‘Club 18-50’-themed 50th birthday beach party on the coast in Whitstable, Kent
4 September 2014 —
travelweekly.co.uk • 3
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