Agency boss says service has got to be purr-fect
Juliet Dennis
New agency owner Sophie Davis has urged agents to go the extra mile to convert more sales – even if it means feeding a client’s cat. Davis said her agency Travel
Safe Horbury, which opened three months ago in the West Yorkshire town, has delivered boarding passes to clients’ homes and fed a family’s pet in recent weeks, all to secure sales and encourage repeat business. She stressed it was important
for agents to be humble rather than expect people to book with them. “I don’t take this job for granted,”
she said. “There is no entitlement to business; there are very few holidays that people cannot book themselves.” Davis gave a family who recently
booked a holiday to Lanzarote the option of a 10-day break rather than seven nights for £100 extra, but the clients were unsure as they had no one to feed their cat Percy for the extra time they would be away. “They said, ‘What about the cat?’,”
recalled Davis. “So I said I would feed him for them. Their house was walking distance from the office and I could go at lunchtime.” She added: “The family has had a
horrible few years and every holiday had gone wrong so I didn’t want to
I don’t take this job
for granted. There is no entitlement – there are few holidays people cannot book themselves
let them go away without booking them a holiday.” Davis, who also organised for
flowers to be in the family’s hotel room, admitted she wasn’t a ‘cat person’ but stressed: “If it means someone will come to us rather than book elsewhere, you do it.”
Audley Travel hails B Corp status
for showing ‘ethical’ commitment Audley Travel has achieved B Corporation status, having met “rigorous” social and environmental standards. The operator becomes the 17th travel business to gain the certification. Chief executive Nick Longman said: “B Corp certification reflects our long-term commitment to ensuring [we] operate ethically and with the preservation and restoration of the communities our clients visit at its core.”
8 15 JUNE 2023
Sophie fed her customers’ cat
Percy while they were on holiday
Other ‘extras’ have included taking
elderly clients to their cruise coach transfer at a motorway service station because they didn’t drive and were nervous about getting a taxi early in the morning. “We even provided snacks for the drive,” she said. Davis also stressed the
importance of being honest with customers. When a group of 12 recently asked her to beat a quote for the Costa del Sol, she had to turn down the sale. “We couldn’t justify making a booking at a loss,” she said. Travel Safe Horbury is part of
Travel Safe, the predominantly home- working-based group set up last year.
Not Just Travel plans to grow with £1m recruitment outlay
Not Just Travel has announced it is investing a further £1 million in recruitment. The business, which said it had already spent £2.4 million on growing its team since the start of 2022, is also carrying out a restructure with new roles being created in operations, marketing, trade, cruise, training and business development.
Jet2 adds 75,000 seats to spring 2024 programme
Jet2.com and Jet2holidays have unveiled a “major expansion” to their spring and early summer 2024 programme with extra flights and holidays on sale to 17 destinations. The sister brands have also
extended the summer season to three destinations next summer: Tivat in Montenegro, Girona in Spain and Izmir in Turkey. The company said “strong
demand” had prompted it to add 75,000 seats to destinations in Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. The new flights have been added from March to May 2024, including over the Easter holidays. The capacity has been added
at 10 of the operator’s UK bases – Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted. Flights will now start operating
from the end of March to Girona and Izmir and from the beginning of April to Tivat for the first time. Extra capacity to Dubrovnik,
Ibiza, Reus and Rhodes has been added in April and May, and there are new services on sale to Alicante, Antalya, Bodrum, Faro, Gran Canaria, Larnaca, Menorca, Naples, Majorca and Tenerife. Chief executive Steve Heapy
said: “We continue to react quickly to demand.”
HF Holidays recruits former Intrepid head of sales Turner
Andrew Turner, former head of B2B sales at Intrepid Travel, has joined walking and special-interest operator HF Holidays as head of commercial and business development. Turner will oversee the division for UK and worldwide markets, including developing partnerships. Previously he oversaw Intrepid’s EMEA trade strategy, and was sales director at Flight Centre-owned Discova.
travelweekly.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
