Custom Travel To France

Yesterday, my wonderful clients Patrick Mason and Rebecca Kurland wrote to my request a testimonial reflecting the last trip that we arranged for them. Here is their original text:

“My wife and I have used the services of Bella Terra travel on two occasions. The first was in 2006 when we spent three weeks if France, two of them touring by car. Celia Coene of Bella Terra travel arranged for our hotels in Annecy, Avignon and Lyon. In Annecy we stayed at the Hotel L’Abbaye, a lovely, comfortable inn near Annecy-le-Vieux. In Avignon, we were booked into a very welcoming and beautiful B&B called the Bastide des Papes. Very accommodating staff and Millie the resident dog was a nice substitute for our dog. In Lyon, we were booked into the Grand Hotel des Terreaux which is modern, comfortable and very well located. Both our hotels in Annecy and Avignon were unique and had a personality of their own.

Recently we revisited Annecy and Lyon. This time as we didn’t have a car, Celia booked us into the Hotel Allobroges in the center of Annecy. Again a comfortable hotel, well-staffed and ideally located. In Lyon, due to the world rugby championships, we were forced to book a hotel we would not otherwise have chosen. After our first night, I left a message for Celia (this was a Sunday morning in the United States) and asked if she could do anything to get us either a better room or a different hotel. Given that it was the weekend, I didn’t expect to hear from Celia until Monday at the earliest. To my surprise, Celia called me around 7 p.m. local time, told me that she had arranged a room at the Grand Hotel des Terreaux, and could she send a cab to pick us up? We were stunned to say the least. In addition to the good choices she’d made for us in 2006 and 2007, Celia had the resources and a dedication to customer service so as to get us out of an unpleasant situation.

One other example of Celia’s attention to detail and customer service: While we were working out the arrangements for our 2007 trip, I mentioned to Celia that we would be celebrating our wedding anniversary in Annecy and could she recommend a good restaurant (she provided us with a list of several good restaurants). The day of our anniversary, Celia had made arrangements with our hotel to buy us an aperitif before our dinner. A lovely, unexpected touch on her part, but indicative of how she conducts her business.

We will, no doubt, use Bella Terra travel in the future and would recommend them to our friends.

Celia Coene

Well it has been quite a journey so far ever since we started our company, BellaTerra Travel. It all started in 2003, when my good friend John Holding and I had this idea of conducting tours in France. John had had this passion about traveling forever and had already traveled extensively throughout the globe. He also knew some people who had a tour operator conducting wine tours in France. As for me, I have a French degree in tourism (the equivalent of an Associates Degree) and have always been in the travel industry since I graduated. So we started playing with the idea and naturally things fell into place. We were very enthusiastic about our project and had a ton of ideas. After setting up the company, we both went to France to explore deeper the regions of France that we already knew and made lots of relationships with providers and charming places to stay. Back home, we printed posters and advertised here and there with our modest budget. The problem was: despite our great intentions, we were not known at all, and we could only set up 2 trips per year without quitting our full time jobs, which made it difficult. For months, nobody signed up. Then came the departure date, and our enthusiasm had taken a toll. Nonetheless discouraged, we gathered our hopes again and planned a new trip. We started giving conferences about the French Alps all over the Bay Area. Our presentations actually attracted a lot of people and despite talking to full rooms of very interested folks, still nobody signed up. However, after each conference, we had many inquiries regarding custom trips to France. Could we arrange custom travel just for a couple? Could we organize excursions, accommodations and car rentals? We were not prepared, but after all being French and in the travel industry, why couldn’t I do it? Suddenly, it was all making sense.

That’s when we decided to follow the trend and therefore modify our scheme. We took requests for custom tours and started building our products from there. We knew very well that the market had a low level of competition: the French Alps for example are hard to find amongst tour operators. A few will offer some ski options, but never any cultural experiences even though the region has so much to offer such as medieval castles, spectacular lakes and mountains and adorable chalets. As for Provence and Paris, even though they are more popular destinations, none of the big tour operators offer the level of personal service and customization. We already had the places picked out as well as the providers, we needed someone to help us with marketing and developing the website. John’s wife, Beth, was the perfect match for the marketing job. She had tons of experience in sales and was a big executive in a software company. My husband Laurent, being a wiz in computers and softwares naturally took the job of crafting our website. Both of them became members of BellaTerra Travel. John having been the CEO and CFO of a big company employing over 1,800 people, doing our accounting and taking care of the paperwork was a walk in the park for him. As for me, I became the Chief Operating Officer in charge of setting up the products and making reservations. With our team completed, we headed into the new path of building custom trips to Paris, the French Alps and Provence.

Life has been really good since then. Slowly, our database of customers started growing until I was able to leave my full time job at a local travel agency and dedicate myself to BellaTerra.

Having so much more time on my hands enabled me to work on the products, provide a high level of customer service, and grow the business with the precious help of my colleagues.

I am getting ready to leave to the South West of France in 2 days. The trip is sponsored by the French Ministry of Tourism to help promote the destination. When I get back, I will have plenty of insights on the region and we will offer exciting new packages and activities in that beautiful area.

Celia Coene

Last week my husband Laurent and I came back from THETRADESHOW. It is a huge travel retailing and destination expo that takes place each year either in Las Vegas or Orlando. This year was Vegas. Not only did we have fun in the city of evil, but we also learned a ton of things and met some cool people.

The trade show was over 3 days and each day had a theme: the first one was about Cruise/Luxury/Destination. We weren’t too interested in that since at BellaTerra we focus on custom trips to France that range mostly from budget to mid-range. The main trade show though was hosting hundreds of providers of all sorts so we spent most of the time going from stand to stand and learning about industry trends and new products.

The second day’s theme was Home-Based Appreciation Day and Business Building. Since we work from our home office, we attended quite a few seminars that day that turned out to be a great source of advice. The seminars were geared especially towards travel agents who were just starting a business, but we gained a lot of confidence as we realized that we were doing a lot of things right in building our business and our brand and in dealing with customer service. Even when you feel that you are going in the right direction in your business, it is always good to hear it from someone else.

The third day was about Business Travel and Technology. It was quite interesting. That’s actually where I got motivated to start this blog. For all of you travel agents who weren’t lucky enough to attend this great event, here is a good CRM custom-made for the travel industry: OpenTravelCRM. A bunch of geeky very nice guys built it from scratch and THETRADESHOW was their first time presenting it to the public. It is completely free and has a lot of useful features such as FIT building and commission tracking. It is still a little bit shaky but I think that if you give them some time it will become a wonderful tool. It works for travel agents as well as for tour operators like us.

After much learning, we were rewarded each night by some great events organized by the committee. We got to try out the brand new hip-and-happening club called LAX at the Luxor. Entrance and drinks were free for us young professionals under 40, who all danced our troubles away on techno music in a gothic/chic decor of chandeliers and red drapes. The last night was the best for me personally: THETRADESHOW had provided me with a ticket to see the Blue Man Group. I have always been a big fan ever since I saw it a few years ago and seeing it again was just exhilarating, despite the fact that my husband had a ticket to another show.

We had a really good time and came back with many new ideas for our business. We will share them with our colleagues and try our best to continue running a successful business. Not only do I love planning custom trips to France for our clients and travel agents, but I also love that we are always so spoiled in the travel industry!

Celia Coene

Howdy all. My name is Celia, I am French and I co-own a tour operator called BellaTerra Travel. In a few words, we sell custom trips to France to individuals and travel agents. I love my job, and as a bonus, I get to work from home. Everything is so cool about it: I talk to people who are in a great place in their life: they are happy and excited about planning a trip. Giving advice that people appreciate is a great feeling.

Who said that travel agents were on the verge of extinction? More and more, I find that people are thirsty for personalized service. Yes it’s true, Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz have their advantages: they are practical, easy to use and only charge between $5 and $10 service fee. They are so big that they manage to get unbeatable deals on all sorts of travel arrangements. But those who have ever had to change a flight or hotel while away from home will know the value of having a good travel agent. Yes, you might pay a few more bucks for the service. But when you will be stuck at the train station because you missed your train, guess who is there for you to sort it out? Yes! YOUR very own travel agent. Money well spent.

When people call me to arrange a trip to France, they often mention how nice it is to be able to talk to a human who actually listens and gives advice. I find that those travellers are not necessarily looking for the best deal around. They often are limited to a budget, but that doesn’t mean that they travel to save money, but rather to have a good time and they want to make sure that everything goes smoothly. They want personalized service, they want to know the places I liked and the off-the-beaten path adventures. They want good service, friendliness, and advice, even for a few more bucks. And that is why I enjoy it so much.

So Expedia, beware of travel agents. They offer what you will never be able to offer: human contact!

Celia Coene