Warming up for an electrifying time!
Torrance Lewis, district sales manager for the Jamaica Tourist Board, explains why the Northern Ball is a great way to thank the trade
Q. The Northern Ball is the biggest travel trade party of the year. Tell us why you’re involved as a headline sponsor. A. Jamaica, the ‘Home of All Right’, has been seeing steady growth in arrivals from the UK and Ireland. The number of arrivals from the northern regions continues to grow as we now have regional departures from Manchester year round and seasonal flights from Glasgow and Newcastle. Next June, we will have non-stop flights from Dublin to Jamaica on the Dreamliner. Exciting times! We realise this success is down to committed professionals selling holidays to Jamaica, keeping us in demand. Therefore, we wanted to sponsor an event catered to those who have helped us along the way.
Q. What are the big developments for you as a business at present? A. In 2016, we are going to again have a dedicated business development manager based in the northern market, which will ensure agents and the trade-at-large have a committed contact.
Q. What are the big product focuses for you? A. Family, luxury and romance. The rise in the number of hotel rooms for the family market means more families are coming to Jamaica.
Q. What are you doing to help your travel agent partners? A. While we provide all the usual online training and contact support for our travel agents and partners,
we do try to make things extra fun and some of our trainings even mirror gameshows to help make the training process even better. Additionally, we offer fam trips and cash rewards as part of our Jamaica Rewards programme just for agents. For those that are top sellers, we have a year-end agent recognition rewards and relaxation event in Jamaica, known as the ‘White Affair’.
Q. What tune will you be listening out for during the after-party? A. One of our favourite songs right now is Cheerleader from Jamaican reggae artist OMI. It is full of Jamaica vibes and is infectious!
Q. This year’s Northern Ball coincides with the Rugby World Cup and has a sporting theme. What are your and your team’s favourite sporting memories? A. There are so many, but a few highlights include being in Berlin when Usain Bolt broke his own 100m world record; our national football team qualifying for the World Cup in France; Jamaica hosting the Cricket World Cup in 2007; and, definitely, the determination shown by our bobsledders in Calgary in 1988.
Q. Can you give us an idea of what fancy dress you’ll be donning for the big night? A. We are going with the athletics theme in light of Usain Bolt’s 2015 World Championship wins. Watch out – it turns out lightning can strike the same place twice!
3 September 2015
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