Making a date with ABTA
The first day of the ABTA Convention started with a hearty breakfast at the All Seasons Cairns hotel and a presentation from our hosts – All Seasons, Tourism New South Wales and Qantas Airways.
Breakfast was digested with particular relish by Rhonda Burley of EST Travel in Buckinghamshire and Philip Mason of Trent Bridge Travel whose names were drawn from a hat, earning them a whistle-stop tour of Sydney. Since neither had met the other before, Phil wasted no time in observing that their situation bore more than a passing resemblance to Blind Date!
No Cilla Black here, however. We were welcomed instead by Bob Gibbs, minister for tourism, sport and racing, along with Steven Hiscock, senior consul of the British High Commission. Steven Freudman then got the 1999 event officially under way, introducing us to our presenter, Alistair Stewart, who is becoming quite a fixture at the conference.
Silence is not golden
With limited space I can comment only briefly on the debates. However, one might particularly interest agents.
The discussion involved Richard Carrick of Airtours and Andrew Windsor of Thomas Cook. Afterwards Alistair Stewart invited questions from the floor in just the same way he had done in Marbella last year and, just like last year, members of the audience felt intimidated into silence.
This irked me somewhat as we had been promised that the format of such debates would be altered to avoid this in Cairns and yet it seemed that nothing had changed. I took the matter up with Steven Freudman over coffee. We can only keep pressing home the point.
Top table talks
After the break, passions ran high with members of the group claiming that it’s all very well for experts who never sell a holiday from the counter to tell us that direct sales to clients do not affect agents when experience tells us this is not so.
Lynne Sumners of Carrick Travel in Stratford-Upon-Avon overcame her nervousness to say precisely that. She added that our party was there courtesy of Travel 2, a com-pany which does not sell direct to the public, does not discount but treats all agents equally; if they can do it, why can’t the rest?
This clearly caught Alistair Stewart’s imagination and he suggested another session be scheduled to deal with it.
Before we retired for lunch, leading Aussie businesswoman Amanda Gore gave a brief synopsis of her afternoon session – a fun but useful study of how body language can be used to help us sell more!
A delicious lunch sponsored by Tourism Queensland followed, with a chance to meet friends and suppliers in the Business Bazaar before our return to the auditorium.
Back in our rooms, we received our next set of instructions advising us to wear bush gear. Later that evening we were transported on ducks (trams) through the tropical jungle of Cairns Night Zoo where we were able to see crocodiles feed (easy to spot as their eyes glow in the dark), snakes, possums and other indigenous species. The barbecue meal and the musical entertainment provided made complete a wonderful experience which was over too soon as we were bussed back to the Novotel ready for an early start to the ‘adventure day’ to come.
Licenced to shop
The inclement weather determined however that some adventures were off the agenda; in spite of all the hot air at the conference, the hot-air ballooning was cancelled!
Those not up to white-water rafting enjoyed the Cairns-Kurunda railway which afforded us breathtaking views of the rainforest. Kurunda itself was a delightful surprise, especially to shoppers! Designer dresses at affordable prices, quality Australian clothing, Aboriginal designs on prints and paintings and lots more.
By the time I arrived back at the skyrail station for the cable car to Caravonica Lakes, I had so many bags I looked like I’d done the weekly Tesco shop as Pam Flint of Four Seasons Travel, Shenfield, pointed out. It was with arms as long as an orang-utan that I dined in the Novotel and lapped up its award-winning food.
Scaling new heights
A 6.45am breakfast sponsored by Tourism Tasmania started the final day of the ABTA Convention and more controversy.
First Choice’s Dermot Blastland was obliged to offer me an interview at a later date to discuss his claim, with which I take issue, that First Choice does not offer holidays to clients booking direct which are not available to agents.
Clad in red Travel 2 T shirts, our group had been christened the Red Army by Alistair Stewart and we had certainly marched on the 1999 ABTA Convention.
A prize draw produced a winner from our ranks. Susan Cowley of Voyager Travel in Scotland – there couldn’t have been a more popular choice!
Although we’d enjoyed another super party to end the convention, Travel 2 laid on more excitement. We made our way to Silky Oaks Lodge in the Daintrees Rainforest, a luxurious, tranquil resort.
Some of us were apprehensive about sharing the environment with resident spiders and snakes, but the beauty of the place overcame most fears, although it was rumoured that one David Longmuir failed the macho test when, upon seeing a snake outside his lodge, he ran inside, locked the door and phoned reception. And I thought he’d strangled it with his bare hands!
And so ended the trip, but not before I’d been nabbed for possession of luggage 2 kilos overweight, resulting in the unpacking of my bits and pieces in public view.
A small price to pay for so wonderful a trip and, on behalf of everyone in the Travel 2 group I offer a huge thank you to the company’s directors.