Travel Weekly Blog

This post comes from Gill Hartigan, winner of the Agent Excellence Award for best sales consultant, small agency, in the Southwest and Wales.

Next week the Caribbean Tourism Organisation will be holding its ‘Courses for the Caribbean 2007’ event in Oxford.

I’ll be going along. I run the weddings and honeymoons department at Howard Travel, so I’m on the lookout for new wedding opportunities for both the company and my clients.

Meeting contacts from the various exhibitors is also useful, especially if you need some expert advice. And of course I’m also hoping to gain knowledge and information that will add to the pleasure of experiencing the islands myself.

Here are my three favourite Caribbean bookings:

• A wedding at the Radisson Cable Beach in Grand Bahamas. It was for 19 passengers with a total cost of over £23,000. I found it most enjoyable, challenging and very rewarding – and it sparked the idea for the wedding department within Howard Travel.



• Last year I booked a wedding at The Beach Club in Antigua for 20 passengers at a total cost of £22,000. The resort is a favourite of mine, in particular the superior rooms which have direct access to the beach.



• In November I have a wedding booked for 13 passengers at the all-inclusive Holiday Village Golden Beach in the Dominican Republic. Their child prices go up to the age of 14 years and they have four-bedded rooms, so I was able to keep the price down to £10,700.

What’s your best booking to the Caribbean? And if you attended the Durham CTO training event, what selling tips did you pick up?

Gill Hartigan, Howard Travel