THE FIRST educational to Disneyland Paris for agents and their children looks set to become a regular event after being voted a success by all involved.
The trip, the brainchild of Thomson Breakaway head of sales Maria Whiteman, was aimed at giving the retailers an impression of what the theme park has to offer through a child’s eyes.
“During a character breakfast on one of our regular educationals, I saw the faces of some children and realised what we were missing because we were all adults,” said Whiteman, who took 20 Lunn Poly retailers, each with a child aged five-12, to the park.
“Disneyland Paris was keen to do it as it had not been done before, and so was Eurostar.”
Agents travelled direct to the park on the daily Eurostar service from Waterloo, stayed one night at Newport Bay Club Hotel and had a day free to enjoy the rides before returning to London.
Because there was no structured training, agents paid £100 for themselves and a child or £85 if they were sharing a room with a friend.
The price included a character breakfast, so agents could see it first hand, and there was an optional dinner at Planet Hollywood to experience a restaurant in Disney Village.
“They were able to see how the children reacted at the character breakfast and I am sure they will be able to sell more now,” said Whiteman.
The event was branded a semi-educational as there were no hotel visits. However, on the way back to London, Whiteman admitted she would like agents to see inside the hotels another time.
“From the comments I am getting it has gone well, so I would like to do it again, maybe for mixed accounts,” she added.
“But having seen this one, I would like to try to organise a child-sitter for some of the time so we can do hotel visits. That would be better from a work point of view.”
Whiteman said she hoped the agents came away with a good idea of how easy it is to get to Disneyland Paris on Eurostar and how close the on-site hotels are.
“They will also know what the park offers for children and they have tried two or three restaurants so they can tell clients about those,” she said.
Disneyland Paris sales co-ordinator UK and Ireland Myriam Goudiguen said the theme park would be happy to discuss similar educationals with other operators but stressed it did not replace product knowledge. “This is second-tier learning, for agents who already know about the park,” she said.