My Brazil nut client thinks he’s a cut above Customs and Excise

My Brazil nut client thinks he’s a cut above Customs and Excise

Everyone likes to branch out now and again but one elderly client was set on a bit of deforestation in the Amazon Basin

In the solutions business

Some of the problems I’ve encountered this week have confirmed my view that preparing travel arrangements for some of our clients encourage them to view a travel agency as a kind of oracle. If I remember correctly from my dim and distant lessons, the oracle was a place where a priest or priestess would seek answers – the agent was believed to predict future events with infallible authority.

A young man, for whom Ihad booked a two-centre holiday in Bali, rang to ask about prices of food in the hotels as he had taken the room-only option.

Darshi, at Tropical Locations, confirmed that the US-style breakfast cost the same at both hotels, £25 a day but that the client could opt for something a little less costly, such as egg on toast.

Irelayed this information to the client whose stunned silence I had to break, saying jokingly: “Not to worry, we supply a packet of cornflakes and a tin of dried milk along with your Wessex World tickets and baggage labels.”

“Oh, do you really?” came the reply.

Now there’s a niche market for Kelloggs!

Not quite recovered from that peculiar exchange, Iwas ill-prepared for my next client, an old chap who wanted to bring part of the Amazon rainforest back in his suitcase.

A recent West Country tempest had wrenched a huge walnut tree from its roots and deposited it across our car park, where it lay soaking up the rain until North Dorset Council workers reduced it to moveable-sized chunks by way of chainsaws.

My client had witnessed this and told me he carves wooden animals for a hobby and that he would happily have moved the tree himself providing that he could keep the timber.

As that was no longer available to him hewondered if Icould find out how much timber he would be allowed to bring back from the Amazon Basin.

We had then moved on to the subject of global warming. Before Ihanded him his credit card back, Iadvised him that any timber logs would be confiscated by customs.

While my client reluctantly accepted this to be the case, Julie was struggling with a client who refused to believe her answers regarding Eurostar travel.

Most of the nation was aware that, due to unprecedented floods, winds, leaves on the line and whatever other natural disasters, Eurostar was simply not running to schedule.

Julie’s client seemed to hold her personally responsible and wanted to know what she was going to do about it.

Julie tried to explain that it was not up to her what Eurostar did.

“Is that your final answer?” came the reply.

Julie resisted telling him that he could phone a friend!

Maybe crime does pay

There is no hiding place for travel agents, even when off-duty. This week Kate was on her way to the Pulcinella Italian restaurant in Shaftesbury when she was stopped by a prison van. A prison officer flagged her down and asked directions to the local prison at Guys Marsh.

At least, that was her excuse for being late to our office dinner to say farewell to Jude who is retiring.

Nigel, our boss, is never one to miss a salesopportunity and asked Kate if she had handed out business cards to the prison officer and the six handcuffed unfortunates peering at her from the back ofthe van.

Kate confessed that this had slipped her mind, work being the last of her considerations while beingconfronted by dangerous criminals on a dark and dirty night.

But she could see the sales potential as even prison officers have holidays and the crims could always do advance registration for when they are released.

Besides saying au revoir to Jude, our dinner was also an informal training event on Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mauritius given by Nigel who had just returned from a holiday in the region. He described it as a holiday of a lifetime and his tales of elephants tip-toeing between the tents at the back-to-nature experience of the Okavango Delta had us green with envy.

Holidaying in remote places has other benefits, according to Nigel, as he related the tale of his lost suitcase.

Nigel and his wife had flown in a Cessna light aircraft, which he had helped the pilot to load, and it wasn’t until they reached their room at Victoria Falls that they discovered that a bag had been left in he hold of the aircraft. Kerr Downey, agents for the tour operator Carrier, got a message to the pilot who had the bag flown back on a light aircraft and delivered to the hotel.

Imagine that happening in the UK?

It’s curtains for you

I am becoming quite paranoid as blame-a-travel-agent week continues. Last week Iwas blamed for a client having to pay extra for his holiday because Ihad taken a late lunch during which the price of his flights had risen. This week I committed a deadly sin by offering a client a choice of holiday.

What could possibly be wrong with that, Ihear you ask, just as Idid. Apparently, while holding the phone and pondering which late deal to choose, my client, in her excitement, had swallowed the curtain hook she had been holding in her mouth.

An overnight stay in hospital passed comfortably and she was able to travel.