After reading the article on Friday (3 January), UK sales manager Liz Shaw immediately called Howard branch manager Colin Curtis during her lunch break and offered to cover the £250 bill. Fortunately, the agency had not yet made the payment. 

Shaw later explained to TTG this “random” gesture of kindness would likely be the first of many from Grecotel in 2025. “We’ve been discussing internally about doing more charitable events, supporting agencies by finding out what they need from us,” she said. 

“I was scrolling through TTG and I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is perfect’. This is what the travel industry is about.” 

However, Shaw stressed the gesture had not been made in the hope Howard Travel would subsequently sell more Grecotel. “We just wanted to support a travel agency business,” Shaw said. “It’s nice to do random acts of kindness like this every so often."

But she added: “I think Howard Travel thought it was a peaks sales call when I rang because I said, ’Hello, it’s Liz Shaw from Grecotel’. They were quite taken aback when I told them we wanted to pay for the new window.” 

Curtis said the Howard Travel team were “blown away” by Grecotel’s kind offer. “It’s a very kind gesture,” he added. He previously told TTG he suspected the broken window was the work of "drunken revellers" out on the town on New Year’s Eve.