I've found the smaller companies employ reps who live in the country you are visiting and this means they are very helpful with everything you might need to know. Smaller accommodation also means that your hotel staff are more than willing to tell you everyting you might need to know, and if they don't know they'll find someone who does.

Spot on!

if you are new to the idea of going abroad on holiday, it can be very disconcerting to arrive in a strange country, not knowing about the buses/trains, best place to change money,shows to go to,where the beach is etc.

Jim, although I do agree with you in principle, thats all very well if the Rep DOES give you the best place to change money etc...........see my post above...............we actually found out that the Reps were getting perks and backhanders from the hotel if they told clients to change the money at reception, and they told us it was a higher rate than the local bank, which was a downright lie.

We also had an experience on the same holiday where we were given a fake banknote (large denomination too!) and when we told the reps about it so they so they could warn others, they said "Oh yes thats a well known trick in this area"...........WELL WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US ABOUT IT THEN!

In our experience the hotels reception and management staff were more than able to deal with any problems we had, in one case a lovely receptionist wrote out a report in Spanish to take to the police station when my daughters boyfriend had money stolen.............the rep didnt show up at her designated time.

Ive definately found that the smaller companies who use "local" reps provide a much higher and efficient level of service.

When we go on our annual holiday (mainly to the Caribbean) the holiday reps are locally sourced so to speak and are a wealth of information when needed.

Having been on a holiday in Tunesia last year where the rep was from the UK, we unfortunately did not have that experience. All the rep was interested in was to sell excursions. When we had a slight problem with the room, the rep was basically not interested and we had to sort the problem out with the hotel receptionist ourselves.

Mark

And how many reps these days can speak the local language, at least enough to be able to deal with police, doctors etc on your behalf? Not many in my experience - especially with the big tour operators. It does seem to be the case that they are employed mostly for their potential to sell excursions.

"i think that reps should be available, but think that after the introductory talk they are only needed to resolve problems, or sell excursions,so a noticeboard/reps book with a phone number that they would actually answer would serve almost all holidaymakers adequately. "

Excellent idea jimd-f

Elaine

Elaine would have to agree with you ............. money talks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Guys,

Ive been looking at this forum for a while now but after reading these comments i think its time for my first post.

Well ive read everyones comments on holiday reps and everyone is entitled to their opinion so heres mine:

I was a holiday rep for 5 and half to 6 years.

After reading some of the comments on here i am disgusted at some of the replies. This was posted by a caring mum who probably went on holiday to visit her daughter and came home worried sick after seeing the way that her daughter was treated.

Now sanji and benidormhereicome i am not dismissing what you have said but try to put yourself in the other persons shoes and see it from their eyes. The way some reps are treated is worse than animals....believe me i know.

During my time as a rep i was physicaly assaulted, threatened, verbally abused and threatened with a knife all by british tourists. Add to this the local bucket shop telling me thay were going to break my legs for selling trips, mugged and robbed due to carrying large amounts of excursion money.
All of this for a measly wage.
Yes i could of gone home and given up. Returned to my family as a quitter but to do that i would of had to pay for my own flight home, my excess luggage, lost any monies owed to myself and would of had to come back and find a job in a high unemployment area. Adding to that could you imagine how my cv would look if after one month it showed me quitting a job?

Also did you know that 70% of reps quit in their first month? ever wonder why?

Sanji you claim that reps get backhanders!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats a instant dismissal offence, even reps arent stupid enough to do that. Not only does it not happen but if you were offered anything you would be too scared to take it as the person offering it too you could be your bosses neighbour, friend or even the local agencies employer. Believe me ive seen it done.

Yes reps do offer trips for sale to guests and some can be pushy with them ( i have to admit that i was top salesperson in every resort i worked but i was from a sales and entertainment background and never pushed a trip, to this day i am still in touch with guests who will say i was the least pushy rep they have ever met. ) but wouldnt you be if you were threatened daily with being sent home or moved resorts away from your friends?

You are targeted for every arrival to resort and expected to sell a certain amount to meet target, when working for thomsons if you didnt hit target you got no commision no matter how much you had sold! for instance someone may have 1000 arrivals at a sales per head of
25 euros bringing in just under target of 20,000 euros and get nothing!
Would you be pushy in this situation?

Sanji i also see in your other threads that you have had a problem with no reps on the coach in benidorm. Yes it is true that people have declared on csqs that they no longer require a repbut look at the problem you had on a little coach journey from the airportbecause the driver didnt speak perfect english... bit hypocritical to complain about this then declare that you no longer need a rep!!!!!!!

Im guessing that your going to point out that i did the job for a long time yes i did but the job is not just about the money its also the lifestyle and i left when i realised i had no life doing the job.

It very much depends on the company that you work for and the managment in resort as to how you are treated.

But i will guarentee this:

In a few years every company will go back to having resort reps!!!!

Why?

Because after a few years of paying compansation for complaints they will decide that it is cheaper to employ reps to cut out some complaints.

Remember though ask yourself this you may not need a rep every day of your holiday but as soon as somthing major goes wrong like a death, earthquake, flooding, major illness etc who will the first person be that you turn too for help?

laticsontour I think most people have said in their posts that as with anything you do get good reps but you also get the bad Good for you sticking with the job for so long but I have to say if I was threatened with a knife, or physically assaulted and threatened to have my legs broken, I'd have been on the next flight home, I would'nt care less if I was seen as a quitter or could'nt find employment for a while but then thats' me, I can't understand anyone sticking to it for as long as you did if it really was that bad

Remember though ask yourself this you may not need a rep every day of your holiday but as soon as somthing major goes wrong like a death, earthquake, flooding, major illness etc who will the first person be that you turn too for help?

Well people must be able to manage with them, look how many do DIY holidays now because package holidays can be so ridiculously priced

laticsontour wrote:

Remember though ask yourself this you may not need a rep every day of your holiday but as soon as somthing major goes wrong like a death, earthquake, flooding, major illness etc who will the first person be that you turn too for help?

That would depend on the Rep assigned to my Hotel. As I have stated in some of my posts, I know more than what the Rep does. I have clearly stated that I am all in favour of Holiday Reps because they can help you deal with situations that in a foreign country you may not be able to deal with yourself as you would in your own country. But when Tour Operators are employing 'kids' just out of school who have clearly taken the job on for the "lifestyle" they believe it will offer them and not for any other reason then we have a problem.

On my holiday, last but one, that would have been this time last year, the Thomson Rep assigned to my Hotel who was also the Rep on duty at the Airport to meet us had absolutely no idea what to do when I told him my suitcase had been mislaid. He never even had a pen to record my details. I don't think he could have been a day over 18 years old, and I was on a Thomson Gold Holiday with my parents. That simply cannot be correct. I would have expected a more mature Rep to be assigned to deal with Senior Citizens. One would think we had arrived on an 18 to 30 deal!!.

At the Wecome Meeting which we always usually attend, although I have no idea why to be honest, his 'local' knowledge of Benidorm was almost non existent. He had to read from 'cue cards' and kept stumbling over his words. Ok, I appreciate some people can be nervous speaking in front of a large group of people, but if you do not have what it takes to do that you should not be doing the job in the first place. He gave out several misleading bits of information and his sense of direction when explaining how to get to the beach from the Venus Hotel, well heaven help those who followed his directions thats all I can say.

Another Rep on a later Holiday advised us not to buy food at the Food Outlets in the Terra Mittica Theme Park in Benidorm because they were "expensive" and that we would be best taking out "own food"....so this we did, spending something like £80 on food for our party of eight people. However, on arrival at the Theme Park our food was confiscated because it is forbidden to take your own food into the Park. Needless to say our food was wasted as it went off in the hot lockers and was totally unedible, so £80 was wasted as a DIRECT result of being given FALSE information by our Rep. I would have though that the Reps would have known this and advised accordingly. Do Reps not do any 'homework' on the Resort they are assigned to?

I also asked this same Rep about booking Car Hire and she simply never got back to me despite approaching her on several occasions.
And as for the Reps who clearly new about the lengthy delay at the Airport on out return, but failed to notify us and failed to keep us updated, well I was disgusted with them.

laticsontour wrote:

Also did you know that 70% of reps quit in their first month? ever wonder why?

Could that be because they wanted the lifestyle they thought the job would offer, but could not 'hack' the long hours? Repping is not a 'glamourous' job far from it, but then surely they would have been aware of this when they applied? Several years ago I attended a recruitment selection day to be a Virgin Holiday Rep, but after completing the full day, and listening to what I would be offered in return, I made my own mind up there and then that being a Holiday Rep was not for me. I was offered the job but declined to accept.

laticsontour wrote:

Now ***** and BenidormHereIcome, I am not dismissing what you have said but try to put yourself in the other persons shoes and see it from their eyes.

I appreciate what you are saying, but as a Rep yourself, or an ex-Rep, you need to try and put yourself in the posistion of the Holidaymaker yourself, forget you used to be a Rep, and flip the coin over to the other side. If we are assigned a Rep who knows less about the Resort than you do, is almost non existent is their presence....you very rarely see a Rep these days, especially in Benidorm, and who clearly by their attitude do not care about the Clients in their 'care', unless they are making money from them, well then you can see why some of us are frustrated by Holiday Reps, and why many people now opt to DIY. They simply don't want Reps anymore. Customer Satisfaction Survey Questionaires will back up this.

laticsontour wrote:

But I will guarentee this: In a few years every company will go back to having resort reps!!!!

I'm sorry, but I simply cannot agree with you. The rise in popularity of the DIY Holiday, which is only going to become even more popular, will in itself be enough to put Holiday Reps out of business eventually. Tour Operators MIGHT employ a small handful of 'Local' Reps for dealing with certain 'serious' problems where a Language Barrier might be a problem, but there is no way the Holiday Rep will be back in the numbers like they used to. A mature Thomson Rep I spoke to very recentley confirmed that. She said Thomsons were "gradually phasing out" their Reps as they are simply not wanted by their Clients. She said very few people, even first timers, attend Welcome Meetings and no one books excursions with them anymore because they are well aware that 'trips' can be booked MUCH cheaper at local travel agencies in resort. So Thomsons intend to cut back on expenses by cutting back on Reps.

Shell wrote:

Good for you sticking with the job for so long but I have to say if I was threatened with a knife, or physically assaulted and threatened to have my legs broken, I'd have been on the next flight home, I would'nt care less if I was seen as a quitter or could'nt find employment for a while but then thats' me

I totally agree with you. There is no way I would stay in a job that paid .80pence an hour only to be physically assaulted. Verbally abused, maybe, I could live with that and one would expect that Reps are trained to deal with verbal abuse, but not physical abuse....for .80p per hour its simply not worth it. And I would not regard the fact that I was concerned for my own personal safety as being a "quitter".

laticsontour wrote:

it is cheaper to employ reps to cut out some complaints.

But what about complaints against Reps themselves? I've read numerous stories, not just on HT but on other similar sites where holidaymakers have had just cause to complain about Holiday Reps.

laticsontour wrote:

Sanji you claim that reps get backhanders!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forgive me, but where exactley did sanji say that please? I have read and re-read this thread and Sanji's posts but I cannot see anywhere where you claim that she stated Reps get "backhanders". Have I missed that bit somewhere? Can you provide a quote from Sanji's post where it is alledged she made that statement please. I'm not saying she did not, but I cannot find where she as susposedly said that, and its nice to be able to follow a thread properly.

Do not misunderstand me, I am all in favour of Holiday Reps, but I think the whole Rep 'program' needs a radical overhall.

Shall we all just have a scrap?
A good ol' fashioned tear up? lol

Winner gets a Holiday Truths style WBA Belt!

Thanks to the internet we now have a wealth of information at our hands and even those who don't book a holiday DIY have probably acquainted themselves far more with where they are going than they used to do. Most people who are on first time holidays I suspect will find out more information from fellow hotel guests than having to wait for the rep time to be there to ask them.

When something very serious happens it very much depends on an individual rep as to how much help they will be, your insurance company will provide assistance over the telephone and I am sure that goes for hotel management and reception also. I do know reps who go well out of their way but they are the mature ones who know their jobs and their areas inside out and will even go against company policy if they think it's PC nonsense (for instance I'm trying to find out information about my brother who was in intensive care last year and was told by the reps at his resort that they couldn't tell me diddly squat because of the blinking privacy wotsits), so even though there were reps there his insurance company did all the work, and I went direct to the hospital for my info. Get this, the reps weren't even allowed to give my non driving sister in law a lift to the hospital because of 'insurance'! Now what good is that? In other areas they were but it was end of season and they did this on a personal level - if they'd gone through company policy they would have been of little help.

I'm going to make this post with my Moderators hat off:

You are targeted for every arrival to resort and expected to sell a certain amount to meet target, when working for thomsons if you didnt hit target you got no commision no matter how much you had sold! for instance someone may have 1000 arrivals at a sales per head of
25 euros bringing in just under target of 20,000 euros and get nothing!
Would you be pushy in this situation?

I think this paragraph for me sums it up.

Perhaps if the priorities where changed and provide customer service rather than being a sales representative for the Company, the perception of a holiday rep will change.

Mark

Mark HT Mod wrote:

Perhaps if the priorities where changed and provide customer service rather than being a sales representative for the Company, the perception of a holiday rep will change.

I could not have summed it up and put it any better myself Mark. Well said.

As I understand it the employment is paid from the UK but place of employment is elsewhere - A deduction is made for accomodation.

As I understand it National Minimum Wage applies in such cases. A deduction may be made to cover accomodation but that must comply with the figures laid down by law.

I would suggest contacting the Dept of Employment or whatever they call themselves these days. It does no harm in checking that what is being paid is in line with the regulations.

What do I think of reps? Most I have met I would not employ. They have not been a good advertisment for the TOs that employ them.

What do I want from them? Information on the area in which I am staying with reliable contact details in case of emergency - I do not want a Timeshare presentation as I had from Thomas Cook a few years ago.

After the info on the area then you can try and sell me a trip. I am on holiday I do not expect to spend several hours of that listening to a load of blurb about how all the local tours as a rip off, the only good trips are the ones the rep is selling at a vastly inflated price.

If I have a problem then if I cannot resolve it then I expect the rep to sort it. Only paid 80p an hour? That is not my problem, in the cost of my holiday I have paid for the service of the rep - your rate of pay is between you and your employer.

As a parent myself I can understand the concern expressed but my writing to a TO to complain will not change things.

On the holiday I have just had the rep opened the meeting by asking if anyone had any problems - those were addressed before anything else. We then got the local information. The rep then told us about what trips were available - Only one of which was more expensive than those being offerred down the road. The welcome pack contained an office and mobile number for contact. That is how it should be.

fwh

Sanji you claim that reps get backhanders!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you`ll find that I did no such thing, would you like to point out where exactly.?.....and I take great offence at you referring that I did....and singling me out.

Sanji i also see in your other threads that you have had a problem with no reps on the coach in benidorm. Yes it is true that people have declared on csqs that they no longer require a repbut look at the problem you had on a little coach journey from the airportbecause the driver didnt speak perfect english... bit hypocritical to complain about this then declare that you no longer need a rep!!!!!!!

I wasn`t being hypocritical, I said that I personally didn`t need a rep and I was referring to Spain, because I can speak the language, but 50 odd people on the bus could not and this caused problems when the Spanish driver announced the hotels.

Get your facts right dear.!

Sanji.

Sanji wrote:

I think you`ll find that I did no such thing, would you like to point out where exactly.?

Sanji, that is what I said as well.

BHIC wrote:

Forgive me, but where exactley did Sanji say that please?

I can find no where on this thread, or indeed on any other 'related' thread where you are alledged to have made such a remark. I knew I had not missed something.

laticsontour wrote:

BenidormHereIcCome, I am not dismissing what you have said

I have said a fair bit on this thread, to which parts are you referring to that you are "not dismissing"

I'm sorry everyone, but I'm not going to let this drop.
It has never even crossed my mind that reps would take back handers, never mind imply that they did/do in writing on this forum"¦or anywhere else for that matter.

What I said in April, in the Costa Blanca forum from Benidorm was the following after just experiencing the chaos on the coach.

Then we get transferred without a Thomson rep on the bus and it was unbelievable....the driver is saying the Venus, but in Spanish it sounds like Banoos, and nobody is moving to get off....the same with the Presidente & Pueblo.
Thomson you really must look at your procedures

laticsontour...I don't know who you are, but be very careful in future when you accuse me of something that I have not said...words that are libellous.

Sanji

Sanji, I believe this is what you actually said:-

Sanji wrote:

Plus I believe reps get ......

Free flights to and from the resort.

Depending on company free accomodation and meals based on Half board

Subsidised private medical insurance

Paid holidays of up to 4 weeks

Excellent holiday discounts.

By the way, there appears to be a similar thread running with some posts related to Holiday Reps HERE

But I still can't see anything on this thread, or on that thread about "back-handers"

c'mon lets have a little of the wax on wax off!!!

HT Admin can confirm that there is absolutely no evidence to support those accusations made by Laticsontour, and would ask that they are retracted at the earliest opportunity.

Kath HT Admin

Just come back from Bulgaria, and we had a fantastic rep called Paul who was really helpfull even when I'd had no sleep (and was REALLY grumpy!) and filed a bitchy complaint about the noise levels outside the hotel...

We ended down the pub together for the last England match and were shouting and jumping together. I'd love to be cynical about the reps, but he really knew his stuff, put up with grumpy passengers (we'd had a really crappy delay the night before the meeting resulting in us arriving at 3am instead of 11pm) with really good grace, and was basically a really nice guy.
Respect to the Thomas Cook reps, they did really well by us.
Maz