FOOD, drink and plenty of festive spirit – it could only be the 8th annual Alternative Travel Awards at the Park Lane Hotel in London.
Goodwill to all men was, however, totally out of the question as Tapestry chief Nick Wrightman and his sidekick Tom Allen from Disney set about humiliating as many people in the industry as possible for charity.
Wrightman kicked off by saying that for anyone who didn’t know him, he was Jeffrey Archer.
He also gave a special mention to the ludicrously attired gang from Cosmos who had dressed all in white in an obvious attempt to emulate 1960s heroes Randall and Hopkirk. Cosmos also helped raise money for charity by charging people to have their pictures taken with scantily clad women.
Wrightman then had a dig at Going Places managing director Terry Fisher, who famously referred to himself in a previous issue of Travel Weekly as ‘the most eligible bachelor in the industry.’
“He obviously doesn’t know the difference between eligible and pig-ugly,” retorted Wrightman.
ABTA president Steven Freudmann was also barracked over the Cairns Convention and the Truly Independent Professional Travel Organisation, TIPTO, was referred to as TULIP, the Truly Independent Lying Incompetent Poor operators.
On to the awards and an embarrassed Federation of Tour Operators secretary-general Alan Flook had to make the long walk to the stage to collect the gong for ‘head girl of the year’.
‘Head boy of the year’went to former Airtours managing director Chris Mottershead, who must be pleased to be escaping to run the group’s Canada division after they put up an old picture of him with a horrible wispy moustache.
During an hilarious evening, Thomas Cook retail managing director Andrew Windsor picked up ‘best breasts of the year’ after a topless picture of him was beamed onto the big screen. There was one wholly unexpected award, though. Backchat was shocked to bits when Travel Weekly editor Jeremy Skidmore was awarded the gong for ‘biggest ego of the year’. Surely this must be some mistake?