Its been a few weeks since I put my thoughts to paper – and a hectic period it has been too, with the office move and recruitment well underway. Add to that the fact that we are combining an office with a house move!
We are now entering our busiest time of the year with increasing number of clients on holiday, many just about to go away and plenty of enquirers. Its also a time when our personal service , though I say it myself, comes into its own, as we can piece together suitable holidays from the limited rooms left over peak holiday periods. Much of each day is spent on the phone to our hoteliers checking the latest availability- and in some ways it’s one of my favourite aspects of the job - real problem solving.

As we work with small and family owned places such a thing as online availability is out of the question. Indeed I always prefer to speak to the hotel direct to see the various options that are available, for examplemoving a holiday back or forth a day or two to get a combination to work. Once you get to the islands – especially the Outer Hebrides -it becomes even more of a challenge with ferry timetables becoming a major factor.

Availability on some islands, such as Islay and Mull has always been difficult, as there is a real shortage of good accommodation here - and we use it all! Our wildlife holidays also use several small local excursion operators whose trips may only have capacity for 8 or 12 people each day – and we have a very long list of fully booked dates already. So if you are looking for availability for busy periods we are good place to come, but you will need to be patient – rarely can we tell you straight away if a holiday is available- it will take a few phone calls. Mind you that’s where you need a travel advisor!

One event in Scotland probably deserves more comment this week. The smoking ban which came into effect from 26th March . Though I am looking forward to going to a smoke free bar tonight for the first time (yes sadly have been stay at home since the weekend), my gut instinct is against telling adults not to do things, but as non-smoker is difficult to be against the outcome. Anyway it will certainly have a major effect on social life here – guess there will plenty of people out side bars having a fag and hopefully more outside terraces will appear, where there is space, o benefit to all. It would be good if it does help more people give up, and it will make bars and restaurants more pleasant places for non-smokers. Just so long as all my smoking friends don’t spend all night outside!

For client information, hotels will still be able to offer smoking bedrooms where guests can smoke – but from what I can see this is really only gong to be the larger properties, who have the capacity to set aside rooms specifically.

Well today now its off to get the keys for our new flat in Glasgow, so fingers crossed!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 31st, 2006 at 7:46 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.