The Dreammakers

They’re in the business of selling dreams and, more importantly, delivering them. After all, the Globus Family of Brands (GFOB) would not have soared and sailed to its 91st birthday, if it didn’t make the dreams they promised come true. Perhaps, not 100 percent of the time, but close.

For 91 years now, the Globus family of brands (Globus, Cosmos, Monograms and Avalon Waterways) has been providing a variety of holidays all over Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.

I discovered Globus through my parents Frank and Sonia Mayor. My late father Frank worked hard all his life and told his four daughters that after sending all of us to school, we were on our own and he was going to take Mom on a world tour. He kept his word. They took two Globus tours to Europe before he passed away and based on the photos of those holidays that are displayed in their house, I think Globus delivered on the dream.

Gai Tyrrell, GFOB managing director for Australasia, and Ray Smith, the group’s business development manager, breezed through Manila last week and I had the unique opportunity to sit down with them, along with Baron Travel president/CEO Marilen Sandejas-Yaptangco and SVP/COO Joy Abrogar.

Globus Family of Brands (GFOB) managing director for Australasia Gai Tyrrell.

Baron Travel, the general sales agent of GFOB in the Philippines, is now No. 1 in Asia as far as sales of the offerings of the Globus brands is concerned, a feat considering it used to play catch-up with South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia.

“I think the advantage is we’ve got a great product. And the company is 91 years old. So it’s got the heritage. It’s reliable, it’s safe. It is strong, and we have a good partnership with Baron Travel in the Philippines,” says Ray.

Gai, who worked with Qantas Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines before moving on to Globus, says she loves her job because of the fact that,  “You’re selling people dreams. They would come in with the money that they’ve saved up and you’re helping them to get what they want.” I couldn’t help but think of my father as I was listening to her.

Despite the plethora of options available online and DIY tours, Gai says Globus thrives because, “I still find that people want a travel agent to be responsible for the experience. They want to have someone to run to when their passports are lost or something’s gone wrong!”

She quips that joining an organized tour also “saves marriages.”

 “Imagine being lost in a car with your husband in a strange land and you don’t know who’s to blame?” Someone’s going to cry, “Divorce!”

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Ray says that at Globus, they do more than just give you first class hotels. “Yes, safety is important. One of the things we do is to check that every smoke alarm works. We just don’t put you in a hotel. Is the room okay? Is the food okay? Is there hot water? Where’s your fire extinguisher?”

On the road, they’ve studied the habits of passengers. “They don’t want to be going for more than two hours at a time. So you have to make sure there are stops for toilet breaks, snacks and to stretch their legs. All that is considered every day in the itinerary. But you don’t even think about it on your own because it just happens that someone had to think the plan for you. If you’re doing your DIY holiday or anything else you just don’t go into that detail. That detail is coming from 91 years of experience.”

“I’ve been talking to our top guides in Europe, and imagine planning a tour for 30, 40 years your life. These guides know things that you would never even think about.”

Despite the need to do brisk business, Gai says GFOB is “mindful of over tourism.” “We’re very, very mindful of over tourism and making sure that we invest in a lot of the villages that we go and visit. And we’re very conscious in Asia as well.”

Gai says the most favored destination right now is still Europe, and the peak season for travel is still the European summer months, June and July.

GFOB business development manager Ray Smith.

Ray’s tour of choice is the river cruise, and he has done seven of them (the Rhine and the Danube are his favorites) with GFOB’s Avalon. But if it is your first time to see Europe or any other continent, he recommends a motorcoach tour. “I did my first Cosmos tour in 1983. That was my first introduction to Europe, my first interaction to a coach, to an organized tour and I loved it. Because back then there was no internet, there were no mobile phones, your navigation was by a map. Everything was really hard. And having a tour guide that could show you things was invaluable. I have since done it many times. But to me, that was the introduction, I learned so much about what I did, and I did nine countries in nine days, which is pretty much what everyone does the first time. You cannot do that on your own. Because when the coach is moving, you go to sleep or you’re looking at the window, you relax. If you try to do that while driving, you would end up in a ditch somewhere.”

But after being on the road, so to speak, he now prefers the river cruise experience.

“Now that I’ve done the seven river cruises, the difference for me now on a river cruise is you unpack once and you just relax and you just turn off. You can still connect because you still got Wi-Fi on the ship, so you can still work or do whatever you need to do. But it means that the stress has just totally disappeared and you’re in a bubble. And I always explain river cruising is a boutique hotel that moves and you can be as active as you want or as inactive as you want. The choice is yours. You can’t do that on a coach, you’ve gotta get off each night and unpack,” Ray adds.

“One of the misnomers about river cruising is it’s boring. It’s not. It’s slow. Well, it can be, or it can be really fast. It’s up to you.”

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Whether you join a Globus motorcoach tour (Gai says their winter tours are gaining popularity because there are less tourists in favored destinations, therefore less or no queues to museums, palaces and other attractions) or a river cruise, the team of Gai and Ray and their Philippine partners Marilen and Joy believe they can’t go wrong in helping people dream their dreams with their eyes wide open.

“There’s nothing to market if there’s not a good product,” says Marilen.

“People are traveling more now because they can,” concludes Gai. “Travel used to be something for the wealthier. It’s become available for so many more now.”

Because everyone has a dream and there are people who can make the dream come true.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)