Welcome to the April edition of Bales Online Diary, your insight into what is going on in the world of Bales!

Mandy Nickerson (nee Bales)

So has anything interesting happened at Bales over the last two weeks? I suspect it depends on what each of us does - though I think that most of the Bales team would say that there is a degree of repetition , working in a company like Bales means changes do happen quite frequently which gives us all challenges and ensures continued variety and interest. I should probably site a couple of examples where the priorities of where this happens - take Raymond Howe our Marketing Manager who by the nature of his job has many deadlines to meet and he has to juggle that with new and additional items that fall under his remit. In the last fortnight alone, he has almost acted as a Director for a new film coming out. No, not to be seen on the big screens, but a film we are making to show you what it is like to sail on one of our Dahabiyyas. The serenity, fun, laughter and the uniqueness of these vessels need to be captured on film. I know many of you may have seen the BBC Holiday programme footage, but we are not allowed to use this due to copyright issues, so there is a film crew out in Egypt at present and the finished article will be available for all of you to see on our web site from the end of May – so watch this space. Demand for the Dahabiyyas has been high, so with that in mind we have recently agreed to a third Dahabiyya for a couple of extra departures later this year (for those that were told we were full up that we have not yet contacted – please do call us again about these two additional departures.) and also for the whole year in 2008.

In addition, last week we had a South America Evening for some of our clients and enquirers. Raymond had to manage the organisation of the event and ensure that many of you that had shown an interest in Latin America were invited. The evening was held in London and its popularity, suggests that we should hold more of these type of events in the future. Many of our Latin American ground agent partners were over in the UK so it was an opportunity not to be missed by asking them to give presentations about their respective countries. Of course we cannot host an evening without drink and food – and while we were having our pre and post drinks it was a wonderful opportunity to meet so many of you and talk about where you have been and where you want to travel to. It may be that you are not interested, but a lot of Raymond’s time right now is also spent on the installation of a new Customer Relationship Marketing system – in plain speak this is to keep a record of your travel history with us and your latest requirements so we can respond to those needs more proactively and increase our level of personal service. Lastly, today is the day the judging happens for the photo competition that Raymond set up. Thanks to so many of you for entering, we have some fantastic images and I do not envy the task of the judges in deciding who the winner is. This is of course all in addition and part of Raymond’s regular day to day tasks.

What have I been up to – well quite a lot. I attended a full day legal seminar which was extremely informative and useful. Gone are the days when we could just organise your holiday and send you on your travels. There are so many new legal requirements for professional travel organisations to embrace and much of our time is whether we can or indeed should organise trips to particular destinations ensuring sufficient health and safety for our customers. I am not saying it is wrong, I think it is absolutely right – you choose to travel with us and we must take full responsibility for your welfare and safety on a trip. As many of you will know, keeping up with the law is so important and so these seminars are great as a check list to ensure we are complying on every level. We are soon to have our bi-monthly strategy meeting. The Directors have all been discussing what we need to do and we agree we need to think more about the image we project. It is a conundrum. We believe we need to project our professionalism and experience but I am not sure that we project the ‘fun’ element enough? Ultimately, all of us do want to have some fun on holiday. It is a very serious business to ensure you have a happy and fun experience on holiday. Thanks to those that do feedback to this. I would love to hear from you about your own views about the image you think we project. If you are reading this but have not travelled with Bales, I would also be thrilled to receive your feedback on why you haven’t taken the plunge to book with Bales. It is ok, I welcome constructive comments and criticism and it certainly helps us to know what we need to put in place by hearing it from you.

We had our ground agents from Chile and from Tanzania coming to our office on the same day, last week, so after various meetings and trainings with our staff, a group of us went out to lunch and discussed more about the attractions of Tanzania and Chile. I have to say I have realised that PR is much harder today than it was a decade ago. You may know that we took it back ‘in house’ in January and I was the caretaker for it. I have failed in my task – though I did meet and have lunch with the Travel Editor last week of one of our top national papers and I think we will see our name in print for a few more relevant features, but on the whole I have not done my task as well as I should and have chosen to revert to a external PR company where it is their full agenda. I am really excited as the person we have contracted is Fiona Reece - who I worked with a few years back on PR. Fiona has decided to take the plunge to set up her own agency and I am confident she will do an excellent job and you will see Bales mentioned in media so many times that you will feel you know us intimately. I do periodically ask you to feedback to me as indeed I have with this entry, but in addition to this we have once again appointed a research company to do extensive research. Why are we doing this? Why don’t we just get on with our job of creating inspirational holidays? Well, it is imperative to us to keep abreast of your demands and needs and whether we are continuing top offer the right services and products or we need to change in order to get you to travel with us again. Oh my goodness I have so much I want to talk to you about so many exciting things happening and going on but my blog will just go on forever and if I do that and then Iain Fenton, our Sales and Marketing Director will only complain and say that it’s too long.

I must, however just tell you about the Institute of Directors Conference Day – at the Royal Albert Hall. There were 2,500 Directors at the event- perhaps you were there? I love attending things like this where it redefines your responsibilities and also motivates you to such a high degree that you come away with a whirl wind of ideas of what you can implement into your own business. There is a synergy of the drive one has to have to be a fine sportsperson or an explorer to a business – in the leadership, the focus, the determination and the courage. That is why Randolph Fiennes was a key note speaker on the day. Wow!! So many great things but one was that two months after a double bypass, he ran seven marathons in seven consecutive days in seven continents! Yes it is achievable and he said the BA flights, timings and routings made it possible. I would think as well an amazing stamina is needed but no one could doubt that with Sir Ranulph Fiennes. My business interpretation and what I intend to continue doing is being totally committed to the business and doing everything I personally can to ensure that once you try a Bales Holiday, you will always come back for more. I feel very proud of the fact that the company are so passionate about the detail and time and attention we take for each and every client and of course I am proud that al our staff do really live and breath the standards we adhere to achieve. I was so thrilled today when we did our bi-monthly lunch for 6 staff to be told by staff how proud they are to work for such a great company.

I am being asked a lot – so I will comment that whilst I have not become addicted to fitness, the endorphins have certainly worked on me and I am still doing it and trying very hard to achieve a greater level of fitness. In fact my Personal Trainer, Richard certainly finds it challenging as my eyes seem to be on the clock as to when the training session will finish. Sorry Richard – nothing personal!! Speak again soon. Please do come back with your feedback – I feel more that it is a two way conversation then.

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