05.01.07
Posted in Health, Holidays at 10:08 am by emerym
The weekend wasn’t good. Monday I woke with the shakes, even the wife was concerned for a while. Today I feel like I’ve got a cold still.
Sorry about the travel flame yesterday, but I’m getting fed up with the wife being stressed out by the “I want the world, all inclusive, with flights for £99″ brigade. What happened to paying a fair price for things? Consumer demand for lower and lower prices will end up reducing the options available to them in the long term.
Luckily there are some people willing to pay a fair price, but they’re a much smaller group. They end up in resorts with the best hotels with properly trained staff, etc. I see the division between “Excellent” and “Cheap” growing further.
I better find something else to do before this turns into a full repeat of yesterdays moan…
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04.30.07
Posted in Holidays at 12:55 pm by emerym
After 9/11 and the numerous bombings on holiday resorts, many blamed the terrorists for impacting the travel industry. They might have triggered a chain of events, but can’t be blamed for what’s happening today.
How would you like to work 7AM to 11PM, seven days a week, for half your current salary?
I’d put money on nobody saying “Yes please!“, but this is close to what’s happened to my wife and many home workers in the travel industry. Granted it’s not happened overnight, but it has happened.
Why? Because many holiday makers (thankfully not all) are now in the habit of calling around, playing one company off against the other. Even worse, getting two homeworkers from the same company to unknowingly compete against each other. Fair enough if you think you’re being asked to pay hundreds of pounds over the odds, but I’ve had my wife complain too many times of people asking “I’ve got a quote of £X from company Y, can you beat it by £5 or £10 a head?“. Some times they don’t even start with such a statement and monopolize the homeworkers time only to then reject their quote. These people are willing to spend ages – hours not minutes – on the phone to save the price of a meal or few pints of beer. If they had someone impact their own salary they’d no doubt get very upset.
What they fail to realize is that commissions on many holidays are now so low that many home workers are having to put in longer and longer hours to earn a decent wage. Some homeworkers do it for pocket money, most need to earn a proper salary as they have mortgages to pay. Being stuck on the phone with time wasters makes things even worse. Many are giving up. Smaller companies are loosing their ABTA licenses and going bust. Unless something changes, in the not too distant future we may not have many independent holiday firms to call on, if any. We’ll have to go to one of a very few major operators and pay whatever price they ask for. Holidays will again be a luxury only the rich can afford.
I could be wrong, but believe me the signs are there…
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