I have always believed my clients’ holidays start from the moment they step into my agency to make their booking.
One client came in to book her family’s trip to the US. They would be flying in to Rapid City and then driving on to the Black Hills in South Dakota. As we went through the itinerary my client’s 14-year-old daughter asked what and where were the Black Hills.
“Have you never seen the film Calamity Jane with Doris Day and the late Howard Keel?” I asked. She shook her head. I told her that if she ever got to see the film she would hear the terrific Doris Day voice singing of the beautiful Black Hills of Dakota and of the joys of the Deadwood Stage and that she and her family were going to visit both Dakota and Deadwood.
Impulsively, I started to sing the opening chorus of Deadwood Mountain and was swiftly joined first by my client and then by a whistled accompaniment from an old chap being served by my colleague at an adjacent desk.
After a vigorous rendering we all dissolved into a fit of giggles. Then I had to ring Julie at JTA Travel to check that she had had a reply from the lodge that we had emailed her about.
At that moment the 14-year-old chose to interrupt again by asking her mother what was for tea. “Meatballs”, replied mum. The whistler asked mum if she put onions in her meatballs. “Yes”, said mum, “and paprika, herbs, fresh parsley and fresh breadcrumbs”.
“How much breadcrumbs?” came the voice of Julie, who had been listening in while going through her emails. I conveyed this request to mum who made a small fist, which I relayed to Julie as “about two ounces”.
Unfortunately, the requested lodge had not replied so I passed this news to my client who said that she would return to give us all her recipe for chocolate and beetroot cake, which I said we would commit to a book called Maureen’s Munchies.
Another client, who had witnessed this little bit of Britain’s Got Talent, observed: “You don’t get this sort of entertainment when you book online – and with recipes thrown in!”
Bursting with pride
The world may change but, thankfully, people in the travel industry stay the same. I was reminded of this when I attended the recent Agent Achievement Awards and met up with Dino Touli, sales manager of Atlantic Holidays, who was looking rather elegant in his DJ with a dazzlingly fancy waistcoat.
However, closer inspection revealed that our fun-loving Dino was doing a Liz Hurley and his waistcoat was held together with safety pins.
Apparently, when he did up his waistcoat, a button had popped off and landed at his feet. While bending down to pick it up, all the other buttons had popped off in sympathy – hence the safety pins.
On the last occasion with Dino it had been his shirt buttons that had been a problem. Somebody should introduce Dino to Velcro!
More bowels than bowls
I have just had a chap call in from outside our area to collect brochures for a tour he is planning to lead himself. He proceeded to lament the fact that he ran a pensioners’ club in his neck of the woods and had just returned from a trying tour of France that he had personally escorted.
He said that every morning he had been deafened by what had sounded like the maracas in a Latin American band as his elderly charges shook their boxes of pills simultaneously at breakfast.
But it got worse, he said, explaining: “Then Elsie went and lost her teeth by leaving them in a glass in the ballroom the night before and so needed all her food made into pulp. You try explaining that to a Frenchman when you can’t speak French and he can’t speak English”.
I edged him towards the door having taken a few details but he still went on, “and George should never have come, with the state of
his bowels”.
Fortunately, another client held the door open for him as I waved him off, promising that I would sort everything out for him if he booked with me. But George’s bowels?!
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels in Gillingham, Dorset