Thursday 27 November 2008

Complete Cruise Solution attend Travel Counsellors 2008 Annual Conference in Marbella.....





Gill Smeal, Jo Cook and Caroline Moody from Complete Cruise Solution headed off to sunny Spain on Friday 21st November. After an early start (3am!) we arrived into Malaga along with 1200 others which included 800 Travel Counsellors, partners and other suppliers. On arrival at the top conference hotel the Gran Melia Don Pepe, we checked in and started making up 800 goody bags with flyers with all our Wave collateral and other goodies to give out at the Pow Wow!

At 8pm the Welcome Party started at Olivia Valere in Marbella, an amazing typically Andalusian venue opening its drawbridge to a magical world where our generous hosts from the Costa Del Sol showed us a little of what Spain has to offer with fantastic food, exciting entertainment and an amazing opening to Conference 2008!

After attending the welcome party we carried on with the CCS goody bags eventually finishing stuffing them at 1am! It was definitely time to get some rest....
The next day feeling somewhat refreshed after a good nights sleep, the main conference started at the Marbella Conference Centre including a welcome from David Speakman and our 8 minute CCS video which was shown to over 1000 people! WOW WOW WOW WOW.



The afternoon's main event was the Pow Wow where we had prime position at the front of the venue with a large stand and 800 bags to give out! This was a fantastic networking opportunity for us and we were delighted to see so many of our Travel Counsellors colleagues visiting us on our stand.




That evening was a free evening so we headed down to nearby Puerto Banus where all 1200 delegates had descended into Linekars bar as they were offering a discount for the conference, the evening turned into a typical travel Industry party and even Hugh Grant showed up! (need we say more!)

On Sunday the conference ended with a fantastic motivational speech from Annabelle Bond who climbed Mount Everest and then went onto scale all seven summits. That night we hosted 2 tables at the Gala dinner and awards where we were delighted that Caroline Howden who won the best Cruise Travel Counsellor 2008 was on our table - well done Caroline from all at CCS.
Finally on Monday after a busy but successful few days we bid a tearful farewell to our colleagues at Travel Counsellors as we headed back to Malaga airport for our return to the cold in the UK.

Thank you for a fantastic weekend Travel Counsellors - mucho gracias
We look forward to working with you in 2009.

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