Feeling the pinch
If credit isn’t quite being crunched here in Gillingham, it’s certainly starting to be chewed vigorously.
The estate agent on the high street has shut its house buying and selling operation and is only retaining its architectural and planning departments.
Charity shops are doing a roaring trade as women find their accessories budget going towards the cost of a tank of petrol, and park and ride schemes outside big towns have never been busier.
If the truth be told, I hadn’t thought about how the greater economic picture might affect us; I’d happily gone along with all those headlines promising that ‘the worst is over’.
Turns out we’re not immune and the client that brought it home to me was the one who came in to ask me to put her option to Thailand in February on hold.
When she asked me to cost the holiday, she’d already arranged for her daughter to board at her independent school while she and her partner went away, so I knew she was serious about booking.
It was disappointing then, when instead of handing over the deposit, she told me the trip was going to have to go on the back burner.
“We couldn’t find any tenants for my house so we’ve put it up for sale,” she said “but that means no income from rental and we’re having problems selling it, even though we’ve dropped the price. The bottom line is no disposable income.”
She added by way of consoling me: “If it’s any comfort, all the extras are on hold; I’ve even told my daughter she’ll have to wait for tuba lessons until next term.”
The loss to the world of orchestral brass did nothing to alleviate the pain of the loss of my commission, but I smiled anyway.
“What’s your house like?” I asked, “just in case any of our clients are looking for somewhere to buy.”
She told me the property is a three-bedroom period house with a walled garden in a Dorset village.
“I’d be willing to negotiate on the price and cut out the estate agent,” she said, adding that she’d drop the details in next time she was passing.
Once she’d left, a shrewd colleague pointed out that encouraging another client to buy the house would probably put them out of the market for a holiday.
Old bird scores
Another client came in seeking a relaxing beach holiday to aid her recovery from a knee operation.
Her checklist included a lot of ‘nos’: no long flights, no long transfers (her knee couldn’t stand it), no noise, no children in resort (see previous point), no busy resorts, no hotel too far from a beach (see earlier knee issue) and definitely no high prices.
The client was a frosty old thing and I tried thawing her with an anecdote, telling her that I knew somebody who’d had a similar knee operation.
“He’d been injured playing rugby,” I said.
“Oh, mine’s not caused by playing rugby,” she said, “though I have been under a few rugby players in my time!”
Well, how about that for a microwave-quick defrost. By the time she left, having booked to the Algarve, I had the old bird eating out of my hand.
Bird’s-eye poo
After all the press coverage of clients successfully suing Thomson for offering UK holidaymakers German-orientated hotels, one has to ask where the line will be drawn over what constitutes a legitimate cause for complaint.
Take a client of mine who came in recently to complain about damage to her health as a result of suspected food poisoning at her all-inclusive resort.
She was the only guest to develop this illness and was later hospitalised, which led to her miss the flight home.
The woman is adamant she only ate in the hotel and maintains that the outside dining room was the source of her illness.
“There were birds flying in and out of the dining area,” she said, “they dive-bombed the tables. I think one must have pooped in something I ate. My husband said I’m lucky I didn’t catch the plague.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to be up against it to prove it,” I said.
As far as I’m concerned, she’d be better off ‘dropping’ the matter…
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset