FRONTLINE
Helen Parry director, Arundel Travel, Otley, West Yorkshire
This month we are celebrating our
fifth birthday, and what a rollercoaster it has been! The Beast from the East, Brexit, Package Travel Regulations, wildfires, Covid and now the cost-of-living crisis have all tried, but failed, to dampen our spirits and each drama has taught us something that has helped us get through the next. As we all know, it hasn’t been easy and as travel agents we are all very fortunate to have each other to fall back on, to pick each other up and help each other bounce back. This sentiment was highlighted a couple of weeks ago when I was lucky enough to be invited to the Jet2holidays VIP conference in the Algarve. It felt like such a long time since I had attended a conference and spent time with colleagues, friends, and suppliers from all over the UK. Seeing everyone gave me a massive boost and I was so delighted to find we had all managed to rise from the ashes! As always, we were well and truly spoilt throughout the conference, which was a real treat.
VALUABLE TIME OFF Another reason I wanted to mention the conference was because of the fantastic content that featured in every session. Some conferences can be marred by random appearances by celebrities not connected with travel and with
28 15 DECEMBER 2022 AGENT
Being an agent has been a rollercoaster
over the years, but next year I will take stock and go back to basics
others it’s a case of death by PowerPoint, but here authentic agents spoke about challenges and successes while marketing experts brought to life the importance of branding and social media. The content gave me a lot of food for thought; it was one of the first times I can remember returning from a conference and thinking the time away was actually worth it! There were lots of questions that sprung to mind on the flight home: what decisions have we made under pressure in the last five years and are these working? Is our branding making us stand out and do our social media posts
have the impact we want? What is our plan for the long term, and if we have another crisis, what is our short-term plan?
BACK TO THE BEGINNING Returning to work with a spring in my step and having lots to share with our girls was great for team morale. For a long time, I felt like I’d been flying by the seat of my pants, but after the conference I now have a clear plan. It inspired me to look back on my first-ever business plan and remind myself of the vision we had when we first opened the shop. It’s crazy how off-key we had become; there was so much I had forgotten from our original plan that I will now reintroduce over the next few months. There are lots of great ideas from the plan that have been implemented over the past five years, but a few things that need to change.
It has done me the world of good to take stock, take a breath and go back to the roots of Arundel Travel. I am so proud of what we have achieved and I’m looking forward to having a successful 2023 with my amazing team, which will see us get back to basics. Merry Christmas to all Travel
Weekly readers. I wish you every success for 2023!
INSPIRATIONAL READS
Us agents aren’t the only ones who inspire... The dark, cold nights are setting in and lots of us are looking for escapism. This was the topic of discussion with some of our regulars last week. They recommended a couple of books for me to read, one of them being The Island by Victoria Hislop. What a fantastic read! Crete had never been on my list of islands to visit, but now, without having to read a guidebook, that has changed and I know exactly where I would like to go when I get there. On a few occasions I felt like I had been transported from my sofa to Plaka. It got me thinking about other books I could
recommend to my customers to whisk them away to a beautiful island, safari or city – there are so many alternative ways to help bring destinations to life.
Crete
travelweekly.co.uk
Clare SharonDavid KimColin Clare Sharon David KimColin diary diary
Helen
Helen
PICTURE: Shutterstock/ Georgios Tsichlis
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