Ok so just back from the much anticipated Faro FAM Trip jointly hosted by Avro, Cosmos, Holidaytaxis.com and of course our country hosts the Portuguese National Tourist Board – so was it a success?
From our point of view every agent was excellent on time, smart and attentive and they saw a different side to a trip – not endless hotel visits but lived and breathed the actual country itself. Our Portuguese hosts were very gracious Jose and Miguel and of course they wanted to show us the best bits of the Algarve – which they did in great abundance and if all tourist boards had staff as passionate and attentive as these two then the will do well as they were excellent.
From fantastic pool side restaurants to some of the best beaches you will ever find (trust me its true) to the ancient town of Lagos to the Venice of the Algarve Tavira we saw some stunning sites.
Spending time in Faro itself which is a beautiful historical city with lunch on the roof top terrace of the Hotel Faro, was in itself a treat and showed what a great city it would be for a short break – not just an airport.
One of the other highlights was the white washed village of Cacela Velha with the views of the amazing national park of Ria Formosa an area which I have previously never explored in the Algarve all well worth a visit and of course to top it all we had excellent weather!
Having worked in travel for over 20 years you always have some people that are a bit fussy on these trips as to local food – not so our hardy bunch who tried everything from hot stone sizzles, authentic chicken piri piri in one of the most traditional restaurants in the Algarve to even suckling pig on the jeep safari and of course who could forget the local fire water and honey.
Not content with days and nights beaches and cities and local culture – but our last day was a team building jeep safari in the mountains with all but one of us going down a 200 foot death slide – that set the adrenalin levels for the day and of course made us even more competitive as we all already are!
Of course need to justify the spend on such trips and like all of the sponsors I am sure we will see huge support from all of the agents who attended for Holidaytaxis.com, Avro and Cosmos and certainly for Portugal and the Algarve.
A huge thanks to everyone involved UK and overseas in organising the trip and of course to our “star” agents who attended last week they had VIP treatment and in my view deserved it and we are all committed to supporting those continue to support us.
So are these trips still of value – I have 45 excellent agents that will say yes and an industry that still if they experience a product first hand will always sell it more effectively. Let’s look at the results I am sure all of these guys will get behind us tell their friends and colleagues and look forward to the next one in 2010!
And the best moments – the awards, the Jose and Ricky dance, Sally Sat Nav heading to Blackpool airport and not Manchester on the way out – Lucy on the death slide, the cats whiskers – to many to mention. The last laugh however has to go to Johnny “get the party started” Pollard from OTB life long England fan who stitched up 2 Scotsmen, Gordon MaCreadie from Cosmos and myself to sing the English football anthem – 3 lions – and he has the video to prove it!
Enough said!!
Chris
Posted
24 Sep 2009 09:03 AM
by
Chrisoakes