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Welcome to the May 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.

I feel that I am always writing this but when I recap on events that have happened, I always realise that actually I only do this every couple of weeks. Many of you may be in the media – and much of it is very important and influences our own views- well certainly it influences mine , and though I believe I have very firm opinions, I can be swayed. We are spoon fed information wherever we look nowadays and it is available and updated 24 hours a day. I think it’s sad that more airtime is given to negative and tragic stories and not enough to celebration of what is going really well and yes I know that good news doesn’t make good headlines in the same way, but you have to be careful not to just think the world is full of doom and gloom because there are also many fantastic good news stories as well. If you weren’t a positive person I am sure the news could pull you down. That being said we are forever seeking to get the good news stories about Bales into print and continue to meet and talk to the press.

I met again with the company that won the tender to provide the tickets and services in China for the Beijing Olympics (August 2008) , with the view of working with them in some capacity so we in turn can provide you with Olympic packages to Beijing and can organise a pre or post extension to the Yangtze, the Terracotta Warriors, Guilin – well, wherever you would want to go. I think it is going to be nigh on impossible to get accommodation in Beijing during the Olympics unless booked with an authorised sub agent. It will be fantastic and I am sure really well organised, but as they are anticipating huge attendances from around the world, there will be a premium rate to pay. If any of you have been to Beijing in the past two or three years you would be excused from thinking they have the worlds stock of cranes all over Beijing and they have to meet their deadlines, indeed I am informed that building work for hotels is not permitted after 31st December, 2007 so if hoteliers and contractors have not completed that will be tough. Be really interested to know if you are an Olympic spectator and whether you have been or take to the TV to watch and your views on going to Beijing to see them. What would swing it for you to go – apart of course from winning a trip!!!

A happy evening spent at the retirement party of our company auditor. We worked with his Father before him and our life has been entwined since 1947 as we signed up with them when the company was in its infancy. The company, Tudor John, sent him off in style with a party hosted at the RAC club in Epsom. We will stay with these auditors – they have a real interest in our business and have shown support to us all the time we have been with them.

As my husband Steve often spoils me, I thought it was my turn to do something for our anniversary and treat him. We went off to a beautiful Spa hotel for the night. I loved it and Steve eventually got used to it, but at first he found it difficult to just indulge in being pampered and he certainly would not want to do it for longer than the night we were there! – he thought it would be very lazy. Well, I was attracted to his ambition and high work ethic so I shouldn’t complain.

Well the Tutankhamen exhibition is coming to the UK in November. It is going to be amazing by all accounts and we as one of the longest standing tour operators with a programme to Egypt, we are looking to host an event for you – our valued clients. I am assuming that some readers of this are indeed, our clients. I met with the hospitality company to discuss various ideas. In addition, as the first British company that took clients to China in the 60’s for a short time and were invited to bring travellers back in the late 1970’s by the Chinese Government, it would be appropriate that we also organised an event for the Terracotta Warriors exhibition commencing in September. They are bringing 20 warriors over, the largest amount that have been on display outside China, plus other finds . Whilst of course we want to ‘spoil ‘ you , to be really honest we hope and believe once you see these exhibits you will want to go and see more of the artefacts and attractions of these two great countries and will choose Bales to travel with. Both exhibits are in London and we are aware that many of you live in all parts of the country so we are going to get some good value offers on hotels so you can make it more of a mini break if you desire to . Let me know if you are interested in either of these.

Had a great evening at the French Ambassadors Residence, as a guest of Air France and KLM. It’s in the heart of Kensington and you would think you were in the country. We are really lucky to be invited to so many fine evening s and could be out all the time, but if you want to have the work/life balance you have to be selective. It is so much about networking but if one is not careful ‘net working’ could be interpreted as ‘not working’ as if we were doing all the time when would we have the time to plan your holidays? In this event thought whilst it was fun, it was also very useful as senior management from both airlines were there and as we work closely with Bales it is good to ever strengthen the relationships. I love entrepreneurial high achievers and so I was really excited to see Munir Nasser from our ground agent in Jordan. He has turned so many innovative ideas into a success and has given us much to contemplate for our Jordan offering to you for 2008. Mark Bennetts, our Planning Managers and I got really excited as we talked about new areas and different products that we could feature next year. So inspired were we that we have also decided to do a special departure this year to celebrate our 60th - details to be advised soon. Talking about innovation, I was interested to hear many speakers talk about the power of innovation and debating if we as leaders, have the capacity to innovate. I hope so.. But we never stop learning and I will apply some of the suggestions that were brought to the table. It would be remiss of me not to advise that Iain Fenton and I had a delightful meeting and lunch with Gillian Green of the Times. I could spend hours with her, well I did in fact, as she is such a great story teller relaying many amusing stories that had us in fits of laughter. After a period of some 18 months I got to catch up with Graham Boynton, Travel Editor from the Daily Telegraph and talk about how we can work more closely together, which will be of interest to readers and hopefully inspire you and other readers of the publication to book a holiday to a featured destination with us. Well I will catch up with you soon though in a different format. We felt you would be interested to hear more about what was going on in many of our destinations and hear more from a company prospective rather just mine, though I will still be adding snippets of what an MD gets up to in an organisation like Bales. I have and continue to enjoy talking to all of you and hopefully giving you a better insight into our ethos.

Thank you for taking the time to read our diary. Should you have any questions you would like Bales to answer or comments to make about Bales or our website please complete the below.