Holidaysplease agent Debbie Taylor has secured a booking worth more than £200,000 from a regular client for a group trip to Mauritius with Beachcomber Tours.
Taylor, who is based in Cotswolds, has been organising an annual trip for a local building company for the past 10 years and has now secured a booking for 90 people staying at Beachcomber’s Trou aux Biches resort in May 2023.
She told TTG that the business owner took his best clients away on a luxury trip every year and had chosen to go to Mauritius for next year’s trip.
Taylor, who has been with Holidaysplease for 15 years and also owns high street agency Stow Travel in Stow-on-the-Wold, said that the client has “massively upped” the budget from less than £1,000 to more than £2,500 per person for 2023.
“Every year when they are on the trip they start discussing next year,” she explained. “They were on the beach in the Maldives in May when they started messaging me about next year, so that’s when I started working on it.”
Taylor said she chose to approach Beachcomber when her clients said they wanted to go to Mauritius.
“If you’re doing Mauritius, they are the first port of call – I’ve done a fam trip with Beachcomber, so I’d seen the hotels and my clients have never had an issue staying with them,” she added.
“I recommended Trou aux Biches because it was the best fit – they wanted all-inclusive and I knew that Trou was just about to go all-inclusive. The client liked it straightaway.
“It’s been a joy using Beachcomber – they just take everything on and it’s been a lot easier than previous years.”
Taylor said she expected the total value of the Mauritius booking to eventually increase to between £230,000 and £240,000 as more of the party’s travellers upgrade their flights and rooms.
Things were not so easy during the Covid-19 pandemic with Taylor having to rebook the client’s original 2020 trip eight times before it eventually departed in June 2021
“We had to change the bookings so many times with different dates and destinations, which is a lot of work for that amount of people – it was a nightmare, but we got them away in 2021,” said Taylor.
“It’s an amazing booking and that will pay the rent for the year,” she added. “We’ve had a phenomenal year and it’s not easing off. Although people are more anxious and I find that on the whole clients are more demanding now.”
Sarah Archer, Beachcomber’s UK sales manager, added: “We worked together with Debbie to meet the clients’ expectations and fit in with his budget, and we’re delighted that these clients will be enjoying a week in the fabulous Trou Aux Biches Beachcomber Golf Resort & Spa next year. Teamwork makes the dreamwork in this case.”
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