We only use holiday reps if we have never been to a destination before. We are going to Cyprus next year and I have already found out everything I need to know, via Cyprus Forums and Googling. Therefore,we probably won't be going to the welcome meeting, we probably won't even be using the kids club as the hotel has a great entertainment team. The only time we will see a one is at the airport to tell us which bus we need for transfers.
So I do think in the future they will be a redundant breed.

Do you like my new avatar. It's all thanks to that wonderful woman, Sanji.

just trying to make people aware that they do do there best to give guests a good holiday,

It's nice to know that your Daughter is committed to her job for such low pay but sadly they don't all have the same attitude, the same with any job I guess.

Shell

At the end of the day we should all be peeved by this, the holiday makers AND the reps!
Because it's the tour operators that make ALL the money!
We holiday makers spend thousands each year and for that we hardly see any reps at all. Infact we really only remember the 'welcome' meeting and not much else so straight away we remember the reps as people who want to sell us trips and get commision!
Maybe if the holiday companies employed more reps we'd have a different view as we'd see them more often about the hotels!
I as a holiday maker see the rep at the welcome meeting and then never really again, it's no wonder people think bad of the reps. At the end of the day our holidays are two weeks each year and we'd all like them to run smoothly but if they don't the first thing we look for is a rep who's never there, which is really the companies fault and not the rep themselves!!!
Maybe it's time for the reps to strike if things are so bad!!! After all airports/porters/ etc threaten to strike all the tme!

Hi all

While I appreciate there are some good reps out there, we don't come into contact with them anymore due to owning time share we make our own travel plans. When we were in Jamaica some years ago the Rep we had then was a waste of time. During the welcome meeting he told us all under no circumstances should anyone leave the complex as it was dangerous to do so due to the poverty of the Jamaican people and the threat of mugging etc. Boy am I glad we did not listen to him. We (that is my husband, myself and our son who was 18 months old at the time, and another couple we made friends with) ventured out of the complex on various occassions and had a great time. The Jamaican people are so friendly and like anyone else if they are treated with respect then they will treat you with respect. We visited markets,where we met Jamaicans who after finding out where we were from told us they had relations who lived in the same area,restaurants where they would some how make a hole in the top of a coconut, place a straw in and give it to my son to drink the milk, and many other places off the complex without any threats whatsoever. My point is perhaps if reps experienced some places for themselves first hand instead of passing on to holiday makers what they have been told to tell them without any real knowledge of the place, they too could enjoy the benefits/cultures of the country. Our particular rep when invited out by us at the end of the holiday for a meal at a restaurant we had visited while off the complex many times actually turned round and said no because he was too scared to leave the complex because of the things he had heard, which was a shame for him.

Regards Jackie

Hi brit5alpha,
Glad your daughter is enjoying her job, but it would be interesting to know if she is still doing it this time next year!
In my experience as a holiday maker, reps we have talked to over the years have said they were packing in when the season was over. In fact the only ones who seem to return for another season are the kiddies reps. I've also found that wherever we have stayed, the reps stay in the same accomodation and use the facilities and restaurant. Tell her to get transfered to Benidorm and if she's lucky enough could be based at Flamingo Oasis, where all the reps seemed to be happy. Well who wouldn't be here!!!

We have been very lucky over the years because we have only ever had one bad rep. The rest have been helpful, friendly and have gone out of their way to answer questions about all sorts of things. when my son was taken into hospital one year, the rep got the rips refunded and the room changed.

I am a great supporter of reps and have always made a point of leaving them gifts as a thank you.

Hi all, I have been aboard for the last 4 years in a row and must add i come from Belfast. Holiday reps yes ....... are and can be very helpful untill you open your mouth. If there on 80 pence or not they have to realise people like me with a family are also intitled to the same service as the rest of their guests!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and may i also add sometimes we pay more for the same holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as the rest of their guests!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend who lives in Benidorm went for a job with Thomsons to be a Rep, she had to come back here for the interviews and when they offered her the job she had to come back again for the training, it cost her quite a bit of money, but she was happy to get the job, she said she could have done the job standing on her head, as she knows all there is to know about Benidorm, as she's lived there for 15 years. After 6 months of doing the job she handed in her notice, she said it was such hard work, with no sleep, all her time was sat on a coach backwards and forwards to the Airport with not enough time to see to the customers, only to sell them excursions, she left but they offered her a job as a Translater in their offices which she loves, but would never go back to being a Rep.
crystal xx

over the years i have adopted the same approach to all reps. i ask them as soon as i find them, before the welcome meeting starts, about the local buses ie when they run and how much etc.
there answer dictates whether i even bother with the welcome meeting.
went 1 year to halkidiki and the airtours rep said local buses were to be avoided as they were never on time were dirty and no one used them anyway.met a thompson rep in the hotel who showed us timetable and all other info and we spent 2 weks happily using great local buses.

Im sure the first posters daughter is very committed to her job and congratulations to her for putting her heart into it and please her customers.

But I have to say that not all reps are like her. In La Manga we were told downright lies by our Reps. They told us that the bank in town did a higher rate for exchange (it was pasetas then) than the reception, and told us always to get our money changed there.

Now I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes and saying "how could they have fallen for that one!!!" but we hadnt a lot of experience of travelling abroad at the time and actually trusted our rep (supposedly looking after our best interests!) to tell us the truth. At the end of the first week we went into the bank and realised that, counting it up, we had wasted over £80

The childrens rep was worse than useless. We paid for a weeks outings in advance for our three children (a lot of money at the time!) and most of them were cancelled at very short notice ........................and I KNOW that one was cancelled so the reps could have a night out because we ran into them in a restaurant later that night as they started off their party. Im convinced that as it was at the end of the season, they just didnt give a toss about us.

Unfortunately as we had a few bad experiences like this, we got sort of mistrustful of reps in general. Two out of the last 15 holidays were very good at their job and gave us excellent information and help....................and they were both locals, one Spanish and one Portugese.

We do DIY holidays as we are reluctant to pay for services we dont use.

Im sure that there are LOADS of good reps, but unfortunately our experience proved that the few bad ones gave the rest a bad name.

Thanks for all the replies good and bad
As my daughter does not work for Thomson i cant comment on there reps, i can only comment on the ones my daughter works with.
Yes there is good and bad reps just like in any walk of life, but i do know my daughter tries her hardest as well as the other reps to ensure there guests have everything they need, information about the area that guests are staying in, local transport etc etc, the rooms and meal plans they have paid for( even in 5 star hotel managers will sometimes try to put guests in rooms not suitable or of a lower standard that they have paid for) its the reps job to sort that out asap, if you have a happy guest you have a happy rep (makes there job just that bit easier) and hopefully the rep can then spend time with guests who need there services, sometimes guests dont want the services of the rep (unless things go wrong) and reps are happy to leave guests alone to do there own thing, so all in all the rep is there for you and if you dont need there services then thats ok

I don't believe that many Reps do much 'homework' on the Resort where they are based. As I have experienced some Reps in Benidorm who have given out totally misleading Information at the Welcome Meetings. By misleading, I mean incorrect directions to certain places, and incorrect information on Money Exchange to name just two things.

When my suitcase was mislaid at Alicante Airport on arrival last October, the young Rep, he could not have been anymore than about seventeen years old, and this was for a holiday booked with Thomsons Gold, he had no idea what to do about my loss. He was totally lost. He never even had a pen on him for me to make a note of his name. Anyway, following a lenghty claim with Thomsons with letters and emails being exchanged, Thomsons admitted that I had raised several very valid points and that several training issues needed to be addressed. Whether or not they have yet done so, I have no idea.

I agree there are some very hard working Holiday reps, but one has to question, taking into consideration an hourly payrate of .80p ( ), that whether or not some of these Reps are just there to soak up the sunshine and have a good time themselves. Cancelling a planned Kiddies Activity so that they can have a party of their own is an example.

Not only that, but do you not get the impression that once your are on your way back to the Airport they simply do not want to know anymore? There are no more oportunities to make anymore money out of you, so all they want to do is get rid of you to make way for the next arrivals and make more money.

On one occasion, we were bussed back to Alicante only to discover that our Flight was subject to several hours delay. It became obvious that the Reps were well aware of the delay, but opted not to tell anyone and instead we had to endure a packed departure lounge with no updates as to the reason for the delay, and all the Reps were prepared to do was to offer us a voucher for ONE sandwich and a bottle of water.

Holiday Reps are Ambasadors for the Tour Operators they are employed by but many of them fail to live up to this reputation. When a holiday maker knows more than the Rep does, what is the point of them being there?

I agree with Holiday Reps and I think they are an essentail part of a Package Deal, but now that they are in decline I fear their services will also decline at the same speed.

Holiday Reps are definately on the decline and I think will soon be a thing of the past, but while they are still part and parcel of a Package Holiday, I think they need more training.

We returned a couple of weeks ago from Turkey. The First Choice rep, who, incidentally we never saw and who did not invite us to a welcome meeting, posted a notice of our pick up time for 6 hours before our take off. The drive to the airport was just one and a half hours. We turned up on time and I asked her why so early. She lied through her teeth and said there are often long queues at the airport.
We arrived 2 hours before check in opened. There was nowhere to sit but the floor and only 2 shops selling overpriced snacks.
It turned out she had dropped our party then gone to a different resort to pick up more people for the same flight. First Choice only had to pay for one coach instead of two and this rep lied about it.
No wonder more people are doing DIY.

I interviewed for Thomson a few weeks ago and was basically told that I was too intelligent and had too much experience to be a holiday rep. To be honest though I had lost interest after they told us we would be making £250 before tax PER MONTH! I know that I would have got room and board and stuff but I would much rather that they paid me a decent wage and let me work out my accomodation myself.

I always make a point of getting to know the rep at the hotel - it makes the holiday so much better when you can talk to someone who lives in the area. In Lanzarote last year, our rep had been on the island for over a year but had never had the time to really explore the place in the same way that we would do, so I told her all about the excursions we had been on, the places we had visted (which were only a short-ish drive from the resort) and she appreciated having a 'happy customer' who would take the time to tell her so.
At one point during the holiday she had her hands full with a drunken guest who had been refused boarding on the plane home and had got a taxi back to the hotel, thinking he could just stroll back in and carry on drinking This guest hung around the hotel all day until he was eventually arrested, sobered up and put on the next available flight a couple of days later.
I always feel sorry for the reps when I see people shouting at them over something like a cockroach in the corridor, or the food not being 'English' enough - things like that are not the reps fault, it's just people can't be bothered dealing with the hotel management.
On the plus side, they get to spend several months in a beautiful country with a gorgeous climate and for many young reps it's a fantastic 'character-building' exercise which will look good on their CV if they plan to go into any PR career in the future.
The reps work so hard, such long hours with so little time for themselves - be nice to them, they deserve it!

Thank you cyberspacekadette yes they do work long hours with little time for themselves its nice to know they are appreciated once in a while

To be honest though I had lost interest after they told us we would be making £250 before tax PER MONTH! I know that I would have got room and board and stuff but I would much rather that they paid me a decent wage and let me work out my accomodation myself.

I agree with you even after you take off Tax and NI you have very little left to live on, also paying out for bus fares for getting around your hotels and telephone costs (usually for the company your working for, or on behalf of guests which you dont get back) at the end of the month your usually left with hardly anything

On one occasion, we were bussed back to Alicante only to discover that our Flight was subject to several hours delay. It became obvious that the Reps were well aware of the delay, but opted not to tell anyone

Generally the rep wont know of any delays till they arrive at the airport (they know what time your flight departs what time the next arrival flight is) Coaches are booked with these flight times in mind, when i was going to visit my daughter she asked me to let her know if the flight i was on (manchester to turkey) was delayed that way she would know the return flight would have a delay.as when they pick guests up they dont know if there will be any delays so cant pass on that information to guests they only find that out once they arrive at the airport and someone tells them what desks guests need to check in at and also if the flight is delayed, if a flight has been delayed arriving, the guests will have a delay as well as the rep who has to wait till the delayed flight arrives before taking new guests to resort

I always feel sorry for the reps when I see people shouting at t

The whole point of booking a package holiday is that it is all taken care off by one company - and a large part of that is having access to a Rep.

In my opinion if you are on a pachage with any TO and you have a problem with the hotel then it is up to the TO rep to sort that out for you - you shouldn't have to deal with the hotel management.

On the other hand its probabaly quicker and easier to sort it out yourself first rather than go to the rep straight away.

The unfortunate aspect of the job is that unless they are sorting out entertainment or on coach transfers, holding a welcome meeting you will only really contact your rep if you have a problem!