A travel agent or consultant is always looking for new holiday ideas, new places for a special holiday.  But we can’t travel everywhere and try out everything, so we are very much dependent on the strength of our business relationships with suppliers from all over the world.

Although the world is seemingly becoming increasingly automated, its fascination with artificial intelligence threatening to remove human interaction from us altogether, the travel business, for now at least, is rooted in business relationships.

A strong relationship with suppliers helps  travel agents to deliver a better service and experience to their clients. People still deliver a better service than automation. You just need to remember the frustration you felt when last dealing with a chat bot that is failing to answer your questions.

And that is why I invest a considerable amount of time and money going to trade shows, both here in the UK and abroad, to meet with suppliers and to develop those relationships.

One of my favourite trade events is Connections Luxury UK and Ireland,  which this year was held for the first time outside London in Manchester. At first I thought the organisers were crazy holding the event outside London. Some 90 odd suppliers were coming mostly from abroad, surely London would make more sense. I am in London. Surely London would make more sense!

But no, Manchester was an inspired choice, giving a new energy to the event. It also helped that all of the venues for the two day and one evening event were within walking distance of each other.

The format of the event is one to one meetings with suppliers over a 30 minute period. We can decide whether we want to talk to each supplier or to share what the organisers call an experience. Science shows that a shared experience is more memorable and this is a good way of developing business relationships.

In this article I am going to give a short overview of the meetings I had with suppliers and why I think they will add value to my clients, and indeed to my travel and writing business. In many cases, an overview is not enough, so I will add a link where appropriate to a separate post about that supplier.

Most of the suppliers I mention are hotels or groups of hotels. Two are tourist boards and a few are destination management companies or DMCs.

A destination management company will handle all of the ground arrangements in a particular destination on behalf of the travel agent or tour operator. They will usually be involved when we are booking multiple stops or activities in the destination. They will book the hotels and activities and then we have just the one contract with the DMC. Not only does it make the process much simpler, it also makes everything happen seamlessly with a (real) person on the ground to deal with any problems that may arise.

And a dmc will not just deal with problems. There may be times when you want to vary the trip. Perhaps you want to spend more time in a particular site, or you are not feeling up to that long hike. The dmc is well placed to vary the programme (where that is possible) immediately.

As I have built up strong relationships with my dmcs, I trust them to look after you perfectly.

And so, onto the suppliers, my suppliers.

India and Nepal

Platinum By Trans India

The headline on the Platinum by Trans website declares that Travel is not an activity but an emotion. Their activities as a destination management company covering the whole of India are designed to bring out your emotions.

One of their key selling points is their use of WhatsApp to provide guests with an immediate point of contact with them to help ensure that communication is immediate. It means that my DMC is keeping an eye on the holiday as it happens, making sure that guests are complexly satisfied with everything as we are going along.

I was particularly struck by their river cruises, especially the longer cruises where the creativity of the chef is tested to the limit. The chef must provide a variety of meals, using local ingredients because guests don’t want the same meal every day.

Vilasa India

Vilasa India may be relatively new as a DMC in India, but has a wealth of experience behind it. It is the passion project of the daughter of a family long established in the travel industry in India.

Owner Ruhina identified a gap at the luxury end of travel in India and has stepped into fill it. However, “luxury” is not defined simply by private jets and activities for the very wealthy, although Ruhina can serve this end of the market.

She too is very focused on the emotion of travel. She describes her business as “sight-feeling, not sight-seeing.” She sees her role in organising travel in India, Nepal and Bhutan to preserve, protect and promote her destination. This is a theme that runs

through so much of travel now. We should enjoy our travel but also take care to ensure that our children and grandchildren can do so as well.

Luxury is much more about the wealth of the experiences that she can provide. I was particularly struck by some of the activities that she can provide to make her tours engaging for children who can be easily bored. Vilasa can provide  age appropriate “bingo” cards which children fill in as they go along. Children are given “India Explorer” badges and are made to feel like they are living an adventure by the children-trained staff.

The Baltics

Green Cove is a DMC owned and operated by a Spaniard who fell in love with the Baltic region. Javier’s business is very much about the connection we have together as humans to each other and the connection we have to the land. It may be a fragile bond at times, but it has the capacity for such strength.

The areas Green Cove work in are Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This range gives adventurous travellers a bit of everything, from urban sophistication to the wild, from fjord to village.

His operations are rooted in local communities, with an emphasis on making sure that your visit will uplift that community as well as providing you with opportunities for personal transformation.

Your visit may support two initiatives that Green Cove maintain. One is assisting in cleaning the oceans, particular of the modern curse of plastic. The other is “My Dream Day” offered to a child in Estonia with a severe illness. It is a reminder that travel is as much about the people who live in a destination and the difference we can make to their lives as it is about us and the sites and sounds and taste and feel that we have on those travels.

Italy

Sense Experience Resort

The Sense Experience is a new hotel situated in the bay of Follonica on the West coast of Tuscany. It is situated on the beach with a pine forest behind it, so it is very quiet, but close enough to nearby towns, especially if you want to take advantage of the bicycles that the hotel provides.

It is close to many Tuscan attractions, so it is an ideal base from which to explore the area and experience the food and wine of this famous region.

I have written about the Sense Experience resort in a little more detail here

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Regina Isabella Resort and Spa

The island of Ischia, an hour’s boat ride from Naples is a popular resort. Several hoteliers have advised me not to come during July and August because it feels like all of Naples are there.

(Perhaps that means that July and August are good times to visit Naples!)

It is a volcanic island, so is blessed with many thermal springs and pools, even thermal areas in the sea.

It is here that you will find the Regina Isabella Resort, a jewel of a hotel built in the 1950s, extending the old Baths of Queen Isabella, and which quickly attracted the cream of the glitterati, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable and Maris Callas to name a few.

In more recent years, celebrities such as Matt Damon and Jude Law have stayed here. It is a natural haven for journalists, musicians and creatives.

The headline on its website declares that this hotel sums up the Italian art of living well, and it is certainly noted for its style and beauty.

The Roman poet Juvenal wrote “Mens sana in corpora sano,” a healthy mind in a healthy body, and the Reginella Isabella will certainly help you to achieve both in its well equipped medical spa, thermal waters and therapeutic mud.

Wellness holidays focused on thermal bathing are one of my specialisations. For more information on the how, where and why of thermal bathing, please drop me a line and I will get right back to you. 

Portugal including Madeira 

Martinahal Resorts

Many hotels will have a kids club or some arrangements to enable parents to have a bit of a break from their children… and a well run kids club will often mean that children are also far happier. 

Martinhal Resorts takes the concept of looking after children on holiday to a new level. As soon as they are aware that you are bringing a child, their organisation of the child’s holiday swings into operation. 

The car briging you from the aiport to the hotel will have a car seat of the right size already fitted. Your table in the restaurant will have a high chair waiting for you if you need it. The furniture in the hotel is rounded… no corners for children to hurt themselves on. Waiters are specially trained to keep an eye on children while you are eating… if you turn away for a second and the child has gone, fear no more, your guardian waiter has been watching over your table and knows where your child is. 

There are so many activities for children that they will never get bored. There is even a story about how a pair of cuddly foxes came to stay at their resorts. 

And of course adults will have an amazing time with good food, good wine and plenty of adult relaxation.