Travel Counsellors Conference
On Friday night we were entertained by the cast from West End hit musical Jersey Boys before Rob Brydon, comedian and star of BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey took to the stage.
The main conference itself took place on Saturday before Debra Searle MBE, who rowed across the Atlantic alone in 2002, gave a motivational speech and in the evening McFly performed their greatest hits.
On Sunday it was the turn of West Ham vice-chairman and star of BBC’s The Apprentice, Karen Brady, to take to the stage. It was a fantastic weekend.
This event is the highlight of the year for me. We always get a lot of celebrities and this year was no exception. McFly in particular were absolutely fantastic. We had more than 1200 delegates here from all over the world – people came from Australia and South Africa, such is the high regard it is held in. TV presenter Amanda Lamb was compere throughout the three-day event. So it is back to work now.
I met new travel professionals and old friends. Too many to mention here but included small ship luxury cruise lines, Silversea and Hebridean Island Cruises. P & O introduced their new Fly-med cruises for 2014 and their new ship arriving in spring 2015, which will be called Brittania. Destination specialist African pride who provide luxury safari, travel and city holidays to Southern Africa, East Africa & the Indian Ocean provided us with a very entertaining presentation.
I met the reservations team from the princess Yiaza in Lanzarote, and the Aphrodite Hills Resort in Cyprus, also and the owners of the Paphos Hotels Athena Beach Hotel and the new Asimina suites, and the Sani Resort hotels in Halkidiki. I picked up lots of information from the tourists boards of Abu Dhabi, Aruba, Bermuda, Japan, Vietnam, Israel, Malta, Orlando, St Lucia and South Africa. Many airlines were there too including British airways, Air New Zealand, Emirates and Etihad, Qantas, Qatar and Virgin.
It was great to see China specialist Wendy Wu Tours, who are a great favourite of mine, who offer fully inclusive and escorted tours to China, Indochina and India. I was very excited to be introduced to the newest hotel in New York, The Quin. It only opened at the beginning of November and it is, as expected, amazing. I met some new travel providers including Riviera travel who were voted the UK's favourite escorted tour operator, and also offer River Cruises. I also discovered that Collette worldwide are now offering RHS Garden Holidays. Of course the old favourites were really pleased to meet up again including Virgin Holidays, Cox and Kings, Club Med, Caribtours, Emirates Holidays and Kouni.
The weekend was truly inspirational and I can’t wait to pass on my experiences to you. Please call me for a chat anytime.