Agent Wrap: Travelmarvel’s hilarious ‘toot paper’ video, Travel Counsellors wins Queen’s Award + MORE
After a brief hiatus, Travel Weekly‘s Agent Wrap is back and ready to boogie. And by boogie, we mean present you with the latest and greatest news from travel agencies across Australia.
It’s all about the team at Travelmarvel … and toilet paper
While its tours and cruises are on pause, and everyone is working from home, the Travelmarvel team is connecting in more ways than one.
Like everyone, the team is enjoying their Friday night Skype drinks sessions and the many Zoom calls throughout the week.
But this team has gone one step further to stay connected by producing a video to show that even though they are all working from home, they are still very much connected – even if it is by a roll of toilet paper!
Travel Counsellors wins Queen’s Award
Travel Counsellors has been awarded the Queen’s Award for its excellence in international trade, marking the second time the company has stood out in this category for outstanding continuous growth, having previously won the same award in 2014.
Celebrating its 26th year in business, the latest accolade represents a trio of Queen’s Award wins for Travel Counsellors.
Travel Counsellors joins 128 companies who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the international trade category, with all winners personally approved by the UK’s royal family.
TravelManagers agents come to the rescue
TravelManagers has shared some more stories about its agents going above and beyond for their clients.
Carolyn Burgmann, who is TravelManagers’ Bowen Mountain representative in NSW, reached out to travellers via her Facebook page offering assistance to those struggling to get home.
An existing client put her in touch with a friend’s parents and brother, who were having difficulty returning from a curtailed cruise holiday in Europe.
Burgmann was able to confirm through Qantas’ agency support line that all three passengers were confirmed on separate bookings. She passed on their new booking references, noting that she had been able to achieve in 30 minutes what they had spent two days trying to achieve.
Victoria-based agent Alyssa Pretorius helped a client return home from Bali when the Australian and Indonesian Governments announced pending travel bans.
Despite Pretorius not having booked this particular trip for her client and being outside normal business hours, she immediately swung into action.
For agent Charlotte Nowrojee, it was a case of several degrees of separation when she was called upon to assist a New Zealand woman in returning home from Sri Lanka.
Nowrojee, who is TravelManagers’ representative for Brabham in WA, was tagged by a friend on a Facebook post made by the woman’s Australia-based son, and immediately began looking for ways to get her home to Auckland.
She was able to confirm her seat on a flight from Colombo to Auckland via Doha, and the passenger’s son set up a Givealittle page to raise the $8,000 cost of the ticket.
In many cases, travellers require little more than well-informed advice. TravelManager’s Nicole Edgar provided local airline contact details to travellers stuck in Buenos Aires which she followed up with emails to the airline’s agency sales support.
Her assistance enabled them to confirm seats on one of the last flights home.
For Cassandra Zayonce, it was a traveller who booked online and would have found himself stranded in Laos without the advice she supplied on transit requirements for Thailand.
Adelaide travel agency posts hilarious COVID-19 staff toolkit video
The owners of Axis Travel Centre, an Adelaide-based travel agency, have put together a handy video outlining essential items their staff may need to weather the COVID-19 pandemic.
The video, which is very much tongue-in-cheek, suggests employees use walking sticks as tools for social distancing and the all-important Axis Travel Centre hats to protect from “overhead sneeze/cough droplets”.
If you need a good laugh this morning, we highly recommend giving it a watch.
MTA provides opportunity for success to Tanzanian student
After an inspiring talk at the recent MTA – Mobile Travel Agents 20th-anniversary conference by Gemma Sisia, founder of School of St Jude in Tanzania, the compant has announced it will support Rahel, a bright but disadvantaged seven-year-old girl from Arusha in Tanzania by putting her through school for the next three years.
MTA has also donated further money to go towards beautifying the school grounds.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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