FRONTLINE
ANDREA SMITH Holiday Village agent based in the Peak District
When I first met my husband, I was
already a seasoned backpacker and he had only ever been on package holidays to Greece and the south of France. Our first holiday together had to be cheap and cheerful as we were broke twentysomethings. I booked a £99 per person half-board deal to Tunisia (remember those?), but he was apprehensive about holidaying anywhere in Africa, particularly at that price. He had a perception of Africa that I had to dispel before he would agree to go. As you can imagine, at only £99 it was a mediocre holiday, but these days, since he’s had a more extensive taste of this incredible continent, I can’t get him away from eastern and southern Africa.
MIND READING Like everything else in life, holidays are a matter of perspectives and perceptions. We spend our time managing customers’ expectations. We try to pre-empt their wants and needs, often having to read between the lines. We know that when they say they don’t have a budget, what they actually mean is they won’t tell us what it is. They fear missing a bargain, assuming we just want to maximise sale value. Dragging information out of new clients to get an accurate brief can be like pulling teeth. Now, with news and social media information overload, we
20 24 APRIL 2025 AGENT
I’ve come to realise that managing
client anxieties and perceptions is a big part of what we do
must also put things into perspective for many clients. A colleague this week was venting about a customer’s holiday to Antalya. They were considering cancelling based on reports they had seen about issues on the Syrian border. I’ve encountered this myself in the past and had to give clients a geography lesson. Why don’t they teach this stuff in school? I’ve had to help my customers understand that the Syrian border is more than 310 miles from Antalya. Would they be afraid to go on holiday to Paris because they’d heard of trouble in Birmingham? Of course not, and yet the distances are
similar, so we help clients manage their anxiety about a destination. We’ve all had customers who have managed to get three weeks off work and expect to see the whole of Australia in that time, as they may never get the chance to go back. But trying to see Sydney in the same holiday as Perth is like wanting to holiday in Greece and take in Finland while they are there!
MAXIMUM ENJOYMENT We must manage customers’ disappointment when explaining that they should limit themselves to a state or two unless all they want to see is the insides of trains, planes and automobiles. It’s our job to maximise their enjoyment by explaining the pitfalls, so we have to make them realise immersing themselves in a smaller area is a much better holiday experience than rushing around and coming home exhausted. Our clients look to us to provide the holiday they want, and that isn’t always the holiday they first ask for. A successful agent, it seems, has to be part destination expert, part mind reader and part psychiatrist. Perhaps instead of calling
ourselves travel advisors, we should consider adopting the title of holiday therapists?
SHOULD NO-GO BE A NO-NO?
One thing that isn’t open to interpretation is official travel advice. I recently heard of a client who booked a back- to-back cruise with one of the big cruise lines. During the
two-week itinerary, one stop was Haiti, which is on the
UK’s no-go list, and they were struggling with insurance. It is yet another thing we must keep an eye on despite the party line being that it’s the client’s responsibility to check the
FCDO’s regulations. Most tour operators stop-sell destinations on the no-go list, and Haiti has been on there for some time. Should a cruise listing a destination in a no-travel zone for Brits even be on sale in the UK? What do you think?
Getting insurance for Haiti isn’t easy
travelweekly.co.uk
Sharon ColinJenniferHelen Clare Sharon ColinJenniferHelen Clare diary diary
Andreandr
PICTURE: Shutterstock/Rohane Hamilton
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