The Best of Britain & Ireland event is taking place at the NEC in Birmingham next Thursday and Friday (March 13 and 14).
The exhibition allows trade visitors such as coach operators, group travel organisers and other travel product and service buyers the opportunity to meet and negotiate with hotels, venues, tourist attractions and tourism service suppliers.
ABTA The Travel Association has become the 14th trade association to throw its backing behind the show, and is taking part in the seminar programme on the Main stage in association with The Tourism Society. The ABTA keynote presentation on the first day of the show addresses the question of how the tourism industry can create more UK jobs.
This presentation is scheduled to take place after lunch on day one following the Tourism Question Time session chaired by Bernard Donoghue, Director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, at which senior representatives of the industry from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales give their views on the current tourism climate and answering questions from the floor.
The show also features booking software specialists Distinctive Systems and Roeville who will both be at hand to talk to operators about how their respective systems can benefit companies.
Andrew Fraser, Distinctive Systems’ Commercial Manager, told CBW: “We are looking to chat with existing clients and meet new clients at the show.
“We’ll be showing off a rewrite of our tour booking system, with a whole new look and new design.
“Visitors to the show can also find out about our gross payroll system and our vehicle maintenance system. All the latest features will be on show.”
The firm will also be able to talk about its Coach Manager Connect service which connects over 400 of Distinctive’s clients to create a network of operators, allowing subcontracted bookings to be offered and taken on easily and efficiently.
Roeville is showcasing its range of e-commerce solutions and back office reservation systems, with products available for a variety of different sized operators.
t28 is an off-the-shelf package which meets the needs of small to medium sized coach tour operators whereas t3 is a premium product which can be customised to “fit into the corners” of larger and higher volume operators.
Operators with their own coach fleets can use the Roeville ph28 software for all their coach hire and contract reservations. This is a user friendly and highly flexible diary based system which handles quotations, firm bookings, driver and vehicle allocations, work ticket printing, confirmations and invoices.
