Hitting the beach

Mair Jones, co-owner, Bordessa Holidays

We have about 18,000 followers on Facebook. We posted a Newmarket Holidays deal for a Kenya beach and safari trip, which returned a £7,500 booking for three adults in 2022.

The client had booked with us before and was pleased with the high service. I also posted a DIY Iceland package, which has had more than 100 comments.

We’ve taken five bookings for it so far, 11 passengers in total, all with upgraded rooms and added excursions at about £420 per person. It’s a small, but good start.

Cruise converts

Andy Sharples, franchisee, Cruise Holidays UK

I took a booking with a retired couple in their 70s who usually book a few Jet2holidays trips to Madeira with me each year.

Then they phoned up and said they had seen a Cunard cruise advertised and if the price was correct, they would book it.

It’s a 12-night Canary Islands cruise from Southampton on Queen Victoria in November. They felt confident everything would be OK with coronavirus by then.

Dreamy Dubai

Maureen Evans, managing director, Freedom Travel Longton

I booked a regular client, his wife and two children to Dubai business class for October half-term staying at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.

The booking was worth more than £21,000. Two hours after confirming the holiday, the client found it cheaper online – it’s a big problem with forward bookings at the moment.

I have discounted out of my commissions to keep the booking. Happy to say I have kept the booking, which was also due to the loyalty shown by this regular client.

Going to Goa

Martyn Dean, director, JLM Travel

We had a nice £3,700 November booking in from a regular customer, 21 nights in Goa from Manchester with Tui.

We’d been dealing with the client prior to the coronavirus outbreak and it was my first new booking in nearly three weeks. It made a lovely change from all the cancellations.

Spanish sojourn

Anna Reed, director customer services and sales, Ocky White Travel

Over the past two weeks, I’ve made three new bookings. In normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be anything to shout about, but today I’m just so happy to have the bookings still coming in.

Two were off the back of a Transun fam trip I took at the end of January – I posted some videos and Facebook live posts.

The third was a call that came out of the blue from a lady who had been chatting with her neighbour, a client of mine, who I had been calling and texting to make sure she was OK on her recent Tenerife holiday. So out of that I got a £7,000 booking by recommendation for two ladies, three weeks all-inclusive to Gran Canaria in November.

Both are widowed in their late-60s; I did have to laugh when I asked why they chose the particular hotel – “The waiter was hot!”

For the family 

Tania Lowe, owner, PR World Travel

We recently took a booking from a new customer who had been following us on Facebook and was impressed by how we were looking after our customers.

He was waiting in the shop car park for us to open and said he wanted to book with us face- to-face before we had to close.

He booked to take his family to Majorca next August with Jet2holidays at a value of £5,500.

Three in one

Laura Hibbert, director, Travel Zing

I was delighted when a regular client approached me about two future holidays – trips to Tenerife in February 2021 and the US.

My client said the Tenerife booking was more than they would normally spend for six days abroad but with everything going on, they felt like spoiling themselves – one of them has been furloughed, while the other is working remotely.

Just when I thought my day couldn’t get better, I got a Krakow Christmas market booking from a new customer who saw a Facebook post. We’ll come through this, we’ve just got to stay calm