TOO many hotels visits and not enough free time is a common complaint from agents who have just returned from educationals.
Club Med believes its fam trips are different because they focus on agents sampling the product.
Sales manager Justin Coles said: “We are not taking agents on a tour of a dozen hotels with a complimentary glass of wine after each inspection.
“We are trying to sell an experience, not just a bed, and we firmly believe that agents can sell the product better having experienced Club Med first hand.”
The format for educationals at Club Med has not changed for the last 15 years. Before taking part agents are expected to attend a training session, which are held all over the country in the autumn and in London throughout the year.
The 2hr session offers an introduction to the Club Med product, and is assisted by a course book and video presentation.
Once on the educational the agents will be encouraged to take part in as many activities as possible, but not in a regimented manner. Everyone sets their own pace.
“When we take ski educationals agents find themselves taking ski lessons with regular clients,” said Coles.
The only meeting agents are asked to attend during their educational is the debrief session, when the groups are asked for general feedback on the resort and the organisation of the trip.
Coles said: “We try to leave the debrief as open as possible so that people feel free to give us their comments on all aspects of Club Med.
“We then send a report back to the village in which the educational was based to give them some guidelines as to what the British travel industry thought of the product, if there were any ways it could be improved, or strengths which were particularly appreciated.”
“We also ask agents to train their own staff about our product when they return to their agencies. We hope those who booked one or two holidays a year will now be able to put forward a couple of bookings a month.”
Apart from the VIP and Premier perks, agents can also be given complimentary visitor passes to Club Med villages worldwide, if they happen to be staying nearby. This can be arranged by faxed request to Club Med.
So who can get involved in a Club Med educational? The company usually target agencies from their Premier and VIP network and in some cases specific agents, based on their past sales performance and future potential.
Educational places are also offered as competition prizes on some occasions.
The number of educationals each year is governed by occupancy levels in the villages. Club Med tries to organise one or two ski educationals and two or three sun educationals each year.