01/01/2024
We wish all who have interacted with us already and anyone who is finding out about us today, a very happy 2024. May this year be one of happiness and peacefulness in all aspects of your lives.
Those of us involved in travel have had to deal with many tribulations and upsets over the last few years and current events in the world do not bode well for the kind of trouble free world we would surely like to see. But one has to be positive and, in our case surviving in a travel business for over 30 years has shown that we can survive. Even the closure of our long standing company NEI UK Ltd was viewed with stoicism and acceptance but that paved the way for us to concentrate on our latest venture which is starting a tour company specialising in tours of Wales, our home country. Ever since we were made aware of the dire extent of promotion of Wales as a destination in its own right and not as an adjunct to England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we realised that what we had been doing for so many years should be applied to promoting Wales. In the context of running a tour company, ‘Wales Beckons’ is still a relatively new company, but, looking after the interests and happiness of the traveller, is a universal dogma for we travel people and our experience in this area cannot be bettered, meaning we are elated to have found a new niche for our talents.
This is not to say though that we have given up on our previous existence as outbound tour operators. Over the years we have been privileged to get to know many like minded people from various parts of the world and we did not want to loose our ability to maintain our contacts with these great people and now have set up an outbound division within Wales Beckons. Thus, if any of our old clients, or indeed new ones, want to explore other parts of the world, we can arrange that for them. Yes, we no longer arrange flights, but in today's world that is not a big deal for most people and we will always advise on what flights will be required.
In our opinion, the role of a tour operator is now changing, or at least it is for us. Perhaps this is due to our long experience and contacts, especially in India which was where we first began our work in travel in 1993. We would never have anticipated in those far off days that we would be invited to speak on the subject of tourism at two of India's well respected universities. Likewise that we would be working on appointing agents in India and the US to promote Wales. And we now have an Indian Director. We are also very pleased to be in close talks with an exciting new project in India which is supporting a number of village women to improve on their skills in producing some excellent and fine embroidery work and finding markets for it in the UK. We have also been asked by Tamil Nadu Tourism to help them promote a new archaeological exploration in that state, which will seemingly be as important as those found at Mohenjodaro and the Indus Valley. Even here in Wales, we have been asked to address a local secondary school in Swansea on the subject of Sustainability.
Yes, these were unexpected but have happened. And all of this is immensely interesting for us and gratifying, but, tempus has done a bit of fugiting for us personally and we would welcome hearing from anyone who feels that working in this field would interest them. Despite everything going on in today's world, travel will still take place. With sustainable travel being very much to the fore, there will be challenges, but, for a satisfying and enjoyable way to earn a living, being 'in travel' would be hard to beat. Give us a call.
