The business of selling wonder

Gavin Tollman, global chief executive officer of Trafalgar, has a very difficult time answering the simplest question that people most frequently ask him.

And that is: how many countries have you been to?

You’d think it’s the perfect ice breaker when you find out that Tollman is head of Trafalgar, one of the world’s biggest escorted holiday companies, which was founded 67 years ago to take servicemen out of the commonwealth countries and back to Europe, let them discover the places where they fought in World War 2.

Except Tollman really has lost count of the number of countries he’s been to. “A lot,” he says.

Like a hundred?

“I can tell you that in the last 30 days I’ve been to the US — New York, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, California — Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, the UK, the Philippines now and I will be in Malaysia. I have been in my home in Geneva for two nights.”

What about in his lifetime?

“I think I am missing very few countries,” he says. “I’ve been everywhere but seen very little — or not enough.”

But on his last trip, a working trip to Istanbul, Turkey, he managed to squeeze in an unforgettable experience out of it: he was filled with wonder.  Istanbul, he said, has always been on his list but for one reason or another he never went — except for the week before he came to Manila to launch Trafalgar’s Europe and Britan’s itineraries for 2014.

“It’s the importance of looking at a destination the first time especially if you’re a travel director and you’ve seen the place 40,000 times. There is always that one person that is seeing it for the first time.

“The Blue Mosque was closed to the public, the guide spoke to the guard, and so I was the only person inside the Blue Mosque with the two of them. The best thing of all was the power of that guide and the pride he took when he saw that this was my first time, showing me the little things that very few people see. He let me go up the stairs and the area where the sultans used to pray. When we think about travel, we want memories that last a lifetime. There was no doubt that that Friday morning in Istanbul is something I will always remember.”

Tollman was in Manila for a day with Nicholas Lim, president of Travel Corporation (Asia) and regional director of Trafalgar Asia, and  Mae Cheah, director of sales, Trafalgar Asia. They had come for the launch and meetings with Trafalgar GSA for the Philippines, Pan Pacific Travel Corporation manager and vice president Helen Hao and SVP Robert Dee.

“Our biggest percentage growth has come out of Asia,” he says.

Lim adds that Trafalgar has designed Cost Saver products just for the Asian market. “Cost Saver has more free time and a lot of shopping add-ons on the brochure like in Paris and London. You pay a little price, you get the transfers included to the outlet malls. Yes, generally Asians shop more and this is something they tell us themselves.”

“Cost Saver has the most value as it checks most of the boxes,” says Tollman. “It takes you into a destination that doesn’t have a lot of inclusions but the travel director will give you the highlights and let you discover on your own or go with us.”

For Europe and Britain itineraries, the Philippine market gets an incredible value proposition and an in-depth experience. Trafalgar is running a promotion wherein travelers who book and pay their itineraries early get a 10-percent discount starting this month until Feb. 12, 2014.

So, what’s so special about the Europe and Britain 2014 catalogue? For starters, you can choose from 104 itineraries and “every single one of them has been pulled apart,” says Tollman.  “It ceases to be a guided holiday and becomes an unbelievable holiday. We have Insider Moments or the unique things that travelers will have the opportunity to discover.”

For such discoveries, Tollman admits that sometimes you have to push the edge slightly. In 2013, the head of the company’s product development came to Tollman with an idea. She said, “I want our guests to meet former members of the IRA who are now black cab drivers to take them into Belfast and talk about how life was like.”

Tollman says, “My immediate instinct was that that’s a bit too far, but she was adamant and she pushed and she pushed. Eventually, I said we’ll try it for one year and see what happens. If you read our guests comments, it is so powerful to see what we’ve done. These gentlemen talk about being on the opposite side and the importance of living in peace today. I tell you that because in 2014, in the Venice to the Balkans itineraries, in Sarajevo we are going with a young man who, during the Balkan Wars, was responsible for building the tunnels under the city. He used to guide people there to escape the snipers and he talks about bringing medical supplies to the city and what life was like at the time.”

Another special feature on the itineraries is Be My Guest, where travelers are taken to a local’s home and have a meal there — it could be in a lemon grove in Italy, a vineyard in France, an evening of music and dancing in a courtyard house in Argentina — breaking bread with the locals.

Trafalgar started Be My Guest in 2010. “The first instinct was gourmet cuisine but no, it’s got to be about understanding the locals and we tried it at first with the Esposito sisters who had a lemon grove overlooking the Bay of Naples. They were stereotypically Italian — they made delicious limoncello and pasta. The house was on top of a hill and my team told me we can’t go there, the coach can’t drive up, the passengers have to walk a little way to the hill. Well, that’s why we want to go there. At the end of that first season, almost every single guest that went to their house said that’s what they remembered most of their trip.”

Every feature that goes into a Trafalgar itinerary is designed to help accomplish their goal, which is for guests to “see the world from the inside.”

“The journey Trafalgar has been on since 2012 is being able to see the world from the inside. What we did was we stopped, looked and said, ‘How can we make guided holidays a deeper and richer experience?’ There was a lot of misunderstanding of what escorted tours were and one them was that you kind of flew by the destinations, taking pictures from the windows of the bus, and that it was very superficial.”

It’s not true, he says. At least not for Trafalgar. When Tollman took over, they put in place a bespoke training program for their travel directors “to begin to see things through our guests’ eyes. The whole idea is not what the group wants but what the individual wants.”

The company began replacing five to 10 travel directors a year and in Euroe alone, they changed about 50 percent of their TDs. “A trip can be made or broken by a travel director,” says Tollman. “A great TD can make all this seamless — the hotel transfers, getting tickets, etc.”

This year, only their third year after major changes in the products and the company, Trafalgar had the best operating season in its history.

Nick Lim says, “Guest satisfaction rate is 99.35 percent. When you think of the volume that we do, the TDs are doing a great job, and obviously the training and formula works. We always strive for a hundred percent, of course.”

We joke that if all travel directors looked like Brad Pitt, the guest rating would be 100 percent. Tollman laughs and says that one of the Be My Guest experiences in Buenos Aires is with two brothers and their sister. “It is an evening in their home — the sister cooks and the brothers love music and dancing. If you see these gentlemen, you’ll think, to hell with Brad Pitt. They are so welcoming and it is an evening of good food, music and dance in their courtyard in Buenos Aires.”

Tollman says, “When we talk about what Trafalgar is trying to achieve for the moment, that is the essence right there — getting a powerful attachment to a destination so that when you leave, you are enriched, that you’ve had the experience of learning a little bit more and digging deeper into the culture.”

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For inquiries on Trafalgar’s 2014 Europe & Britain guided holidays and city breaks and ongoing promos or discounts, visit its Philippine partner, Pan Pacific Travel Corporation, at the G/F Pacific Place Apartelle Suite, 539 Arquiza corner J. Bocobo Street, Ermita, Manila. Or call 523-1990, 526-6427, 536-1265/67 or e-mail trafalgarmanila@panpacifictravel.com.ph.