Big kid’s yuletide wish
Here we are in December and the Santa costumes have been taken out of storage, the nylon beards washed in non-biological liquid and the belt buckles polished with Brasso ready for the festive season.
How nice it is to be allowed to think cheery thoughts at last after months of nothing but talk of recession and depression. Okay, so the office party might be rather pared down this year, but that won’t stop us enjoying ourselves!
I particularly enjoy a visit to Father Christmas. After all, who can resist an invitation to hop onto the lap of a bearded stranger with a special present for you?
I’ve always wanted to tug at the beard and see if it’s really Pierce Brosnan between jobs. Apparently there are some who are not so keen.
Take the woman visiting Father Christmas in Selfridges who was invited by him to sit on his lap. She was not amused and filed a complaint! In his defence, Santa stated that Christmas is for adults as well as children and I agree.
Many, many Christmases ago, when I was working in Essex, I remember a client who came in to our shop and asked if we booked P&O Cruises.
He was a middle aged man with a family and he wanted to know if P&O would use the same Santa every year on a particular cruise. He told me he’d cruised the year before with his family and they’d struck up a friendship with the onboard Father Christmas.
I said I doubted it would be the same man, as while Christmas comes but once a year, Santas come and go all the time, but I agreed to check.
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint your children if they’ve made a special friend,” I said, cheerily.
“Oh, it’s not the children who fell for him,” he replied, “it’s me.” At which point he produced a photo of himself sitting on Santa’s knee.
Now I couldn’t swear to it, but, to my mind, Father Christmas’s cheeks were redder than you might expect as he smiled through the beard.
“What the heck,” I said, “even if it’s not the right fella, don’t they all look the same once they’ve got the gear on? Shall I book it anyway?”
It worked. He booked, but I never found out if he got what he wanted underneath the Christmas tree!
The cheek of it
Once again, the travel industry has been put through the mill following the bombings in India and the protests in Bangkok.
It never ceases to amaze me how people who disregarded agents and booked trips on the internet suddenly expect us to have all the answers to their direct-booking queries.
A woman in a very ill-advised bobble hat waddled up to my colleague Rick, in the shop.
“What’s happening about people due to travel to India in the next few weeks?” she squawked.
Rick relayed the current advice from the Foreign Office only to be interrupted by the vigorous nodding of the knitted bobble.
“Yes, yes,” she said testily, “I know all that – it was on the radio. My son is due to travel in three weeks’ time and no one’s bothered to contact him.”
Fearing we’d missed calling one of our clients, Rick asked for her son’s name, which she duly gave.
“That’s funny,” said Rick, “I can’t find a record of him here. Did he did book with us?”
“Oh no!” Came the reply, “I booked it on the internet. But what difference does that make? Just tell me, does he get his money back if he doesn’t go?”
Rick tried to explain that she would need to contact the operator, but to no avail. We are not alone in wrestling with such people. I hear operators are being contacted by people not due to travel until next June! We can only hope things change for the better before then.
Penny speeds ahead
My colleague Penny recently proved that every new meeting is a marketing opportunity.
Having been photographed by the police driving ever-so slightly faster than the speed limit, Penny opted to attend a speed awareness course rather than take points on her licence.
After the rather harrowing video, Penny lightened the mood of the group of drivers by discussing holidays. She told them she was a travel agent and that we could offer a range of flydrives as well as details of the national speed limits across the world.
That’s what I call drive!
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset
