“I learned a considerable amount from the trip. Palm Cove was idyllic, anaway-from-it-all place. It was quite upmarket without being over the top. The locals know their area back to front and talking to them gives you a better understanding of the product than you could ever get from a brochure. This region is very different from Adelaide but even when you know a destination you can always learn a lot about the details of the product by seeing it for yourself.”
“I am an Australian myself. I came to the UK for a holiday and ended up opening a travel agency and living here for seven years. I come from Adelaide and I have travelled a fair bit around Australia. I still felt I would benefit from the convention and from meeting local operators and getting a first-hand feel for their Queensland product. I knew what to expect of Brisbane but I had not been to Palm Cove.”
“I had become more familiar with Australia through the Aussie Specialist scheme and had sold a few holidays. It was quite hard to advise clients on the fine detail of a trip, like the position of hotels and distances between places. This was my first trip to Australia and, as I had wanted to go for a while, I decided to combine the convention with my own holiday so I could stay longer and see more. I went to Cairns but also to Sydney and its surrounding area.”
“I really enjoyed the trip and found it very useful. We were in the tropical north and it was cloudy a lot of the time, which got the point across that Australia is not always unbearably hot. The scenery was amazing and I just can’t find the words to describe the Great Barrier Reef. I have sold a lot more holidays to Australia since my return and I would definitely go there on holiday.”
denise dunn
travel consultant
american express
cambridge
Age 25
maria cook
travel consultant
gerry latham travel
cardiff
Age 30
robin nash
director
hona travel
bidford on avon
warwicks
Age 42
The Australian Tourist Commission ran a Worldwide Aussie Specialist Convention in May last year for agents who are a part of its specialist agents scheme. More than 400 agents met in Brisbane for theConvention and were then offered the chance to join pre or post-Convention tours. We spoke to three agents who went on to Cairns and Palm Cove in Queensland and asked for their verdicts on thedestination.
Before AFTER
“The trip was brilliant. It was one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had. Cairns was unbelievable and Sydney was fantastic. I did a couple of excellent scuba diving trips and I was impressed by the number and variety of day trips you could go on. Palm Cove was lovely and all the accommodation was excellent – extremely good value for money – and eating out was inexpensive. I gathered lots of useful information and contacts. It was a long flight, but I coped and it really was worthwhile.”
“I had never been to Australia before and I didn’t really know what to expect. I suppose I thought it would be very hot with good weather all the time. I had only been an Aussie Specialist for about six months so hadn’t sold many holidays to Australia and was still learning a lot about the destination. I felt sure the trip would help.”