Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to journeybound stories from overseas travel representatives. Dive into the heart of travel, immerse yourself in vibrant cultures and experience the world from an entirely new perspective. Each week, we bring you riveting stories, unscripted moments, and the incredible highs and lows from the lives of those who represent us abroad.
These are the tales of adventure, lessons learned, and the transformative power of travel. Guiding us on this voyage are seasoned travellers, a man and a woman with stories from every corner of the globe. Wesley Baker and Miranda Kilstrom.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to behind the scenes. I'm Wesley and I've got my co host with me, Miranda.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Hi. How are you doing, Wesley?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Very well, thank you. Today we're going to be talking about what goes on behind a package holiday in overseas. You know, what goes on at the front end when you book your travel arrangements. But what is actually, is it like for overseas reps dealing with the issues that go on and the planning and everything else? And because of our great diverse backgrounds of yours and mine, Miranda, it's going to be interesting to see whether they were the same, in fact, with the operational side of things and whether you actually had different procedures to what we did. And obviously, this is going back a little bit, but I think it hasn't changed too much. And for any budding new reps that want to go out to resort or are going out to resort for the first time, you're going to perhaps hear some historical methods and perhaps also get an idea of what you're going to be up against when you're in resort. So, Miranda, I'm going to ask you the first sort of question on this one.
The planning of a package. What's the first element that you experienced as an overseas rep in?
What's the first thing that you would do before the arrivals came?
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah, for me, Wesley, it was getting things like your rooming lists. Do you remember those? They were in.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Oh, that's what I was going to ask.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: And you'd pick them up out of your tray and you'd have all your information of your guests coming in for.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: The next few weeks.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: It was that weird paper with all the holes down the side and the perforation.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Green and white line.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Yes, that's the one.
Those of you that are in your twenty s, thirty s, and possibly 40s might not be familiar with those, but they were what we had in those days. So you'd have your rooming lists and then, of course, you've got your airport transfers, because it was all about getting your passengers in and out. Of resorts, wasn't it? And making sure that a, nobody was left behind, and B, that you knew who was coming in so you could prepare your week accordingly. And I think we're probably the same on that one. Are we, Wesley?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: I don't know. Well, maybe we would have our rooming list for every arrival.
We'd have to go to the hotels and double check and allocate the rooms. That was the thing that we needed to make sure the hotel was allocating the correct rooms. So I don't know whether you had things like special requests and that on your room list or not, but we had all that. That.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: We had only just a request, remember, people?
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Just a request. And then we would hand those off to the hotel, although the hotel would also get a. This will make some people laugh, a fax copy, or in some cases, a teletext. Not teletext, a telex teletext copy. Did you have tele because you were 93, weren't you? Is your first resort. Did you have Telex still?
[00:04:15] Speaker C: We tended to have telex in further flung places, so I remember, I think it was Cuba. We'd have something like that if there was a last minute change. And also in India, because those know, the operations weren't quite as slick as in.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: They're not called third world countries now, they're called developing countries now, aren't?
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, gosh, our office in Cuba was a little apartment, so we had shower facilities and everything there. And it was one room, tiny, tiny thing, but amazing because it was right by the beach. So you could do your morning of admin duties and go and swim and then have a shower in the Siesta period.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: We were quite lucky because we had big offices, genuinely. We had big offices in Thompson's, and with Cosmos, we had a nice big office as well that we'd all go to. So one question is, did you ever have to go all in at the same time to sort out all your arrivals at the same time as a group of reps? Or was it very much an ad hoc situation? You turned up to your office, ad hoc lead to sort out the arrivals or what?
[00:05:25] Speaker C: No, it was pretty much liquidation day. That was your admin day. So you'd have the morning or the afternoon off duties and your liquidation, which I'm sure many reps would be rolling their eyes at that, because you either loved it or you hated it. I loved it because I got to see my colleagues and I was generally pretty much on top of my admin and my finances. But I know some reps, honestly, it was just a curse, because you used to have quite a lot of money on you, and if you got your finances wrong, then it was a poor day.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Liquidation. Yeah, well, that's a totally. We'll come to that.
We'll definitely come to that. Liquidation is an interesting one indeed.
Okay, well, so, coming back to your point, to me, so we would have the Rumi list that came in, that was in a green and white paper, then we'd rip the sides off, put them into a file, and then go off to the hotel, sort out. And then we'd also have a transfer list, which was slightly different, that was given to us, that would show exactly where everyone was going.
Because obviously, when you're doing a transfer, we were picking up.
So you call them guests, didn't you? They were clients to us, but clients of guests.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: We know what we are, Wesley, don't we?
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yes, we do. Lady of the night stuff we were picking up. Yeah, indeed. Yeah, that's true. Sorry, my mind was drifting in both ways. Yeah, exactly the correct word used different variations of it. So we would pick up, obviously, for all our resorts. So you do the whole coastline. If you were doing a beach holiday, and obviously you were doing ski resorts, so I guess when you did the ski ones, you did a lot of resorts, or was it just one result you'd pick up?
[00:07:17] Speaker C: It's just one because I was a live in chalet host, so my rooming list was literally for my chalet.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Did you ever do transfers? Did you do transfers?
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Because I get the off birth Berg and yon on the go, didn't I? Wesley and the meet and greets, change all the sheets, clean the chalet and, yeah, we was totally living. Didn't do transfers. We did see ins and see offs, and it was quite.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Both our companies had these roles, transfer reps. Did you ever actually have transfer reps?
[00:07:54] Speaker C: You did, yeah, absolutely. Because there was not enough reps in resort and using a transfer rep, it was normally somebody who worked locally in a bar or restaurant, and they would have a day off and they'd get paid per transfer.
I've worked as a transfer rep before.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: That's interesting, because our transfer reps were actual.
They were actually employed by the company full time and their job was just transfers. That's all they did. They'd work out in the UAE, they do a bit of admin as well, but they were literally employed as just transfer reps.
That was their job. So some people weren't successful for getting the reps jobs actually got transfer reps, and some people went through that way to become reps. They got transfer rep first, and then other people got admin roles, resort administration. And so they'd started resort administration, then managed to move up to a transfer rep and then transfer rep onto senior reps, or just reps, I should say.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: Depending on your destination or how many flight days you had, because I worked for smaller companies, and so we would manage possibly one or two flight days, because all our welcome meetings were on specific days. The trips were organized around those days, I think. Was you in Mallorca, where you had. Yes. You had daily flight flights? Back in my day, we had designated airport days, so there'd be, like, twice a week, sometimes three times.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: I think we were three or four days.
Three or four days a week. We'd have arrivals from. Obviously, the beauty of the bigger resorts and the beauty of being a bigger operator is that having our own airline, both of the companies that I represented for, we had our own airlines, obviously, Thompson had Britannia, Britannia Airways, which at the time when I was there, had 2026 aircraft. I think it was 26, may have gone up to 30 something at one point. And we also had monarch airlines at Cosmos.
Genuinely, you'd see a lot of flights coming from different destinations. I mean, I particularly enjoyed the flights coming in from the northern.
You know, really, anything north of London were fun. They were fun arrivals, and you actually noticed the southern arrivals tremendously.
We used to say it was one in three or one in four. Good southern flight would come in. The rest of them were always grumpy, moaning about something, but the northerners, they were quite me. You're a northerner as well, aren't you?
[00:10:45] Speaker C: I'm from the Midlands, Wesley, so northern to you. To a northerner, I'm a southerner, and to a southerner, I'm a northerner. I'm right in the middle.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: You're northerner. To know. You guys were always great fun. You'd come off smiling, and I think that might be to do with the working background, the environment of the jobs that people were working in. Maybe there was more of a community. I find when I go further north in the UK that definitely. That there is a more friendlier environment.
And everything's not as fast paced as in the south. And that even goes back to the 80s, really. So even in the 80s, things were very fast paced in the south, but they're really crazy now. But that's just my take on it. I might be upsetting everyone. You okay? Have you got a microphone?
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Issue?
[00:11:33] Speaker B: An earphone issue?
[00:11:34] Speaker C: No, I'm all good. But I remember that if we would have a delayed flight from, say, Glasgow, that could be quite a scary experience, because for some reason, heavier drinkers, or whether there was more tolerance at the airport to allow more drinking. I mean, drinking for flights nowadays is a lot more commonplace than it used to be. But delayed Glasgow, that was scary. We'd literally pull straws on that one.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I've seen people escorted off of flights because of drink. Package on.
I've got a few stories on that as well. And a lot of people don't realize that there was smoking on the planes as well.
[00:12:15] Speaker C: I know. I remember as a child sitting in smoking or non smoking areas.
That's horrible. Sad smoking.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: And it was the back of the plane, although some airlines put it on the front, and you could never work that one out because the smoke came back.
Anyway, we've diversified a little bit.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Either way, it's wrong. Yes.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah, indeed. So let's shed some light on crisis management.
Okay, that's an interesting. I don't know if you've had any. I've had some very many different crisis go on in resort. And did you have, like, do you remember, more importantly, and you were a resort manager once, weren't you?
So you might have this.
Do you remember having a crisis management procedure or anything like that? Is that anything spring to mind or not?
[00:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I've worked through several strikes. Coach, bus driver strikes. Yes, absolutely.
I've also had a missing person that was one of my guests who was not found until a year and a half later.
So there was a degree of crisis management, but there was always a new crisis that we were like, how do we do this? But certainly being part of the FTO, the federation of tour operators, we would get together if it was a pre announced crisis, like a coach driver strike or what have you, but with other crisis, some of them, you just had to think on your feet. Stuff that would happen, like the weather changing rapidly or a whole flight of luggage being left behind. And there was all sorts of things that could happen.
You just.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Did you ever have a payment issue with a hotel or anything like that? The hotel hadn't been paid.
[00:14:12] Speaker C: I think of hoteliers asking for payments and things, but nothing major, because I don't know whether it was just the companies that I worked for that they made sure that hoteliers did get paid quite often. It was on the last date, because it was Peter Paul and making sure that the service levels were kept throughout the season as well. So I believe there was areas where payments were kept back, but no, nothing like that. A lot of my issues were not.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Even in the developing countries like India and stuff like that. You didn't have any issues?
[00:14:43] Speaker C: No, no, because we had to work through a local agent. So I worked through. In Goa, I worked through c to travel, which is India's largest travel agency. And so they would work on behalf of several tour operators.
And also the people in the hotels are friends and family as well, aren't they?
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Well, they had a couple of issues. Not to european destinations. It was international ones where we had.
Perhaps it's the first season you'd operated there and they didn't really understand how big you were as an operation. So they didn't understand that Thompson's were like the number one. It was huge.
It was taking millions of passengers.
The tour operators nowadays do not take the same volume that we were taking in those days. And what was very interesting was, I remember one particular hotel, I don't know whether I should say that I can. Fiesta Americano in Acapulco was owed $27,000. And it was purely because of the fact the transfer hadn't happened, it couldn't happen, or something happened logistically.
And they basically were going to kick all the customs out that were in there and they were going to also stop any early arrivals that were coming in. And so someone flew out from the UK with $27,000 in a suitcase and paid him in.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: Wow. That's what used to happen in the 90s, wasn't it? No questions asked.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: 89, I think that was 1989.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Things like that did happen, didn't they? I mean, I've worked through hurricanes and I was in India for when Gujarat had its large earthquakes, which didn't massively affect us down in Goa. However, it did affect us mentally because a lot of our suppliers had family up there. So there was a lot of sadness in resort and we'd put together charity events and things and make sure.
Yeah, we did a charity event for the Gujarat earthquake appeal. But rather than give the money to a big organization, we actually locally sourced things like blankets and took them up to the people that needed it. Because if you give the money to a large organization, chances are you'll see what they buy on sale on a local market because people need the money. So we actually raised the money from our guests and bought things locally. So we still bringing money into the area and then gave it to the people who suffered most. So there were some amazing things that we did at the back of a crisis.
Really special doing that.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I can tell you.
I'll keep on interrupting you. I apologize. I'm terrible. It's. It's a habit of mine.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: I must. Okay.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: And story 1988, obviously, pre Internet and everything else.
People didn't have mobile phones anyway either. And so I'm in Florida and a hurricane hits.
So I thought I'd call home to the UK to say, don't worry, everything's.
No. The only phone lines that were working were the actual phone boxes, or not know the outside phone lines in America. And like in those movies, they want a bit of metal and there's a little bit of a cover to them. And there was some in the middle, kind of on the opposite side of the highway, and there was six lanes to get across, but the lanes were empty and there were bushes blowing down the luck in the Wild west movie blowing down the highway. And so I thought, well, I've got a whole stack of quarters and I'll go over and call the UK and tell them that everything's fine. And as I started to cross this road, the wind was blowing and everything, and I just managed to get with the rain, just managed to get to the phone and I stacked up the things that are hanging onto the bar underneath, and you've got a picture of this. So the rain's coming down and everything else. And I phoned back to the UK and I think it must have been a 09:00. It used to be 09:00 news, didn't it? The BBC used to have.
My mum picked up the phone.
[00:18:58] Speaker C: Hello?
[00:18:59] Speaker B: And I said, hi, it's Wes. Oh, hi. I'm just watching the news. She said. I said, yeah, I'm just calling to say I'm safe. Of course you're safe. What's going on? She couldn't understand. It was a hurricane. I was hanging on to this part and they were watching from the reception area.
Steve, the security chap, was laughing. He was an off duty policeman that worked secured as well, and he was laughing. He was looking over and he was smiling away, waving. And I was hanging on by one hand with a phone and the rain's all coming down, said, don't worry about me, I'm fine. And they're sort of saying, yes, ok, dear, speak to you later. I'm watching the news and they put a phone down on me.
[00:19:37] Speaker C: It's terrible out where you are.
I know it is what you have to work through, but also, like crisis going on around the world. I remember, I don't know if you was overseas for September the 11th, I was living and working.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: No, sitting in my front room. Sitting in my front room.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: No, I was in a visa for there and the time when Lady Diana, Princess Diana, actually, I was surfing for that one. You were surfing? I was in Tenerife.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: I was surfing. I was making my way to the surf beach and just literally, as I drew up, the news came out. And it was quite sad, actually. And we were all very sad. We were all talking about it as we got out. There was only four of us and it was a morning dawn patrol surf. And so that the waves were coming in. It was beautiful day. I remember it. And the waves were just perfect for us in our little surfing spot that we had. And it was sad. I remember it very clearly. So those are two things. September 11, I was at home and I watched that on the tv, and I was actually talking to my wife. And then I watched the second plane go in and I was watching, I was thinking, that's going to hit that building. And bam, it went in. And I thought, oh dear.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: Moments in history. And it's amazing. You just remember exactly where you are, what you're doing. But I also remember spending that time comforting the guests.
When the funeral was on, we would take time out to sit and support our guests in hotels. So even though it might not have affected us massively, we always had to think about them and how they felt.
Yeah, there was a lot of time spent with never thought of this. Giving them comfort.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
Just interrupt him for a small commercial break and then we'll be straight back to the podcast.
[00:21:24] Speaker D: Do you hear it?
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[00:23:13] Speaker C: See moments in history. Wesley moments it is indeed.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: And because you're like that little bit different in time. So I'm kind of like before you and I ended when you started typhouse, period. So I went back into head offices of tour breakers at that point. So that's where my career really evolved and airlines and everything else.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: I'm sorry to interrupt. I was working for the head office when we had ash cloud. I don't even remember the ash cloud.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: What, the Iceland Volcano?
[00:23:43] Speaker C: The Iceland one? Yes. I was working at head office then.
Well, I think I was just about to go on maternity leave, so I was a little bit relieved, or maybe the other way around, but I was in HR at the time. But, yeah, huge impact. But it was an impact on the UK staff because reps were due to go out to resort. We'd got hotels arranged, we got flights, everything, all these reps going out, coming out. We also had a crisis team as well that flew out to different places to deal with the massive hotel, to train our reps here in the UK. And it's easy overseas, isn't it? Because you're flooded with massive great places, but not so much.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: A little bit. Austin, you did the HR thing. Did you get much rep training actually in resort? Because let's just talk about the rep training side of things very quickly.
Most of the rep training that we had was a week in the UK for both companies, although you're very experienced by then, whatever. And even if you were experienced rep, you had to go to the rep training, which was really. Seemed a little bit silly, but we only really got. I mean, I think we got a week with Cosmos and a week with Thompson's. What about you?
[00:25:02] Speaker C: A little bit longer than that, actually. We do the same.
Your rep training in the UK was to go over changes, administration, customer handling, how the business was, look at the visions and values. And then once she was out into resort, you're looking at your resort familiarization, which is what ours was called. So it was going round your hotels, doing your health and safety checks, ready to open for the season, but also experiencing the excursions, getting to know your suppliers. I used to love the resort familiarization. It was that real like getting to know your individual.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Was it individual or group?
[00:25:41] Speaker C: It depends on when you came out, because some people came out just for high season, didn't they? And others would be there at the very start. I mean, I know some of mine. I came out a little bit later. If you work a winter in ski, you tend to go out to resort a little bit later because you work the solid winter.
So you've got a bit of time off before you go out to resort. But no, mostly it was done as in groups because it was easier that way. Everybody was learning off the same training structure, same training program.
But obviously we had different things that we had to do, but we all had to experience it.
I used to like resort familiarization, driving around with a map, proper paper map in those days.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: And you'd have question and answers on that point. Did you get a vehicle? And what vehicle was yours?
[00:26:33] Speaker C: I had various vehicles, actually.
I remember having a little twingo at one point in a Vita. And then at one point I had. I always find it hard to say this, a fiat.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Don't ask yourself out.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: There's tiny little fiats and things.
But also, when I was in India, oddly enough, I was given a resort vehicle, this little tatter like car, and it was all blacked out and had this little flashing Buddha thing on the top. And I drove it for a month. And I remember being scared out of my wits because over there, there's no white lines or anything. You just head for the gap and you toot your horn. And they took the car off of me and said, and I said, oh, why? I've got used to it now. And they said, well, we can't get insurance.
I'd had it a month.
I had a car in Cuba. Wow, that was interesting.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: I had motorbikes. Moped.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I had a moped in a.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Really? I've got a couple of stories on that. Maybe I'll save them for another time. But I did have a couple of instances on my movie motorbike. Yeah. Some funny stories there. Yeah. That's interesting.
I really find that interesting to see, because there was a period where motorbikes were frowned upon because there was a couple terrible accidents that. We had some very nasty accidents in Greece, actually.
And I remember that no one was allowed to drive a motorbike. We didn't do Greece anyway.
I didn't do Greece, so it wasn't straight on effect to me.
The greek reps had a problem for a while because they weren't allowed to drive motorbikes or mopeds because of this.
[00:28:29] Speaker C: Yeah. And also we used to promote people not using them because we knew about the maintenance and everything else and what have you. And there was a lot of accidents, if you remember.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: I wonder if it's like that moped accidents, wonder whether the maintenance is missing.
[00:28:46] Speaker C: Who knows? It's things like diving into pools as well. Do you remember checking for any diving allurements, so to speak, as they were called? And the amount of people that. Sorry to turn this onto a sad moment, but a lot of people that would dive into a shallow pool because at one point they didn't have the depth markings round or they weren't clear. And there's all sorts of things that have changed over the years, whereas people would end up with a broken spine and just all sorts of horrible things that happened just by diving into a porch.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: I had multiple bereavements in my time and because of the volume of people and the time, winter tended to be elderly people, summertime tended to be younger people. But I had quite a few people do pool jumps. And what I mean by that is jumps from the balcony, twelve floor balcony, pool below, and they were drunk or whatever, and they thought it was a good idea to jump into the swimming pool from twelve stories high or six stories high. And of course the difference there is. Yet the pool does look like it's below you. But the reality is there's 50 meters between the edge of the pool and the hotel.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: And they don't get near it.
I had horrendous situations with that and it was such a shame because it was always drink that caused it in all cases. I never had a suicide or anything of that nature.
I couldn't think of anything more upsetting. I think if someone was to take their life on purpose on a holiday, but saying that all the instances we have were literally were people where they jumped thinking that they were doing a clever thing. As it is anyway, if you jump from any height into water, it's like hitting concrete. Anyway. So where the logic comes from that.
[00:30:44] Speaker C: I know divers, there's no logic involved when there's that much alcohol or drugs involved and peer pressure, all sorts of things going on.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Did you have a lot of drugs and resorts, did you have a problem with that at all?
Not personally. I mean, did you have a lot of.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: I mean, of course I was in Ibiza for two years. It's known as the party central. So we would have people go through some very scary episodes, whether it would.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Be psychedelic, isn't it?
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Yeah, but also drink spiking we have.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: That wasn't even a thing in my time. Drink spiking.
[00:31:24] Speaker C: Yeah, we had drink spiking, but also people purchasing drugs and getting involved with the wrong type of people in resorts and not happy with what they've got and causing problems. So, yeah, there was all sorts going off. It's a crazy island. It's very crazy. But you can avoid that if you want to as well. It's beautiful as well. It's a real mixture of families and people, of all different walks of life. But sadly, it's the bad news that tends to make the news, isn't it? It's the shock factor. But, yeah, a beautiful place to work. I loved it. But, yeah, we did have those sort of things going on.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Something to ask you. We used to have to. And this is pre Internet, of course, up until the early 90s. So I don't know what you did because you've gone on form then, but we had to produce our own excursion sheets.
They weren't printed, so we would have to design color, cut pictures out, take photographs and put them all on.
I don't think they do that now. I think everything seems to be so processed now.
Professional, now.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Easy. They've got it. Yes, absolutely. It's all corporate and it's all matching and everything. But yes, I remember beginning the season making our notice boards and making your welcome map as well. That was something that was always.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Did you also have a welcome book? We had a welcome book, so we have to notice. Have a massive welcome book that people flip through and everything else. And it had everything in there, but we had to manually do that. And I don't know whether they do that now. That'd be interesting to know. I don't know whether they do or not. But that was a really big job. I mean, that would take you two or three weeks to get it.
[00:33:07] Speaker C: Yeah, we used to have an event and that would be making your guidebook because there was like a strict structure to it. So there was this structure to it.
The basics were printed off, but it was up to you then to get pictures, cut magazines. And I remember going into resort office to make resort guide, as it was called.
I remember in welcome meetings, you describe it as the rep that doesn't go home because all your information was on there. So that when you're not about that, they could read the information there.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: We used to have to share typewriters. Okay, but this is probably surprising.
I can see your face, but I used to actually have. I took with me an electronic typewriter to result.
I was in my parents loft the other day, just before Christmas. I think I told you I was doing a clearing up my parents loft and I found it and it's still in working order. It's perfect. And the last time it was used was when I was overseas and there.
[00:34:08] Speaker C: It was, perfectly built.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: They were, I want to plug it in and have a go at it.
[00:34:14] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, we'll be driving you nuts within minutes.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: But that's what we used to do. So you type that and then of course you make an error and then you'd have to get the old TipX out and mark it up. It's totally different world now. I mean, everything will be on a WordPress.
[00:34:27] Speaker C: Teenagers are rolling their eyes going, what is Tippex? What is Tippex? They didn't know the lovely aroma Tipx had as well, which I know you shouldn't sniff, but it smelled gorgeous, didn't it?
And also how annoyed you was if someone took your pictures off your notice.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Board or defaced them or moved the files around in the book. I'm pretty sure I had customers that just see, I've called them customers now that used to actually clients, our clients would come or guests would come and they would literally remove things and move around. And I think, why on earth would you sit and rearrange my welcome book?
And then your welcome book would disappear. That would be the thing. Disappear for three days and you think, why did someone stole it? And then you find and it would come back and it would be round the pool, but someone has taken it to their room for two days.
For what reason, I do not know. And then they'd return it and you'd have like, do not remove. I remember we chained at one resort hotel, actually had to chain it.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: I remember that too.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: And chaining to the bottom of the table.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Especially in young persons. Please do not remove this. Well, it was gone all the time. The minute you say do not, do not.
Absolutely.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Just to kind of finish behind the scenes.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: There we go. But what about. I don't know if you did this. Your welcome packs for the airport, you meet and greet and used to have your envelope and your information inside or a card advertising for the welcome meeting.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, got you. I forgot about that. So you'd go up and down.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And if you'd forgotten them, it was a cardinal sin because if it was another reps hotel, they would be fuming because nobody knew the time of the welcome meeting. And of course you wanted maximum turnout at your welcome meeting. A, you didn't have to repeat yourself all week and b, you could maximize your excursion sales because part of your majority of your job out in resort is sales. And service. So you want that opportunity to do both of those. You want to show that you know the place.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: I'm glad you remembered that because I had actually forgotten that we did that.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Oh, used to make little welcome pack parties.
I'd have loads made up so that it was really easy on airport day. So on a quiet night or something, or if I wasn't out guiding or just had a bit of time actually in one of my hotels, quiet hotel.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: You did actual welcome meetings as well. You yourself did them individually?
Yeah. Good. Excellent.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: I was a welcome meeting trainer as well, Wesley.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Were you?
I used to love doing them, actually, but it was interesting with Cosmos on some of our destinations, we didn't get as many customers as the days with Thompson's and sometimes the holidays, particularly in the Costa Brava, the holidays were really ridiculously cheap, particularly if they came by Coach Express. So you had the flights, but you also had the coach express. So if they'd flown into Jerona, then those arrivals were good. But if you came by Coach Express, the opportunity to get excursion sales were very minimal because they'd only paid 120 something pound for a holiday for seven nights in a three star with half board.
And that was ridiculous compared to others were paying three 4500 pounds for a holiday with the flight. And so in those days, the flights were one of the most expensive elements of the, of the holiday. That's not the case now. It's totally the opposite, actually. It's done a total reverse.
But it was very, I mean, I did some. I remember one particular hotel in Pineda and had a lot of arrivals and no one turned up for the welcome meeting. But I had all the sangria, I had all the sangria ready and I was kind of like, oh, God, I knew this was going to happen.
It wasn't a lot of arrivals, to say a lot. I mean, it was 30 or people, I think, in this particular hotel, none of them turned up and I didn't think they would.
The coach had arrived late.
It was an evening, nighttime, and I just thought, they're just going to want to go to the beach. It was a beautiful day, but what I did was I looked out the window and I could see some of my existing customers that were already there rent a pool, and I recognized some of the new ones. So I went up to the nice pool and I went up and got a music going on. I just grabbed a microphone from the discotech chap that was there and I said, can you just put your hands up?
Cosmos rep, can you just put your hand up anyone here who's with cosmos so I can see who's here. And ten different groups. I said, oh, thank you very much. I'm going to pop around and see you in a minute. Put that down. So I went to the barman and I said, listen, we've paid for these sangras as a company.
I want to deliver every one of those to all these customers. And I walked around and I delivered them all jugs of sangria by the rest of the. And this was funny because the rest of the hotel was Thompson, actually, and a couple other german operators, and they were all around by the pool as well. And I remember one of the chaps stood up when everyone had been served and said, this is what you get when you book with cosmos.
That was such a great moment, but it was really nice. But that was just an interesting story, really, of mine.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: No. And there's so much rivalry between the brands. Wasn't there even, like you say, passenger wise, rep wise, hotelier wise, all sorts of things.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: There was a nasty incident happened to me with, probably make this the last story, but I was going to say a nasty incident. I was obviously cosmos. And at the time, there was Thompson's in the hotel and two of the reps. We all lived close to each other in the same hotel, but we didn't speak. Now, they didn't know much about me. They didn't know my career up until that point. They didn't know that I knew a lot, knew their bosses very well and everything else, but that was a different story.
And they came out and they damaged my motorcycle and they emptied it and they pushed it over and they damaged it.
And I came up in the morning and I had to go and do some important stuff and went to my motorbike, and it was on it. It was standing up, but not where I left it. And I thought, this is really weird. And all the fuel had gone, everything.
Anyway, it caused a real big problem, and I had some. Luckily, one of my guests was a mechanic, and he came out and he was mending it, bless his heart, in shorts. And he said, I went to the hotel manager and he gave me the technician or the engineer for the hotel came out and he had all his toolkit, and they were mending my motorbike, actually, at the entrance to the hotel.
And I actually did get an apology from those reps. They didn't realize the damage they'd done and the problem. But, yeah, that was rivalry. That was simple rivalry. But I think they took it too far.
[00:41:57] Speaker C: Yeah, they did. At least they apologized in the end.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: Anyway, shall we wrap this episode up? And next one will be very good. So I'm going to say goodbye.
[00:42:08] Speaker C: Fun going down memory lane, isn't it?
[00:42:11] Speaker B: And I'll let you say goodbye as well. And then we move on.
[00:42:15] Speaker C: Yes. Goodbye for now.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: Goodbye for now.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: As we wrap up for another episode of Journeybound stories from overseas travel representatives, we're reminded of experiences and adventures that connect us all. The world is truly an expansive place, yet stories like this bring us close. Are together. Join us again next podcast for more captivating narratives from across the globe. And until next time, safe travels, wherever your journey may take.
