It’s not every day you get the opportunity to host your own radio show, so when two of our Travel Counsellors in the UK, Su Dillon and Katie Chamberlain hit the airwaves on Valentine’s Day, we asked them to tell us all about it. Su tells us about her “on air” experience here…

Whilst tuned into Viking FM in the car I heard they were looking for volunteers to help host the breakfast show as one of the usual presenters was away. It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, so I filled in the on-line form explaining that in spite of recent cold weather, Katie and I could bring some much-needed sunshine to the morning!

The following day Jim the other regular presenter called me and we chatted for a while about life as a Travel Counsellor. He invited us to join him the following week and on Valentines’ day!

It was a very early start for us to be at the station for 06.45 and after being made a cuppa by the show’s planner Kenny we were straight on-air at 7am with Jim.

It was a great platform for us as Travel Counsellor’s to explain how we work from home providing a very personal service to our clients, not ONLY booking holidays but being there for them during the time they are away too – sharing some of our experiences of clients calls during the night to us when they are on the ‘other side of the world’ faced with a problem. We explained we are just two of over 700 TC’s in the UK and part of a multinational operation and even talked about how we all come together every year for the fabulous Travel Counsellors conference and some of the amazing entertainment we have enjoyed.

As it was Valentine’s day we had lots of opportunity to discuss romantic places to travel including the story of Katie’s client whisking his girlfriend away to New York to propose (having thought she was going to the Lake District for the weekend) and my client surprising his partner with a weekend trip from Humberside airport taking in three European Capital cities in three days.

As we both love our job it was not difficult talking for almost 2 hours (in between music, news, traffic information and adverts of course) and believe we left a lasting impression on those we met, so that next time they are looking for a holiday they’ll pick up the phone to us, rather than looking to plan anything themselves. We also left them armed with lots of business cards with our contact details and have been broadcasting our radio debut on our social media pages ever since!

Would we do it again?

You bet!

Many of our Travel Counsellors regularly provide their expert opinion on all things travel-related on local radio around the globe including Australia, so listen out for them on a show near you soon!