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

Mandy Nickerson (nee Bales)

January- Diary Entry 1

It’s Saturday; I have just come back form the gym and enjoyed a bacon sandwich!! A contradiction in terms but at least I am semi-trying to be fit and healthy. I have just signed up to another course with a personal trainer- no not a New Year’s fad as I have had a personal trainer for the last three years and the main reason I do this is because I would not be disciplined enough to go to the gym otherwise. It is not something that I enjoy and I know I would find a thousand and one reasons not to go if I wasn’t committed to the booked time with the trainer. I try to go three times a week at 6.30 in the morning. It is amazing that there is a queue of people waiting for the doors to open at that time. I also know that my trainer drives me harder and left to my own devices I would row slower, probably never go on the step machine and walk rather than run on the treadmill. I must say whether it is psychological or fact, I do feel better for going. Sarah, our Sales Manager I would say was a gym addict – goes every night for two to three hours – I could not even persuade my car to go in the direction of the gym after work. You can tell though Sarah is very slim and toned and me – well I am built for comfort not speed!! There is another reason I go besides health and that is to try and have more dimensions to my life – I am one of those sad people that think about my job and what I have to do all the time and I don’t think that is good thing (Although it may be for you because I am constantly thinking about our ultimate goal: a service that is second to none.)

Enough about that. I don’t know how many of you that read this are in government and if you are perhaps you can help to explain something to the travel industry. You may have heard that Gordon Brown doubled airport departure tax on 6th December for all departures after 1st February. The industry is fairly confident to say that there was no consultation from the Government before this decision was taken. What does this mean to you and what affect has it had on tour operators? Well if you booked your holiday before 6th December for a departure after February 2007, you do not have to pay the increased tax as we are not allowed by our regulations to pass on this charge to you if you had already booked. We, however do have to pay it and I am not exaggerating when I say it is going to cost the tour operators several million pounds. Our industry does not operate on big % profit margins (honestly!) and so this increased tax announcement will really hit a lot of companies as many of us would have clients that booked for 2007 before 6th December. I must say if you hadn’t booked your holiday before this date tour operators are allowed to pass on the increased tax to you to pay. You could say that is unfair …. But that decision was made by Gordon Brown and so my only suggestion would be for you to take it up with him if you feel strongly about this.

It has been full on since 2nd January and we were very excited that we had installed a brand new state of the art phone system in December so we were prepared for what traditionally has been our busiest booking month- January. We tested, retested etc in December and believed that we had resolved any teething problems. It was therefore devastating to us that on 2nd January our phone system did not work for several hours. It has been very temperamental over that last couple of weeks but I believe we are now up and running efficiently. I profusely apologise to the many clients that may have tried to call us and found that the number was unavailable. Thank you to so many of you that persisted – 80% of you repeatedly called until you finally got to speak to us. For the 20% that didn’t please note we are alive and kicking and hope very much that you will call us again so we can have the opportunity of looking after your holiday this year.

I must say that it is never dull at Bales, we constantly have challenges but then that is business. I have been rather desk bound in the last couple of weeks, not least because of our phone situation but also in what seems to be an endless amount of meetings- all important and valid such as talking with our Planning Department about product, design of brochures, whether to introduce more destinations or offer a wider variety of product for 2008 or do both.

I am delighted with the way the relatively new structure of our Planning department has worked. We have Mark, who heads up Planning. Mark is very well travelled – he believes he has been to more countries than I have but that is under dispute. He has actually been to more than me, having visited some 63 countries and many several times. He doesn’t read this blog and so will be blissfully unaware that I have conceded on this point. Mark is passionate about travel and one thing he does miss in his management position is that he travels less than he used to. Mark heads up our team of Product Managers who are all responsible for separate regional brochures – Steve – Latin America. Kirsty (who is married to Mark) and Vicky cover China and the Far East, India and the Sub Continent and Canada and Martin looks after Egypt and the Middle East and Africa. They are supported by Clare who supports in the loading of all products on to our booking system – not a five minute job as I am sure you can imagine. Sally looks after our image library and so can be congratulated on the improvement of the clarity and the quality of so many of the pictures we have in the brochures. Whilst the Product Managers do take responsibility for their geographical areas, none could do it without the support of Mark, his knowledge and commercial awareness are totally invaluable. Now I really hope Mark doesn’t read this ... too much praise!!

My husband has just walked in and said ‘goodness how much are you writing, you have verbal diarrhoea’, though how it is verbal when I am writing it I don’t know. He suggests that perhaps I am overdoing the word count and even intimated that perhaps my life wasn’t that interesting. Bowing down to his judgement I am now signing off…

Yes well it is a good job we like challenges at Bales. I always make it very clear internally, that we do not have problems, we simply have unfortunate challenges. Another word I have said that is not permitted, is the word ‘can’t.
I have a framed statement in my office that a member of staff gave me it states:
‘Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it’
I guess everyone has pet hates on word or phrases – another thing I have tried to change is rather than ‘we are unable to because.. .’ to say ‘how can we enable this to happen…'

Back to our unfortunate challenge….. The threatened BA strike!! Well we all have our own views on it, but keeping opinion aside, as many of you will know we have had to look for alternative airlines and re-book our customers seats. Our Operations team, very ably headed by Chris Grime, have worked tirelessly to look at all the options and find solutions that least interrupts the customer’s holiday. I am sorry for all of you that had booked BA World Traveller Plus as with many airlines there is no alternative to that cabin class. There are some of you that chose to take us up on our offer to take a further upgrade to business class. For those that accepted the economy class alternative – your refund cheques are in the post. The implications of a strike by a major airline, even just for a couple of days are enormous. In some events, other carriers may be full or not have any availability on the dates we require – but there again when this has happened, we have organised an additional nights accommodation at our expense. I do believe we have left no stone unturned and know from the fantastic feedback we have received from you that you really feel we have gone one step beyond in the way that we have dealt with it, to quote from a number of you that have kindly given us permission to quote :
'I have been very impressed with the way Bales have dealt with the BA strike situation'.
‘Many thanks for being so efficient’
‘May I ask that you pass my thanks and appreciation to your Managing Director? Clients are all too quick to complain when things go wrong, but never praise when they go well and there is no doubt in my mind that you all deserve heartfelt gratitude from us..’

This was never intended to be a diary where I extolled our virtues all the time but I cannot help but do that as the varying challenges that we have in our industry unravel themselves and I suppose I want to show off about the very proactive and customer focused way we deal with it all. Of course this is as it should be, but I hope you don’t mind my indulging in this. I am so very lucky to be working with a whole team of people that all share our values of putting the customer first and being passionate about customer care.

So what else is going on… well I had a great meeting with the company that has been appointed to do all the Beijing Olympic packages? Why you may ask would I do this? Well we are very keen to be a sub agent and they are currently selecting around 8 sub agents who will also be enabled to sell the packages including event tickets. I personally have never been to the Olympics, relying on the square box in the lounge for me to watch it. I have always wanted to go – I especially love the athletics and the atmosphere of being there I imagine is wonderful, especially if we have UK sportsmen and women who are tipped to be amongst the medals.. That is the patriotic side of me coming out! The anticipation and the excitement of watching such an event live…wow! I definitely want to go in 2008 and I felt with our years of knowledge and experience in China (my Father first went there in 1923… and no I am not that old , he was an older Father and I am the 4th child of 7) , then back again in the 60’s and repeatedly back until his death in 1998. I understand totally his affinity with China with the people, the scenery the historical sites, the cuisine and the fast changing culture. If you like spectator sports and you want to visit China what better way than do both in one go… I am not alone in this – the Chinese have been building and planning since the year 2000 in anticipation for the hundreds of thousands that will attend. If you are interested in knowing more about this please contact us.

Our Bank held a very enjoyable evening for their clients at the Merchant Bankers Hall in the City. It was sponsored by the Champagne Academy and we were given the opportunity to try 16 of the finest champagnes. I went with Alan McArdle our Financial Controller and for some reason we were told by the previous Chairman of the Academy to take two empty glasses so we could do comparisons on the champagnes but we seemed to be the only two in the room walking around with two glasses? No matter, we learnt a lot and they were only giving us tasters not completely full glasses. I have always loved champagne and thought I knew about it but stood to be corrected – firstly I didn’t know that some types of champagne were made from red grapes. I know that for all you wine connoisseurs I am showing my ignorance - but I thought red grape made red wine and white grape made white wine. I also made the mistake of saying I love Moet without pronouncing the‘t’. This proved to be a real annoyance to the Academy but fortunately I was told a lot of us British pronounce it wrong so I am not on my own here!

Off to the House of Commons tonight for an evening on Latin America – we are members of an association called LATA – Latin America Travel Association and they are hosting this event. The Foreign Secretary is due to speak and it is a good opportunity to meet with various airlines and indeed competitors. Unlike many other industries although we are competitors we are colleagues and will converse on non ‘competitive’ subjects , but also we are good sounding boards for each other to find out what each of us are doing in a certain situations such as foreign office advice. We also work extremely well together in a crisis. Whilst naturally for all of us our first duty and priority of care is to our own clients, there is a mutual understanding that if we are able we will help each other out, I am talking about things like hurricanes or extreme conditions which may mean we need to evacuate clients. Sometimes, between us, we create a good lobby team – such as if a government hikes up their service tax or local taxes. Do we win? Not always but sometimes – a decision is deferred.

As I sign off, the BBC news has just confirmed the BA strike is now off… too late for many of our departures this week where we have already made alternative arrangements. Good news from next week onwards. I do rate Willie Walsh very highly and am so thrilled there has been a settlement. It may be easy to say now but I promise you I always believed it would be resolved. Unfortunately in the uncertainty we could not leave so many of you hoping for this to happen and nor could we be confident enough not to have already made the alternative arrangements.
Speak to you again soon and if you are interested in coming back on any of the points I would welcome hearing from you.

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