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This year’s ABTA convention should bring some excellent business opportunities for us all. Not only can we network and form new contacts but we can also listen and learn from the ideas of others

Denis Wormwell

Writing this, I am like many others in the industry, packing my suitcase with team colours, polo shirts, business cards, football boots, convention handbook and resolve tablets.

It must be time to prepare for the ABTA convention again, the main event of the travel industry’s calendar.

Every ABTA convention is different, although one thing that remains constant seems to be the whingeing (new industry buzz word!) about either the cost, the distance, the weather, the content, the number of agents attending – or the whole lot. This year, the moans came earlier than ever – before the first aircraft left the UK.

My view is that you get out of the convention what you put into it. In this instance, e-business is where ‘e’ stands for effort. Work hard, play hard and get involved.

This is why JMC will have a contingency in Kos – to meet our many retail, airline, airport, supplier and tourist board partners – to thank them for their support this year and to look forward to doing more business together next year.

We have already made huge inroads into our relationship with agents and Kos allows us to have more personal contact.

The only shorts in Kos this year might be the ones sold in the hotel bars, but the convention is not about sun, but ideas, business opportunities and fun.

At this new millennium convention the new media businesses are, quite rightly, taking centre stage. This not only means that there will be more shirts not tucked into trousers, and less ties than in previous years, but some very interesting business sessions and debates.

While the Internet and what it means may be ‘all Greek’ to some, the convention provides a wonderful opportunity to listen and learn from those who dot can.

Many speakers this year are from outside of the travel industry, and they should provide a welcome excursion away from the party political broadcasts tones of some presentations in the past. Hopefully the content will remain generic and the debate dynamic.

I have other hopes for my weekend in the Dodecanese. I hope people put a lot into the conference and turn up on mass to the business sessions. I hope there is interesting debate. I hope to meet new people. I hope it doesn’t rain.

I hope the operators beat the agents (again) at football, I hope I win the VW Beetle.

I hope Burnley beat Norwich. I hope Manuel (Thomson sales director Manuel Mascarenhas) doesn’t ask questions from the conference floor.

I hope everyone goes home after the weekend having had a great time.

“My view is that you get out of the convention what you put into it”