I have recently joined the Board of AITO. AITO is the Association of Independent Tour Operators and there are 143 tour operator members. I joined for two reasons – one, is that I do think that sometimes if you are a member of an association or it you are a representative of an industry that has supplied a living to you, I feel if one can contribute it is like paying back something into the industry. I am not that holistic though and I do also need to see a benefit to Bales of me making this commitment.
The benefits of being an AITO member and being on the committee is the shared experiences and specialist knowledge about legislation and laws that affect the travel industry is extremely useful. So, I believe is the marketing message AITO put across – promoting the association and members and it has the reputation of only having operators who offer quality products so the consumer has even greater confidence when they see the symbol of membership.
I have resisted Bales joining for years and it was Iain our Sales and Marketing Director that finally persuaded me that Bales should join. Now I am the biggest ambassador ….shows one can be converted even if cynical to start with.
As in every profession, there are a lot of jargon words in travel and it is important to remember this when communicating to customers so that we don’t send literature out using jargon in it. In a similar vein there are a lot of elements that are needed to put holidays together which the customer doesn’t need to be aware of but I thought you may just be interested to hear of one of the strands.
I say this as I went to a TravelMole Awards (TravelMole is a trade media web site). I was so excited as we had been shortlisted for the best tour operator website and oh to win an award – at the very least it is such a morale lifter for staff. Sadly we didn’t win but our congratulations go out to the winner.
Anyway back to the strands – the event was sponsored by several companies including Travelport. We use Travelport to book and ticket all of our airline seats. It is so much more than just that, but the system shows up to date information of all airlines, routes, timings, fares and availability. There are other systems that do this but in my opinion Travelport is definitely a top provider of this information and it is our pleasure to have worked with them since the inception of our business in the guise of Galileo which is now run and owned by Travelport.
Oh and in my personal life – my training to do Ben Nevis in 4 weeks has not stepped up but rather become non existent. Thank goodness for pure determination as that is what will take me up the mountain!!! Unless of course there is another way. We are ironically going with friends who Steve (my husband) and I call Mr and Mrs Super fit- because that is what they are. Hey ho I am used to walking on my own, I did in one mountain treks of Peru. The big advantage is of course no hotel costs as I will still be on the mountain whilst the others are enjoying a gourmet meal having successfully climbed it. Maybe I will go to the gym tomorrow… over and out!!
About Mandy Nickerson
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Mandy endeavours to share her travel experiences (where she will 'tell it like it is') and also detail the latest exciting projects that she is involved in.
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