Front left: Sharon Wright, Lisa Leary, Kerrin Poupos, Nigel Rodighiero, Louise McCarthy, Rachel Fitze, Michelle Thomas and Aileen Collins at a local cafe on Maui
A group of personal travel managers recently experienced the best that Maui and Oahu have to offer on a recent six-night exclusive TravelManagers educational.
Nigel Rodighiero from Viva! Holidays and Rachel Fitze from Hawaiian Airways hosted Michelle Thomas, Louise McCarthy, Kerrin Poupos and Sharon Wright from New South Wales with Lisa Leary and Aileen Collins from Queensland.
The famil means that the PTMs can share personal travel experiences and product knowledge with their clients, said Aileen Collins, representative for Carrara in Queensland.
“The opportunity to self-drive and explore the islands, see how the locals live, visit the supermarket, shopping centres, read the local papers and go to a local event rather than follow the usual tourist trail was hugely appealing. Being immersed in the culture and understanding exactly what our clients would do, has been invaluable and I can now sell this destination with absolute confidence.”
Lisa Leary, representative for Cedar Creek in Queensland, was captivate by the views from Mt Haleakala, Maui’s highest peak at over 10,000 feet.
“It is a long and winding road and it took us about an hour and a half to reach the summit. But it was certainly well worth the effort to see the world’s largest dormant volcano. Gazing into the huge and colourful crater was incredibly awe-inspiring and the views out across Haleakala National Park and the island were breath taking.”
The ability to self-drive enabled the personal travel managers to explore the island and experience local restaurants and cafes.
Collins said the ABC Stores are a great multi-purpose convenience store.
“The ABC Stores have everything! They really are the best place to shop – fresh food to go and packaged food to bring home (the mango, banana and coconut pancake mixes are outstanding and make a great present), reasonably priced non-tacky souvenirs, pharmacy items, fabulous sarongs, sun dresses, sandals – and best of all, amazing low cost alcohol. You can get a good Australian wine for only US$12 a bottle – no need to bring duty-free from Australia.”
Leary said she is a fan of both the destination and Hawaiian Airways.
“Hawaii is such a fabulous destination and I highly recommend your stay include one of the outer islands as it’s quite a different feel to Waikiki, which really is quite busy. With regular Hawaiian Airlines flights now out of Brisbane, not only does it provide direct flights to Hawaii, the airline provides a great alternative routing to many USA destinations without having to stopover in Los Angeles. I recommend and use their services a lot.”
TravelManagers executive general manager Michael Gazal said the company’s business relationships with key airline, cruise and wholesale suppliers allows personal travel managers to experience exclusive educationals, to a variety of worldwide destinations.
“Supplier relationships have been built over many years and support of our preferred products is absolutely key to our business model. The ability for our personal travel managers to experience dedicated famils is a large part of this support,” said Gazal.
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