Last week was a big week for me. For several days I had been hugging some wonderful news to myself, all the while chasing about to pack a week's work into just three days before my other half and I were due to depart for a long weekend away in Prague. I had organised the trip as his Christmas surprise, timed as it was for early March to coincide with our 21st wedding anniversary, making the extravagance just a little more justifiable. As it happens the celebration was a joint one. Thursday morning arrived, bags were hastily tucked into the boot of the car, a brief farewell waved to the teens and off we went, just as that wonderful news broke on Twitter and Facebook. The Cotswolds Tourism Awards 2012 winners were made public 30 minutes before I hopped off to the Czech Republic. I felt a little like a traitor - off to play tourist in another country all the while overjoyed to have been honoured with the title "Cotswold Tourism Business of the Year 2012". It is my privilege to be the one who gets to write fun ways of encouraging people to explore, discover, appreciate and learn about all that Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds has to offer so to be rewarded with this award is humbling. Someone commented (rather naively) on my award's coloured rinse. Perhaps they don't appreciate the link between our glorious honeyed stone and our sheep - but I love her. Please meet Cotsie, of whom I'm very proud.
Back in Prague, we had been told that four days was about right to take in the "Golden City". We departed armed with our guide to the Top 10 in almost every category you could imagine, from historical sites to restaurants, from attractions to things to avoid and from cafes to nightclubs. The city is compact enough to explore on foot and so we spent our days in walking shoes strolling the cobbles. For miles and miles we oooh'd and ahhh'd at the truly magnificent architecture, wishing we were more familiar with the history and development of the country and its people, soaking up the information shared in our guide book and hanging on every translation where given in English to explain what we were enjoying. It made me realise, in case I had for one moment forgotten, that a good route, with the best bits highlighted, an opportunity to engage with what you're seeing and a few gems of historical and cultural interest can really make a tourist's visit to a new destination (rather like a Treasure Trail in fact) #blatantplugwithawink
As it happens, I'm clearly not the only one who agrees. We landed back in the UK last night. Having had only limited access to the internet since Thursday I powered up even as Stephen was driving back from the airport only to be greeted by a flurry of emails as is so often the case on a Sunday evening. This is the day when the majority of online answer submissions come in. At the end of every Trail we remind customers to submit their answer online for a chance to win the anual £1000 prizedraw. This is furthermore their opportunity to tell us what they thought, whether they would recommend us to a friend and, importantly, how we could improve our service. If I hadn't already had quite a wonderful week and a fabulous few days away, the weekend was topped off by these three comments, all from different happy Trailers on separate occasions from varying destinations across my patch:
"Really good and enjoyed it, keep doing what you are doing", "It was excellent just the way it was. Brilliant fun" and "You cannot improve on perfection". How lovely is that?
And so, back to work with renewed vigour. Happy days.
