A Great Referral
This also holds true for my business travellers. When you’re thinking of who to send my way, it could be anyone, really but I thought I’d give you some ideas….
It could be a family or couple who like quality holidays – it doesn’t have to be luxury, but you are looking for a good standard of accommodation and maybe like to be a bit adventurous. One of my clients that have booked with me for 10 years love exploring. Their most recent trip was Stockholm and the Baltic States by planes, trains and overnight ferries. I’ve also put together a driving holiday in Portugal, a driving holiday in Sicily, a twin centre holiday to Boston & Chicago for them and the list goes on. They very rarely book an ‘off the shelf’ holiday and I love the challenge.
It could be a school; they are always arranging trips for their pupils – I have access to group rates with all the major airlines and hotel groups and I’d be happy to go into the schools and discuss their requirements.
Sports club – we’ve got some great ‘cricket cruises’ at the moment or if you love Formula 1 and cruise, why not combine the two?! I’ve also arranged Zumba groups to Portugal the last 2 years running. In the past I’ve also arranged tickets for the Melbourne Tennis Open as part of an extensive Oz itinerary and you may remember that James Butler went to India a few years back to watch the cricket – I arranged that for them as well.
Small group travel such as overseas groups wanting to tour the UK like I arranged for Mitch’s US group last year – they toured Scotland or a group of 6 ladies wanting to celebrate their 50th birthdays in Crete, as I did recently for my girlfriend.
Small businesses with maybe 5 to 30 travellers. Companies of this size are usually battling to keep costs under control and by using someone like me, they can control where and how their employees make their travel plans and also avoid wasted man hours due to employees spending time researching travel options when they should be doing what they’re actually paid to do. By using a central point for all their travel, it makes it easy for me to identify their travel trends and advise whether they may benefit from enrolling in an airline or hotel scheme which would offer them negotiated rates and savings.
I can arrange incentive trips for their staff e.g. dinner and a night at a West End Theatre, Whale & Dolphin watching weekends in Tenerife, Barcelona with a tour of Camp Nou Stadium including skip the line access.
A lot of company employees are now taking advantage of bleisure – a mix of business and leisure – so e.g., you need to fly to Berlin or Munich for a business trip in December, why not take your partner, extend for a few days and visit the Christmas Markets?
Lastly, I can help small businesses who need help arranging meetings & events – it could be at a country hotel in the UK or a beach resort in the Caribbean and include conference and breakout rooms during the day with golf sessions/spa treatments in the afternoon and dinner in a restaurant or a BBQ on the beach in the evening.