Hi Darren,

Assuming this isn’t an April fools…..your talking rubbish

I can see your point regarding sending out the wrong message in a recession, however you cannot beat first hand experience when it comes to selling a product to someone.

Most of my work is for customers travelling to the U.S. I have done this for over 10 years… last year I finally went to the Florida, the experiences and attractions I came across and actually felt could not be replicated by a video. I now have a fuller understanding and can offer my customers a better service due to this.

Do our own tourist boards offer this type of thing to promote Britain?

Report this comment

Sorry, but I have to agree with the above comment. Getting to know a destination well enough to advise customers fully and confidently has to happen in situ. Yes, you can learn facts and figures remotely, watch a hundred films on Youtube and follow thousands of local bloggers, but nothing beats being on the ground yourself, forming your own opinions and being inspired to sell that destination for life. Actually seeing a country with your eyes rather than via the perceptions and bias of another is priceless.

Travel agents have employers who expect them to convert each and every customer enquiry into a sale. Fam trips/educationals aren’t given away to every agent in a business – they are often given to long serving, long suffering and high performing staff. The ones that deserve them and have worked their asses off over the years. I say long suffering because unless you’ve actually worked as a travel agent, 6 days per week for a salary of £10-15k if your lucky plus commission, you really aren’t in it for the money. There really really are few perks in the travel industry, believe it or not, and fam trips are one of them. They are also intrinsic to selling and funded by tourist board with budget to spend on them. For the tourist boards they are in investment in the future of their country’s tourist industry, so of course they are willing to spend some funds on this.

Report this comment

… total rubbish. Educationals are ruddy hard work as well. Up early, 2 or 3 hotels in the am – lunch – and 2 or 3 hotels in the afternoon and a couple of attractions and somewhere different for lunch and dinner en route twixt places, they may stop off to show you a sight or two. If you are lucky, you get an afternoon off. You are expected to take notes and remember which hotel was which at the end of it all; worse, which hotel room was which, along with views and facilities. That is a long way from being a jolly. And no, you cannot watch it all on a CD. People have almost stopped producing CD’s as they do not get watched (make nice coffee cup placemats, though) I mean, spend all day staring at a 17″ inch screen and during rest periods….. stare at a 17″ screen. To know a place – more importantly to be able to sell (in the widest sense of the word) you have to be there, experience it, smell it, breathe it – there is no substitute.

Report this comment

Don’t have much to add to the two above, but the argument about recession and ethics doesn’t really work – for the organisers this is a one-off cost, for the participants the only cost is time out of the office. And in the long term the trip generates revenue for both parties by helping agents close sales, as per Gavin and Kelly’s comments.

Speaking more generally, you want to encourage business activity during a recession. Censuring companies for investing time and money will make things worse, not better.

The environment stuff brings us back to the old ‘industry events abroad’ debate…

Report this comment

Fam trips for agents and journalists play an important part in the industry, but it is important that itineraries are as informative and educational as possible. This is usually the case – you get a small proportion of agents and media who are only interested in the sun tan, but it’s a very small proportion.

As for having 2,000 visit at once, you could argue that it would be counterproductive – aren’t they just going to be a bit of a herd? Wouldn’t it be better to have them in smaller, more manageable groups? It would be hard to properly educate people in such big groups.

Report this comment

I’d say that educationals are a form of advertising more than a just a jolly – OK, its a free trip for the agent, but they still have to work when they get there. A resort or hotel etc that invests in educationals are creating exposure for their product. If they were banned from doing this it would be restricting their earning potential.

Report this comment

Darren, do I not remember a comment from you before about travel agents needing to know the places there selling?

Yeap, hard work, in fact when the government sent a tax inspector along to see if they where holidays (therefore taxable) on a trip to the Caribbean he gave up after 2 days.

To give you some idea what these are like here is am example, I did a 9 day trip in Kenya with all the excursions in 4 days, of which in one day spent over 7 hours on the road plus a 3 hour safari in the middle, started at 5 am finish just after 11 pm and we where up at 4 am to travel 4 hours to the airport the next morning for our 10 am flight. Yes that was the longest day, but not been on many fam trips that have not had 14-16 hour days.

Report this comment

Darren: would you go on a trip such as this?

Report this comment

Theres a company based in the Bahamas that already do this around the world for travel companies, they have their own small site with all sorts of videos not too disimilar to the you tube format.They deal with hi quality budget productions and look after u r promotion too, they are called ivideovillas, we are doing a review on them shortly
and could with some more input from the industry but still a cool idea

Report this comment

Provocativ post

Fam trip well executed is a good business way and can bring many business

I think Dubai make a good move !

But if you have other ideas to developp travel business, please share or better >> do it !

best

Calude

Report this comment

Darren, I think you’re going to have to go on one of these trips before you can truly pass judgement. See for yourself what they are like – blog / tweet while you are there, write an honest appraisal. There is only so much blogging / comment you can do from outside…

Report this comment

I can totally see why the Dubai tourist board is prepared to fund this.

I also agree with the comments on selling somewhere you’ve been to. Therefore I as far as the Agencies are concerned if Dubai is a profitable destination then it is worthwhile end of story.

However whether it makes the agent more or less independent is another question.

Report this comment

I’ll tell you under a beer (or two) what I think of this post:-)

Report this comment

I certainly hope that some of these big travel outfits will license our walking tours of European cities. The time has come. We are working on an iPhone App, and Garmin GPS tours. The time is right, but I doubt the bigwigs have a clue about the resources that are available.

No need to produce CDs. The era of on-demand content is here, at a cost that is nearly nil to the big corporations.

Report this comment

This is total nonsense. Would you expect an engineer to do his stuff just after reading about engineering from a book, or a cook or anyone else in a responsible job? No of course not. Before your surgeon does your brain surgery you’d expect him to have seen it done a few times by other people and to have had some practice. Similarly to be a travel expert you have to have travelled, hence FAM trips or educationals as I beleive they are often called.

Report this comment

@Kelly said “There really really are few perks in the travel industry, believe it or not, and fam trips are one of them.” Yet nearly everyone else is saying they are real hard work. Who is right?
@Darren, Why can’t travel bloggers’ conventions be held using conference call (Skype etc) technology instead of flying to Berlin?

Report this comment

Darren, I have to admit you are only expressing comments we, the poor ole’ travel trade hear every day from friends and even relatives!
Your use of the term “jolly” is probably the reason you have had such a reaction from the trade, it use un such a derisory way appears to show:
a. A lack of understanding &
b. A lack of respect

The responses you have received say everything I would wish to say, the only thing I can add is that as in everything knowledge is king – getting it wrong would be an even worse waste not only environmentally but also financially.

I hope that now you have “got it off your chest” you do feel better, but also are a little better informed – and perhaps use of the word “Jolly” could be used for it’s real meaning.

Report this comment

We are a small company dealing with villa rental in France, and the reason we get such a high percentage of return clients is that they like the fact that we have visited our properties personally and developed good relationships with the owners, and so are able to make sure that their accommodation is going to meet their requirements.

‘Jolly’ is, in our opinion, a misleading term. Gathering the maximum amount of relevant information in a short time is extremely intensive, and often exhausting. We don’t expect sympathy, just wanted to make the point that viewing the properties is actually very hard work!

Report this comment

There’s a saying that to accumulate you need to speculate…..well in these tougher trading days it it certainly the most knowing agents that will survive….and educational trips are always going to be the best way to learn.
Yes you can get heaps of info from the web and other sources, but there is nothing like experiencing a place or a product to get the real feel for it, and so know if a destination, cruise or product is right for your customer.
These ‘fam’ trips, whilst enjoyable are often exhausting and as has already been stated not just a ‘jolly up’
Perhaps for too long now people are believing that the internet and such like can answer every question…..surely we all know how wrong and miss-informed it can be at times. Our opinions as dedicted travel agents are very vauable to the buisness we make for our employers.
With regards to the current ecconomic climate…..things will get better with time, recession happens every 10-20 years, people still want to travel….surely whilst trading may be quieter this is the time to be further educated by these ‘fam’ trips to let us build on our knowledge and improve our skills for when times are less financially tough .

Report this comment

@darren:

given the *almost* blanket disagreement to your post (even TTGlive has covered it!), have you revised your opinion??

in addition, will you respond to any of the comments above?

your public awaits………

Report this comment

@ Kevin: I don’t think he can really revise his opinion until he’s been on a fam! Go on Darren, get yourself to Dubai – I’m sure they’d be more than pleased to have you. Honestly, you should approach them

Report this comment

The whole point of fam trips is to experience what the agent is selling, so the destination can be sold from their experiences. If Darren is correct in what he is saying, then consumers would buy everything over the internet. For example, would you buy a house over the internet? Also Darren, why do people go on touring/sightseeing holidays, if they could just go on the internet and have a look??

Anyway, Fam Trips are purely between the suplier and the organisation the agent works for. If they both believe the trip will benefit their businesses then why not have them, and if it’s not them they would stop them? Surely, it’s a good thing making money or do you believe it’s a bad idea for businesses to make a profit?

Report this comment

Well positively, you’ve got yourself some PR on this and some comments which is all good hype for Travel Rants.

But I have to agree that unless you have been on one of these trips and understand just how much work is done then the educational side of things is lost, if you had worked on this side of the fence you would know – or is it a case that you weren’t invited??? (Only asking )

From the early days of you commenting that you were frustrated with travel agents etc, that to be able to speak to someone who has been there, touched it, smelt it etc is far more benficial than looking at it third or fourth hand??? Which would you prefer fact or opinion???

Report this comment

Interestingly, there is a very interesting trip being organised by a company in China. They have invited around ten influential bloggers from around the world to tour the country in June for around a week.

It’s a good initiative, and shows that bloggers are being considered worthy of the time and resources.

Well, some of them…

Report this comment

@kevin: yes, it’s happening more and more. We have been asked to invite bloggers to visit Sydney in June for a festival called VIVID. Anyone interested?

Report this comment

Having Sold Darren a Holiday to a hidden little gem called Mastihari on the Island of Kos, I can’t believe his posting. Our Expert Knowledge and being able to Tell it and sell it as it is was invaluable in getting Darren to Purchase his ideal Holiday.

Our Only aim, another satisfied Customer. No one so far has actually mentioned, that in most cases we have to pay for our staff to go on educationals, although yes at a subsidised rate.

I Would love to invite Darren to our Travel Agency to see our Educational Portfolios that our staff have put together over the years, and then make his mind up!

And from the clients perspective, the comments are always it’s nice to be dealing with an Agent who has actually, been,seen done it , lived it breathed it and got the T-Shirt.

Report this comment

@ Darren, quick response. Travel does get touchy when it comes to training, there is not enough maybe 1 every 3 years, and yes we learn out of books/ online etc. but it is not the same as going there. So times are tough should all companies stop training? After all that is what these are training. Given a choice of a 2 day Sage course which will cost my company around £399, plus a UK hotel or a 4 day Famtrip for £199 I know which most will choose, so maybe we should stop training accountants? or even bankers .

@ John, yes the are a perk, we get to travel, the same as a mechanic gets the perk of fixing his own car with out charges, but it is still work.

Report this comment

@ Nick, Thank you for your answer, you are the only one so far to be honest about it. I have no doubt that fam tours are intensive fact finding missions and that only part of it is really enjoyable. Inspecting hotel rooms, restaurants and the like will soon start to get you down.

Report this comment

@All Travelrants readers. This is supposed to be a consumers blog. Why aren’t there more consumer views on here? Come on let us know your thoughts, has Darren overstepped the mark with his “jolly” rant or do you agree with him?

Report this comment

I hate to jump on the “me too” bandwagon, but I was incredulous when I read your article, Darren. Normally, I find myself agreeing with your rants, but I can’t disagree with you more on this. I think it’s one thing to say, as a travel blogger, that you wouldn’t take a free trip for fear it would influence your opinion, but as a travel agent, it’s really a necessity to know what it is you’re selling by having experienced it yourself.

Imagine you’re a travel agent and you’re selling someone on a vacation to a particular place and then, just as they’re ready to sign on the dotted line, they ask “When was the last time you were there?” And then you have to ‘fess up that you’ve never actually been there, you’ve only read about it online. Cue the sound of crickets chirping. Nothing’s going to shoot down your credibility faster.

I wouldn’t trust a travel agent who tried to book me a trip to a place they’d never been. How do they know the hotel they’ve booked is a nice one? Or in a safe neighborhood? How do they know I’ll be comfortable there as a solo traveler? Because they read it online? That’s not very reassuring. Granted, I take those kinds of risks all the time when I book my own travel, but I trust my own judgment, and I know that if I’m wrong, I have no one to blame but myself. I’m an amateur. They’re professionals. They’re supposed to be better equipped to book travel than I am. But if they’re only doing what I can do myself, why would I use them in the first place?

Report this comment

Good responses Darren

Report this comment

I can’t really add much (apart from a bit of waffle!), apart from my complete agreement with the majority of the comments from within travel industry… However I did want to say, in response to John’s comment (in response to Kelly’s comment):

There really really are few perks in the travel industry, believe it or not, and fam trips
are one of them.” Yet nearly everyone else is saying they are real hard work. Who is
right?

In my opinion they are both right! Most travel agents love their jobs, otherwise they wouldn’t put up with the daily hassle… Although fam trips are hard work, that is not to say they are not enjoyable, too. Most importantly, for the companies that subsidise them, they are the most effective way to increasing knowledge which in turn increases sales.

As a non geographic specialist agent (unfortunately) I will never travel to all the countries I sell; however when a customer asks me for specific information on a destination/hotel I have not been to, if I am unable to find the information I require online, I can usually find a tour operator colleague who has been to help me!

Whilst technology is ‘good’ and I am open to using as many resources as possible, the majority of information is also available to the general public (with the exception of subscription based sites such as gazetteers.com) which, in a way, makes it more difficult to ‘add value’ without having visited somewhere first hand.

Report this comment

@james I’m not so sure. Darren – paragraphs 4 and 5 of your response (“As a travel consumer” … “a more positive step”) really just reiterate what you were saying in the first place. Apart from a grudging acceptance that agents work hard on fams, we don’t seem to have swayed you at all!

On a positive note, I’m all for the industry being conscious of how it appears to consumers, and it’s good that we’re able to come here and make our case to a largely consumer audience.

The thing I’d want to get across is that fams and biz trips aren’t a separate entity that has nothing to do with the wider market – you can’t put them in a box and say they’re bad, but consumer travel is good.

As one of the industry’s most important marketing and research tools (and here industry = tourist boards, agents, operators, airlines, the lot) fams are crucial to how leisure travel is packaged and sold to consumers.

Chances are the hotel you book or the excursion you go on are available because someone – the agent who sells it to you and/or a representative of the operator who provides it – scoped it out on a fam. And as the folks above say, in that context there’s no substitute for first-hand experience.

Thanks for getting us all in a lather, anyway. Travel Weekly out…

Report this comment

What we actually need against this post are the opinions of lots of other consumers, to run alongside the varying degrees of consternatation by the trade press and the industry telling us all apparently what consumers want.

Come on, consumers – do you agree or not with Mr Rants?

Report this comment

Sorry, Darren, I’ve got to vote for “rubbish,” too. I can’t believe an avid traveler is actually arguing that video and online research is “good enough” to get to know a place? If that was the case, why would any of us travel at all?!

More broadly, I’m a little leery of the recession being used as a stick to bludgeon people with. We can’t all grind to a halt out of deference to the people who are losing their jobs — and frankly, if everyone did that, there’d be zero chance of a recovery because we’d all be unemployed together. Completely absurd, fatty perks should go — not because they might make somebody *feel bad* during the recession, but because they’re bad business practices. Legitimate expenses should continue to be allowed.

Report this comment

You seem to have two separate issues.

1) Are familiarisation trips a good idea?
2) Should they be done now in the current downturn?

For the first bit – as a travel consumer I far prefer dealing with agents who have personally experienced lots of relevant stuff and not just read about it or watched a video.

In other businesses many companies are taking advantage of the downturn by furthering training. Not only is there less disruption when it is quieter than when it is busy (thus reduced cost of training), but also it places the business well to come out of the downturn by having well prepared and informed staff.

I think familiarisation trips can be viewed the same way and now is a good time to do even more than usual.

Report this comment

Hi Darren
Was thinking about this subject in terms of the wisdom of crowds online and by asserting . . .

I would rely on content written by 1) locals or 2) people who have travelled independently (not paid for by a company or tourist board) or people who have researched the destination.

. . . you are removing a whole range of people who have knowledge and expertise and valuable insights to share. They – tourist boards, tour ops and travel agents – add to the wisdom of the crowd because they are part of the crowd.

Once anyone has come clean about affiliations and vested interests the crowd will decide whether or not what they say is useful or not. Travel professionals have a lot to add to the conversation as this is their area of expertise.

The pros and cons of fam trips have been discussed enough here. Maybe it is more useful to think that we all have a shared interest in valuable infoirmation and good recommendation and as long as we are transparent about our affiliations and their impacts then we all have something to add to the conversation.

Report this comment

As a consumer, I prefer talking to a travel agent who’s actually been to the places I’m interested in booking. It makes a huge difference when the travel agent can talk of the place with great enthusiasm and can share views and tips, and provide advice. I love it when an agent’s face lights up and their eyes begin to twinkle when talking of a certain destination. It gets me more excited to go and they get their business. It all boils down to being enthusiastic or passionate about a certain destination (that’s the best way to sell, right?) and you can’t do that if you’ve only seen a video of a destination. You have to be there, experience it, and only then will you be able to convey your enthusiasm to your customers. Your eyes won’t start twinkling if you’ve only seen a video of a place.
That’s my view anyway.

Cheers,
Keith

Report this comment

Speaking of national newspapers. We (Daily Mail) use fam trips/ sponsored trips the same as agents, though instead of selling to customers we can write about them. The end results is the same: we can speak with more authority and give better quality & first hand advice.

Report this comment

On Twitter you suggested: ‘take off your blogger, industry or any other head that you have on your shoulders and put on ONLY your travel consumer head on” before commenting on your blog. I still am wondering whether it is an April Fool.
OK, I’m not directly in the travel business even if I’m involved in wine tourism as a writer, blogger and have experience it at every level. I have no experience whatsoever of educational trips for the travel industry, but I have plenty of experience of them for the wine industry/press and I imagine they are not that different. They may be fun, but they are far from ‘jolly’ except in the sense of ‘jolly hard work’.
But, seriously as a consumer of travel if I was pondering on whether to go on holiday to Malawi, Madagascar or Manitoba (three conveniently alliterative places that a) I’ve never been to, b) have nothing to do with wine and therefore c) I have next to no knowledge about) I would want to speak with a travel professional who had real experience of these places, or knew someone who had to bring this place to life for me not by video pictures but through understanding my needs and working out which suited my needs best – I can look at videos myself bu I want someone who is speaking from the heart and they can only do that if they’ve been there.
The equivalent in the wine business is giving a talk/tasting about wine (which I’m very experienced in doing) and talking about wines from regions you’ve never been to (but you’ve tasted some and read up all the books/seen the videos etc) vs those you have been to. There is absolutely no comparison. The anecdotes and stories behind where the wines are produced bring those wines to life.
This argument is completely irrelevant to the recession … arguably in a recession, more of these trips should be offered, not less in order to advise people better how to spend their limited travel spending resources. However, fairly obviously they must be educational trips and not simply ‘jollies’ and the people going should be carefully selected (and yes, I agree smaller groups are more effective than large groups).
I think that was a rant … Was this an April Fool post – you can’t be serious, Darren?

Report this comment

From a consumer standpoint (which I am) I recognize that true familiarization trips can be a good thing. On the rare chance I actually use a travel agent than make my own travel plans, I want someone who knows detailswhere I’m going.

But just like someone with a camera, keen eye, and photoshop can make a blog post and that rather spartan accommodation seems opulent, so can planned and paid-for junkets obscure the reality of the situation and make things seem better than they actually are.

If the travel agent is smart, they will travel and research on their own expense. That way, they can recommend locations, accommodations, and conveyance from a more honest perspective instead of ,”hey these people gave me a free trip, I’m going to send them my clients’ business”.

Now addressing this downturn in the economy, if business people are taking care of their business without the luxury of junkets and travel for face-to-face meetings, it does not make sense for people in the travel industry to still be receiving free trips that, ultimately the consumer pays for.

For me, its both a perception and an integrity thing.

Report this comment

I have nothing against famil trips (like the majority of the commenters here it seems), as they are absolutely necessary to create value-add in the travel industry. Someone that has experienced a destination first hand is a much better representative of that destination than someone that hasn’t. Darren, as someone who wants the best for consumers, I think you can do nothing but agree with that as this ultimately is one of the best ways to make sure consumers do get the experience they are paying for.

I do have an issue with 2000 agents going on a famil trip though. That seems excessive by any measure! Clearly Dubai is working on its positioning as the major travel destination in the Middle East and this slots in well with that, but it’s doubtful all these slots are actually being filled by relevant agents. Those agents that have the most to gain from knowing about a destination tend not to mind paying for their staff to go to said destinations anyway, as it will pay itself back in no time.

One other thing, the travel industry is generally heavily underpaid and famil trips are one of the few ‘perks’. The trips themselves are usually hard work, but the possibility to slot on a holiday in one’s own time is one of the things that still makes working in the travel industry attractive. If you get rid of famils, you will have to pay staff more, which means higher prices to consumers. Would you prefer that Darren?

Report this comment

Personally, I choose a holiday based on my desire to visit a place – the quality of the hotel and local facilities are largely incidental. As a result, it’s pretty rare that I have any interaction with a travel agent – I either book directly with a tour company or hotel, or use an online third party booking site.

On those rare occasions that I do deal with a travel agent, my attitude tends to be that their opinions are little different from those of a second hand car salesman, or a loan broker. They’re just interested in selling a service – and even when they give me first hand experience, I have no way to assess whether the information they’re presenting me with is true or not, and have to discount it.

I don’t doubt that there are honest travel agents out there – but because I don’t use the same one, I have to treat an unknown travel agent with skepticism, and assume that any upselling they offer me is based on the fact that they’ll get a higher cut, rather than because the more expensive hotel is actually going to be inherently better.

As a result, I would far rather that hotels and resorts spend their money on improving the experience for their customers, than waste it on schmoozing someone that the public don’t trust.

I do sympathise a little with the fact that Dubai’s tourist information is trying to promote itself – from all the material I’ve seen, it’s a rapidly expanding city, largely consisting of unlet office blocks, giant soulless resorts, and cavernous malls of jewellery shops. It sounds like the absolute antithesis of where I’d want to go on holiday.

Report this comment

Darren, we have to continue to educate during these times… if everyone just stood still, we would never get out of the scenario we are in, so yes, agents should absolutely continue to take FAM trips. A good agent will take the experience back to their client, sell them on it, and start the cycle… when things get stronger, the agent is in a better position to keep the momentum. It is a fundamental investment.

Report this comment

Well, I am a consumer, I am not in the travel industry. I’m just a working-class stiff who has a travel blog because I love to travel and I love to write. My opinion above still stands.

Report this comment

Have to agree with majority of comments – Dubai is reacting to a worldwide downturn in tourism. It has already subsidised discounts, and the UAE’s airlines have also acted smartly to cut fares. But there are still plenty of empty seats and hotel rooms, so it makes sense to educate agents in preparation for an upturn. Dubai changes so fast you really need to be on the groud to appreciate the scale of development. You could argue Bermuda or Jersey could be seen on video – but not the UAE. Agents are also people who sell travel for their livlihoods. Would you want to be sold an expensive purchase on the basis that an agent has watched the telly? And talking about downturns and livlihoods, the number of Indian subcontinent workers who have been laid off or gone unpaid in Dubai since the downturn is horrendous – encouraging agents to learn and sell Dubai is one way to aid recovery. Now, as to whether consumers should fly, well that’s another whole new story. Will post your rant on Times Online Travel for futher debate!

Report this comment

Ps: here’s the link on Times Online inviting further comments

Report this comment

Re TUI, presumably because it was under financial pressure. The fact that a huge company did something proves that it’s possible, not that it’s good. TUI has scrapped its staff salary review this year because of the recession – does that prove that agents should be paid less?

Report this comment

Firstly, fam trips are essential if an agent is to sepak with any amount of authority.

What I don’t really understand is all this rubbish about “sending out a message in a recession”. Fam trips are staff training. Do you stop staff training in a recession? If somebody new started at your firm, would you just sit them down at a desk on day one and say “get on with it, we’re not training, there’s a recession on?”

But the thing I really don’t understand is that these are private firms you are talking about, they are not government departments. It’s up to the firms how they want to spend their money. If it costs a lot and prices rise, it’s then up to you as a consumer whether you still want to be paying for their services. It’s your choice, that’s how business works. How can this be sending out a bad message? It is completely different from the banking sector which has received taxpayer subsidies.

The only people this can be sending out a bad message to is the stakeholders and that is an internal issue. If you send people on a fam trip and then make others redundant it could be an issue amongst staff, but I think most would still want to see fam trips happening.

So, to me, the whole issue of sending out a bad message in a recession is completely irrelevant and for The Times to reprint it is just lazy journalism.

Report this comment

Simon – it was a request by Darren to further his discussion in a consumer arena. Am always happy to help rather than ignore travel colleagues. Lazy? It took me at least 5 minutes

Report this comment

The only thing I would add is that I would like transparency and disclosure from my agent, i.e. are they trying to sell me Dubai versus Florida because of the fam trips done or to come? Just a question of transparency.

(hmm, actually, I haven’t seen an agent in 15 years. Why am I discussing this?)

Report this comment

But that’s my whole point. I really don’t see what it has to do with consumers. These are private firms and if they want to spend their money on training surely that is their own business? It’s up to the consumer if they buy their product. I just don’t get this “message” business.

Report this comment

As a consumer (also run my own travel guide), I don’t have any problems with these trips.

I agree that in this day and age the internet, videos etc. can be used to research trips and destinations;that;s what I tend to use when planning a trip. But then again, I’m not a travel agent who is selling vacations to the general public.

Darren I know you don’t drive, but would you buy a car based on a magazine article or a 10 minute segment on Top Gear?
Would you buy a house based on a virtual tour?

My answer to the above, would be No. I’d want to test drive the car and inspect the house before making a decision to buy.

So for travel agents; having ‘first hand’ experience of destinations they are selling seems to make perfect sense (even in todays tough times).

Report this comment

OK so I agree that spending money on fam trips may not be the best decision in this global economy for the travel agencies etc., however the “fam” trip is essential for agents to really “get” a destination”. I know that I can recommend somewhere much better if I have been there and experienced it for myself.
Experiencing a destination is so much more than seeing it on a video. Just my 2 cents (or pents)

Report this comment

Darren,
Is this really an honest opinion, or an attempt to rake up controversy to get some publicity?

With a punter’s hat on, I’d have to say, what is the point of going to a travel agent if they don’t have a passionate knowledge of their destination, may as well look online. For more of an issue than fam trips is journalist requests. Subscribe to travmedia for a free trial month and check out the journalist requests. e.g. typical request: “Looking for a hotel in Tenerife in July for me and my family. Good publicity opportunity, full page article will be written.” Basically free summer hols in return for an article. Aren’t journalists meant to be independent? I would say that not all travel journalists do this – and most of the broadsheets are very good.

Anyway fun reading all the comments.

Report this comment

Interesting topic. As I noted in a recent post about a Carnival Splendor cruise to no where, I was invited as a journalist and What a Trip blogger to experience this new ship. I was surrounded by travel agents on a two-day fam trip.

While I imagine some agents use these “perks” as mini vacations, I expect most travel agents view these trips as work. During this trip, my travel companion was a laptop and I was writing when I wasn’t checking out the ship.

Report this comment

Minor detail – these days we do not get “offered” fam trips. We have to earn them. Usually by doing some sort of pre-training (eg the rather good Kuoni training programme) or by selling some of the product range (and before everyone screams, let’s grant a bit of integrity, eh!). They are split into two types, those offered by Tourist Boards (rather more interesting as they give one a broad “snapshot” of a whole country or part thereof – and in my opinion far more valuable) and those offered by companies (which can be really, really hard work and focus very much on the accommodations) There is a danger of mixing these two true fam trip style visits, which are as critical to a counter clerk’s knowledge as actually working on a car would be to a mechanic, with those offered to Journalists and travel writers which are, well.. enough said. Again, TUI and such would take their clerks en masse to various resorts (and I went myself on an Airtours educational to Magaluf once) – digression – Magaluf was actually a lot better than I thought it would be and it changed my perception of the place – and for the market to which it may appeal – digression ends – though these were usually what we call baby travel agents and it was at a time when they were mainly in the business of flogging two week trips to the Costas etc – now this is done online so there may be another reason why they stopped doing this. Fam trips to long haul destinations are still very important as you simply cannot get a holistic picture from any source. How can you portray on a CD how the atmosphere of, say, Kenya hits you straight between the eyes when the aircraft door opens? Or Ceylon? Or India? The bustle of Hong Kong or that strange feeling of the hair rising on the back of the neck when you visit the wailing wall? These experiences have their practical uses as well. One has, in the past, had to put clients off a place because one knows that they would not have been able to handle it.
The world has shrunk, but places remain as they were, in some cases as they have been for many, many years. People travel, for leisure, further afield than they have ever done before and there is only one place that they can still go to make sure they are not going to find that they have made a very bad decision – and that is not online. As high street type agents become fewer and further between, those that (can be bothered, after the kicking that they get) remain will be better skilled at presenting the global options and there is only one way to achieve that skill – by having been there.

Report this comment

@Darren. Fair enough. I probably came across harsher than I meant too. But when you tweeted yesterday “PLEASE take off your blogger, industry or any other head that you have on your shoulders and put on ONLY your travel consumer head on. TBC.” it implicitly implied you had your consumer head on. So, in the same way you were challenging everyone else, I wanted to challenge you. Did you have your consumer head on, or your blogger head on when writing this post? It’s oh so easy to claim the higher ground by claiming to be the voice of the consumer…. I’ve been guilty myself, it used to be how I wrangled things past tech and finance teams when I was in marketing – but usually was just smoke and mirrors.

Report this comment

2,000 agents to many comments, I feel the need to come back on. This is a total, not one country so to put this in perspective there is around 10,000 travel agency’s each with several staff plus 1,000′s of home workers, plus tour operator staff in the UK, across all the country’s that Dubai will involve, that means properly about 1 in every 1,000 agents will get to go.

@ Darren, these trips are not free…they are part funded. With regards to you comment is this the right time to train, everyone from government to experts say train now.
As to TUI, this was the same time they where cutting out agents from there selling plan… the big idea was most would go by the Internet and it was cheaper, now they back with agents (selling wise anyway). I think this is when they realised paying agents less then the discount they gave on the web plus the high marketing costs with the Internet made it just another sales channel.

Report this comment

Do they all have to go ? Whats wrong with office networking ? When one person gets back from the trip SHARE the experience with your collegues. You don’t all have to go and close up shop. ( Just a personnal view not one from the Macdonald Hotels Chain.)

At Macdonald Hotels we host many Fam Trips for all of Travel and Tour Operators, New Busineses & Societies that show interest in any of our hotels, we find the very usefull for ourselves and for the guests that stay. There is nothing better than first hand knowledge of venue.

Everyone has to have a View that the Best word of mouth is from the actual experince and feeling that the person on the floor at the front line recieves. Learning about Staying in Venice for example from a Brochure, is definatly not the same as your own experience of going yourself.

Report this comment

Let’s take stock a little bit here…

The reason why Darren felt sufficiently moved to pen a piece which subsequently incurred the wrath of the travel industry is because a destination announced it would be hosting 2,000 travel agents for a familiarisation trip.

This wasn’t a fam trip for 20 agents… This was a huge and highly unusual set of circumstances… TWO THOUSAND AGENTS.

I wonder if Darren would have been compelled to write a diatribe about
the validity of fam trips had Travelmole published a non-story about half a dozen or so agents heading off to the Mediterranean [although it might do on a slow news day ]

Therefore one does wonder now if all this has actually been rather blown out of context.

It is also worth noting Dubai’s motivation in producing such an extravagant fam trip.

The city is seeing the first real signs of poblems since it began flourishing in the mid-1990s. So as building projects reportedly grind to a halt and expats start leaving, tourism becomes even more important to its economy – and therefore why such grand efforts are being put into persuading agents that all is well in the pocket of extravangance in the Middle East that is Dubai.

[Not that you will read any of this in the city itself. Government officials have recently proposed a new media law which will make it a crime to damage the country's reputation in news reports by mentioning the crisis.]

Report this comment

@Darren
It Won’t be 1 trip that 2,000 people are going on, it will be spread over a period of time.
Having been on a Dubai fam trip hosted by Dubai Tourism, there won’t be time for shopping believe me, but Certainly it will be an unforgettable experience ,extremely educational and VERY HARD WORK
. And as for Beach Holidays in Spain or Greece, an agent might get to see the Beach and having worked ( YES WORK) sometimes a 12 – 14 hour day, surely you can’t begrudge some relaxation time!
As New Markets and destinations evolve and the Consumer demands new and exciting Experiences that may be unfamiliar to them, of course it’s necessary for the agent to have first hand knowledge and Experience to pass on to the consumer..

Report this comment

Fam trips are critical for travel agents and as part of their ongoing product training. However fam trips will soon be extinct as the industry moves from a push model to a pull model. They will be rightly extinct as they are one of the inefficiencies of the travel agent model that, with the rise of the web, may soon be removed by market forces.

The current industry model is that travel agents are based in the same locality as the outbound consumer. i.e. a UK based travel agent will sell to UK consumers a trip to Dubai. This is a PUSH model – customers are pushed out of the UK to other destinations.

Coming soon will be much more of a PULL model. The travel companies will be based in Dubai and reaching out, via the web, to consumers in the UK. Therefore companies from Dubai will send people to the UK (on a fam trip) to learn about the UK consumer mindset – rather than UK agents travelling to Dubai to learn about their products and destination.

In the PULL model the people with the product knowledge are local to the destinations hence know the destination (or can learn it conveniently) and don’t need any familiarisation trips.

In the PULL model there is still space for non-destination based travel companies focussing on a remote destination. These will be more media model (i.e. remunerated through advertising) than booking revenue model (i.e. travel agency commission). An example of a company in this sector looking to promote local experiences, but being based in the consumer’s country is TourDust – http://www.tourdust.com

With niche tour operators I am already seeing the move towards local companies successfully competing online with companies based in the consumer’s original location. One other problem is that (for the UK at least) travel bonding legislation hasn’t caught up with this, although it may still apply, depending upon who you speak to.

Regardless of whether you think I am right or not, the online folk who are building up web based solutions in this sector are already working on the assumption that the model described above will occur over time – hence are not really working on web based fam trip solutions. For example my core focus is on helping people with their own product to sell – destination based niche tour operators.

This forthcoming shift in how tour operators exist will be as fundamental a change to them as the arrival of TripAdvisor was to hotels – or metasearch was to airlines.

Report this comment

[...] Read the debate and the 70+ comments [...]

Report this comment

Idea.

Would it be different if Dubai Tourist Office decided to offer a free fam trip to 2000 consumers instead of 2000 agents?

- The PR coverage would be massive – I have never heard anything similar.
- Consumers would most likely share their experiences within their communities and be listened without bias by their friends (i.e. they wouldn’t be trying to sell them anything). But the reach and long-term effect would probaby be lower than through agents.
- Consumers would most likely inundate the web with pictures, videos, blogs and reviews. Not sure how much agents are already doing this after a fam trip.
- The cost to Dubai would probably lower (i.e. they wouldn’t really have to take everyone to all and to the best spots in the area).
- There would certainly be some negative reviews/feedbacks from consumers who don’t really like the Dubai experience.
- And it would certainly be a logistic nightmare to find, select, communicate and manage all plans.

Daniele

PS – now that I think about it, within our own little world this is exactly what we do with our Facebook group: instead of getting free test rides from our suppliers for internal use, we give them to our group members here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6239762774. But not 2000!

Report this comment

[...] other things, a UK blogger about all things travel. Last week he penned an article entitled “Familiarisation trips in the travel industry should be banned” (they have a “z” in British English but they call it a “Zed” and use [...]

Report this comment

@ Daniele and everyone. These trips are not FREE, they have to be part paid for and/or earned. Think of it like getting Tesco club card points thousands of people get free trips from those.

Report this comment

As a pure consumer (and blogger), I am also surprised by your position, Darren and I virtually always agree with you. In the occasional times that I do speak to a travel agent, I seek out someone who knows a decent amount about where I’d like to go. I’d certainly expect them to have been there and be knowledgeable about the places I’ve contemplated visiting. I think this is what the agents get their various commissions for on booking the trip with them. I certainyl don’t want to spend time with someone getting advice when all they have done is read a brochure or two and never been to the place. I can do my own reading of books and brochures and web sites for that level of knowledge.

Report this comment

@nick They have to be earned? Even worst! So the agents would sell me a destination to complete their Tesco-like point card to go on a jolly….

I restate my point – I have no problem with fam trips but I would like transparency and disclosure.

Report this comment

Daniele, you do not get the point I am making….. like Tesco, you can by a pint of milk but use the point on car insurance. It does not come down what we are selling to you. Points can be earned for completing online or paper based training course for one major example.

To quote some one today in the TTG “I thought that Club med was an upmarket Butlins and until I visited a resort did not realize how much it suited my customers”. That agency made a 6000% increase in bookings. In a way that shows the worth of educational’s, as before you could say those customers did not get best advice.

Report this comment

@ Nick that’s a sweeping generalisation and it is not the case everywhere.

@ Daniele Why do you want transparency and disclosure for fam trips? It is entirely up to firms how many trips they have and who they send. This is not a consumer issue (Darren please note).

@ Darren Either you are very naive or have no understanding of how sales based businesses work. Nearly every sales business has some sort of incentive scheme somewhere along the line. If you go into Oddbins they may try and sell you an Aussie red because Aussie reds are on promotion and the member of staff who sells the most at the end of the month gets a prize. It happens everywhere, Likewise with car sales, they will be trying to sell certain models. It happens in almost every form of retail. Even online retailers are trying to “push” you towards certain products.

Don’t go knocking the travel industry because some poorly paid member of staff somewhere gets a fam trip to Spain once in a blue moon because they’ve managed to sell a few holidays to Spain. Give it a break, please…..

Report this comment

Darren, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying it happens in every walk of life, not just travel. People will have incentives to sell certain products over others. It’s no different from supermarkets having products on their end plinths in prominent positions. They are trying to sell you those products at that moment in time.

You could phone up an operator directly and they will still be under pressure to sell certain destinations or weeks within those destinations above all others. It may be because they have resort staff free or it may be because the hotels are offering better rates for that week.

Travel agents will be keen to sell you some products over others for various reasons regardless of fam trips. Does it make fam trips any less valid because they are tied into these incentives? I don’t think so.

Report this comment

[...] Consumer blogger Travel Rants (of Travel Blog Camp fame) has angered a lot of travel agents by calling for a ban on familiarisation trips. [...]

Report this comment

There is no substitute for experience ! Travel agents and travel advisors are professionals and, no matter what age they may be, never stop learning or acquiring knowledge. The blogger has a short sighted view of a professional industry. Would like to see whether he would be happy to visit a dentist who had learned everything from a book but had no ‘practical’ experience !!

Report this comment

[...] a piece with such a snarky line about travel agents? Is it just a follow-on from Darren’s post at Travel Rants about agents that The Times featured? I hope this isn’t the start of [...]

Report this comment

Yes, im with you on this – in this day and age the travel industry should be trying to practice ‘green friendly’ and sustainable methods wherever possible. This typ of jolly just isnt the right thing to do – such as waste of resources.

Report this comment

Me and my wife’s Nikki experience was absolutely wonderful. As newlyweds we were quite excited and drew from the Nikki culture as I had my own special Naked Sushi for my husband with the help of the Chef and Chrystal. The food was excellent the housekeeping was impeccable and the 24 hour service was a great asset to the making of a beautiful honeymoon. Turks and Caicos itself is a gem but Nikki Beach Turks and Caicos was the polished diamond that we all desire to have one day!!! We will be back!!!

For more information in Nikki Beach Turks and Caicos Resort Islands visit http://nikkibeachhotels.com/turks/.

Report this comment

I know this is very late but I came across this in my search for leisure travel in the travel industry. I have talked to a lot of travel agents lately in regards to interline travel as I work in the travel industry (not a travel agent), and I have been on one fam trip for a new destination we started serving. Honestly, trying to promote a vacation package (or even travel to, hotel, restaurant, tours or other events), without having been to the city/country in question…is like trying to sell Mary Kay and not having tried the makeup for yourself. All the travel agents who promote packages to me I ask their suggestions in traveling, how did they like the area, what are the best places to go, etc. If any of them tell me they’ve never been I wouldn’t buy from them. I would just continue my search until I found a travel agent who has been there and can tell me first hand experience. If they even thought about telling me “I’ve never been but we watched an instructional video”????? Yes, complete and utter rubbish.

I have traveled a lot (leisurely), and while I don’t sell packages (I sell air only and offer suggestions for hotels, events, etc.), I can assure you my unofficial travel experience does help when suggesting destinations, local culture, things to do, and offering help for navigating different airports, as well as other general travel information.

I understand where you are coming from in regards to “frivolous” spending but I think there should be a crackdown on companies expensing things like:

trips to the strip club
leisure travel,
items for the CEO’s mistresses

not instead of fam trips for those travel industry. Believe it or not, not all of of the fam trips are expensed by supplier or agency owner (i.e. free to the traveler). Some are just deeply deeply discounted rates for those in the travel industry. That really isn’t much different than someone who works at Foot Locker getting an employee discount at sister stores, or stores who offer discounts to Foot Locker employees.

Report this comment