January 2024
NI TRAVEL TRADE ATTEND HAYS TRAVEL CONFERENCE 2023 IN PORTUGAL
HAYS Travel welcomed 600 delegates to Portugal’s Tivoli Marina Vilamoura last week, for one of the UK’s largest overseas travel conferences and Northern Ireland Travel News was one of the lucky media invited to attend! Between 13-16 November Hays Travel managers from branches across the UK joined senior colleagues and valued supplier partners for an action-packed agenda.
Dame Irene Hays said: “Our annual Retail Conference is an important time for us. It’s an opportunity to connect with our brilliant retail team who have worked exceptionally hard to look after our customers’ travel needs this year. “We lined up an impressive programme of speakers,
Tourism NI Supports Dedicated Development Plan for Outdoor Tourism
A dedicated development plan to grow outdoor
tourism in Northern
Ireland has been launched by Tourism NI and Ireland’s Association for Adventure Tourism (IAAT).
partner presentations,
an expert panel, supplier showcases, workshops, and networking events – all to inform and inspire our retail branch managers and senior colleagues as we prepare to launch into 2024.” Headline sponsors for this year’s Hays
Travel Retail Conference are easyJet Holidays,
Mastercard, Riviera Travel,
Virgin Voyages, and Visit Algarve, with a raft of other supplier partners in attendance too. This year’s theme was the ‘Power
of You’ and aimed to encourage Hays Travel colleagues to value their expertise and delight their customers. A panel of Hays Travel managers also shared their approach to delivering excellent customer service, and leading consumer behaviour expert, Ken Hughes, had the room buzzing with his fast-paced observations and insights in his keynote speech.
Meanwhile, Dame Irene Hays revealed that Hays Travel has scored 95.2% in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, beating brands such as John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Apple. “We recruit on personality. If you recruit
great
people, you get great service,” she told delegates at the conference in Portugal.
Some small changes to the Hays branches will make a huge difference to customer satisfaction, and hopefully keep Hays at the top of the scale! A trial of drinks machines for customers will start in January 2024 as some customers had said they would have liked refreshments while they waited to see a consultant. Dame Irene rounded off the conference with a quote from Hayley Gadd, Manager at the Hays Weymouth branch, who said: “It’s not our usual day job but you are showing everyone what kind of person you are…and that you care.
“That is the sort of person I would trust with my holiday – someone who cares.”
The 12-month joint initiative includes a range of activities such as sectoral events and networking and training opportunities. The aim of the plan is to measure sector performance and gather insights, specifically related to the needs of visitors, and the development of existing and new outdoor activity tourism infrastructure. The programme will involve a range of activities for the Northern Ireland tourism industry to support, ultimately raising the profile of outdoor tourism. There is significant demand for experiences which embrace landscapes and help people to connect with nature. Tourism NI’s latest Customer Sentiment Research indicates `to relax and unwind and to have fun’ are key motivators for intended NI trips for both ROI and NI consumers. In addition, IAAT estimates adventure tourism makes up 30% of global tourism spend, equating to €683 billion. Working
in partnership with IAAT,
Tourism NI is creating a structure to shape and develop shared action plans which will support industry to prepare for future success.
This is further underpinned by the new
Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland’s 10-year plan.
Established in 2018, Ireland’s
Association for Adventure Tourism (IAAT) is the representative body for more than 250 adventure activity tourism operators on the island of Ireland.
The organisation works with adventure tourism operators to develop the sector in a sustainable and responsible manner. Maria McAlister,
Landscapes and
Activities Manager at Tourism NI, said “As highlighted through Tourism NI’s extensive programme of consultation ‘Unlocking the Outdoors’, Northern Ireland has the natural assets, community support and skills to deliver a strong outdoor tourism proposition.
“This is offset by the knowledge that we need to cohere our efforts to ensure the sector can sustain in an increasingly competitive international tourism market,” she said. “Working with IAAT, Tourism NI will advocate for sustainable,
regenerative
tourism and support collaborative working that drives innovation in service delivery and product development, reaching new markets and raising the profile of outdoor tourism in Northern Ireland.” Brendan Kenny, Chief Executive of IAAT,
said: “We are thrilled to embark on this important partnership with Tourism NI. “Working together, and in conjunction with other key stakeholders, we can help ensure that outdoor tourism experiences in Northern Ireland fulfil their extraordinary potential, through sustainable
practices and quality visitor management principles.”
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