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Friday, June 16, 2006In my Wider World of Work...At School post all about the hands-on Cooperative Education (COOP) program I've been taking since February I mentioned all the amazing activities and awesome perks that you are given as a COOP student. Despite alternative learning programs being sensational there is still a paper component to all the programs. The world runs on paper, we must admit it. However paper in the world of alternative learning is far different than it's classroom cousin. In COOP as it was with The Bronte Creek Project there are reflection pages on the back of the log sheets documenting in dot jot the work and new learnings of that day. I do my best to keep these interesting and inspiring and have collected a group of them over the past few months. They look at different highlights and pitfalls of the hospitality & travel industry that I have learned at my major hotel chain over the course of the past 5 months. Often people are led to believe that this industry is all glamour and exoctic locations, while some of this remains it's far from the truth. This marks the first in a continuig series of 8 posts! Enjoy and please do leave your comments. Thanks!   Stress is a very important aspect of the hospitality and travel industry that I have been learning to address in different ways at the placement. This industry is incredibly fast paced and requires you to be able to focus and continue with your work while having 10 other things coming at you all at once. Many different jobs whether you be a front desk agent in a hotel, a hostess in a resort or a flight attendant on an airplane all these positions require stress of you. Front desk agents often have 5 people in line checking in or coming to the desk with questions or complaints, two people on the line with reservations and someone else who wants to know if you have weekend rates. If you're on an airplane you take off from Toronto bound for Lisbon, Portugal at midnight local time. Despite the fact that your body is telling you it's time to be wrapped in blankets in bed you need to keep going. After all before the plane touches down on Portuguese soil you have a safety demo, a dinner service, 3 beverage services and 2 snack services to complete. You must also collect the trash from 100 people, help to clean the galley, handle a myriad of requests and sometimes deal with minor or serious air rage, medical or safety issues. You have 6 hours to complete all this work, while encountering countless upset figures that are often tired, stressed and overworked.  Throughout all this madness on land or at 39,000 feet you need to maintain composure, politeness all the while following the rules and keeping a respectable image for your hotel or airline. You need to ensure that you address all the issues and do all your duties correctly while maintaining your focus and doing things correctly. You can't enter a rate that's off by $60 and you can't arm an airplane door wrong or the cabin may decompress. Though you need to ensure that you are also keeping everyone happy at the same time and addressing everything. The work in the industry really needs skilled workers who are able to balance all these juggling balls of countless colours, sizes and shapes. Some duties and problems are simple especially after you have done them for a longtime they become a job that can be done in your sleep. While guests and passengers regardless of your skill will come up and grab you unknowingly with something that you've never seen before. There are situations that arise that you have never seen before and most likely may never see again. Regardless of that point it's essential that you maintain an even keel during that very moment of madness. Mere months following September 11 th in December 2001 onboard American Airlines flight 63 from Paris- Miami the unbelievable happened. Flight attendants Cristina Jones and Hermis Moutardier had a man on the busy Christmas flight of 185 passengers who denied dinner. This is common but this man looked like he may be up to something. Two hours into the flight the attendants had just completed the dinner service, Jones was in the back galley cleaning up and Moutardier was picking up dirty meal trays. Passengers throughout the plane started reporting smelling smoke in the cabin.  A Canadian flight attendant doing a safety demonstration  A Air Transat flight attendant keeping the kids happy Moutardier found the man and Richard Reid a middle-aged man was in the window seat lighting matches. Moutardier gave him a strong warning that smoking was not allowed on board. Moutardier ran back to Jones who was still in the galley and screamed at her to come to this man. The man now had his shoes between his legs with electrical wiring hanging out of them. He had another match lit and was trying to light him. Moutardier continued to try to tell the man to stop and tried to grab the matches from him. He went ahead and bit her arm, crunching upon her arm in his teeth. Jones got passengers to pass bottles of Evian up and poured it all over him. They put the restraint on him and put a seatbelt extension on him holding him in. The attendants got passengers to pass up seatbelts, headphones and other cords that they used to fasten Reid in even further. They safely stowed his shoes in the bomb disposal compartment and called a doctor to come forward. The doctor injected him with Valium, a sedating medication the attendants got from the flight kit. The plane was rerouted to Boston and Reid was cut out of the seat by the FBI and air marshals. He was arrested and a major investigation done and sentenced to a 110 year jail term. This an extreme example however it does show you in any part of the hospitality & travel industry that you need to stay on your toes and maintain composure, professionalism and focus. It's part of the often-insane world that is this line of work.  A busy front desk at a resort in California, USA  A Northwest flight attendant doing beverage service Teague Neal blogged on 8:28 PM
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Thursday, June 15, 2006 Recently I posted about how you can immerse yourself in your international and domestic travel even further with home exchanges. Home exchanges are a truly unrivaled way to travel. My post on my blog here went over the demographics of home exchanges, how someone in Paris can swap houses with someone in Toronto, Canada and mentioned home exchange companies including Home Base Holidays. Canadian Lois Sealey now lives in London, England and has been running this prosperous home exchange website and company since 1985 in over 30 countries across the world. There are agents who are able to help you more locally in Canada, Australia, South Africa, France, Ireland and Malta as well as listed on her website in the About Us section of the site. I do hope to continue to do promotional activities for her company and meet her in London in the near future. Check out the article on the Home Base Holidays Blog Lois wrote about me. I do hope to continue in the travel industry and continue to immerse myself in the globe and the industry. Thanks very much Home Base Holidays, all the best Lois! 
Teague Neal blogged on 9:01 PM
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Thursday, June 01, 2006Taking travel that's two steps further that gives you the ability to live like a local is an in depth experience globe trotters from around the world have shared. Instead of staying in commercial hotels, lodges or bed and breakfasts there is a groundbreaking accomodation program sure to bring your family vivid memories for life. House exhanges began back in the late 1970's and have since greatly increased in popularity since then. The advent and advancement of the Internet has brought the world as one and streamlined the process. House exchanges comprimise a simple you live in my house while I live in yours concept. Someone say in Toronto, Canada wants to spend 3 weeks in and around Paris, Amsterdam of Rome in July. They take pictures of what their Toronto home looks like including an exterior shot of both the front and back and other highlights of the house such as a ping pong table or in-ground outdoor pool. They also write up a basic run down of the house and property that could look like this:  A seaside home on exchange in Melbourne, Australia with Home Base Holidays - 5 bedrooms + basement suite - 4 bathrooms - kitchen + breakfast room - ping pong room - two televisions - computer with high speed Internet - large back deck with patio furniture - central air conditioning  A stunning Scottish manor on exchange with Home Base Holidays just outside Edinburgh, Scotland  The view of Scotland's countryside from the manor Many people do believe that international travel has to cost thousands upon thousands and this deters them. This fact keeps them local or at least relegated to domestic travel which just doesn't have that flair. There are 208 countries on earth and there is so much more to the world than your country. There are many paths to free travel and many deals especially with wholesalers. Wholesalers being suppliers that sell product to retail companies. For example a potato farm in Prince Edward Island selling potatoes to a massive company in Seattle who will make french fries with them. They sell the potatoes at a lower wholesale price, and then the retailer being the fry company sells the fries to the public for a higher retail price. In the travel industry you are always able to buy your trips wholesale from a wide variety of companies. This combined with house exchanges where your accomodation is free and in countless ways a far superior experience to really get you up close and personal with that country than a commercial hotel. Tours are often also free with major cities including New York, London and Beijing offering voulunteer tour groups. Their members are always happy to show you around their city and country complimentary.  A house on exchange with Home Base Holidays on Canada's West Coast in Victoria, British Columbia This basic rundown is accompanied by a list of what other services and amenities the owner is opening up to the guest. This often includes vehicles and computers. Sometimes the guest will be called upon to take care of the pets giving them food and water and playing with them if possible. The owner also specifies which time period they are looking to travel. This would all be contained in a personal profile on one or two webpages. Each profile posted is categorized by country and continent. You then wait for the world. Once someone emails you back you can get all the information from them, get in touch and learn about their background. You may plan for some overlap time in one of the countries if you choose, giving you an opportunnity to meet one another. Often nighbours, friends and family of the traveller will come to visit, arrange outings or have dinner to meet people. You will get suggestions on the closest cities, places and sights of interest. You can shop where they get their groceries, drive their country's cars and truly live the life of a local. This has become a lifetime love for many with people having done more than twenty across the globe. House exchanges are completely free, it's an international give and take that truly has a flair of its own. Large scale house exchange websites including Home Base Holidays owned by Canadian Lois Sealey which operates in over 30 countries across the world, HomeLink International with homes, villas and castles in over 30 countries and Intervac with many family homes among others in over 50 countries. A smaller house exchange company caters for singles in apartments and small houses is Home Exchange International. With Home Exchange International singles post and you swap your house with a single man or woman. The properties posted are for the most part apartments and smaller houses perfect for solo travellers. A excellent resource on home exchanging highlighting other house exchange agencies are on this blog all about house exchanging, check it out! Online all house exchange sites you can call or email the company and their staff are more than happy to help in any way. Bon voyage! Teague Neal blogged on 7:40 PM
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