UK. Following on from its success at the Inflight Sales Person of the Year Awards (ISPY) 2013, inflight concessionaire Tourvest recently held an “˜Apprentice’-style contest for British Airways crew, bringing together distribution and brand partners to give a taste of the journey of products into the airline’s High Life Shop.
At the ISPY event in Brighton last month, Virgin Atlantic took the award for Airline of the Year at event, while crews from South African Airways and Kenyan Airways were also among the winners, as reported. All three airlines use Tourvest as their concessionaire.
A week after the awards, in late January, Tourvest once again got crew involved, this time with another one of its key airline partners, British Airways, in what it said was the first event of its kind in the industry.
Sponsored by distributors Scorpio Worldwide and held at Gatwick Airport, the day-long event saw two rival teams, each made up of a mixture of inflight crew and ground staff from British Airways, tasked with promoting a new product to sell onboard. The event was based around the TV show ‘The Apprentice’, which originated in the USA and which has subsequently been adapted around the world.
Group 1 was given the Rio Pro-Lift, a device which users a facelift massage on-the-go, while Group 2 had to pitch the SWAP Android Dual SIM smart phone.
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The atmosphere of ‘The Apprentice’ boardroom was created at Gatwick |
Both teams spent the morning researching their product, assessing how it would fit into their inflight proposition and, crucially, how they would convince judges to choose it. They were helped along the way by marketing and merchandising experts from Tourvest.
Following a working lunch, the two teams then had to pitch the products to a panel of experts, as well as outlining the marketing efforts that would go behind promoting them and how they would be presented in the inflight magazine.
The panel, including representatives from British Airways, Tourvest, Scorpio Worldwide, and The Moodie Report, were asked to mark the teams on both content and presentation and also had the opportunity to question them on specific points.
The three main judges, British Aiways Head of Customer Operations at Gatwick Airport Mike Grimes, British Airways Business Implementation Manager at Gatwick Airport Carol Powell and Scorpio Worldwide Sales Manager Nick Retter, then asked then asked the teams more questions.
After a rigorous boardroom session, Group 2, with the SWAP Android Dual SIM smart phone, were declared as the winners. Tourvest and British Airways indicated they would now consider adding the product to the High Life range.
Tourvest Head of Crew Sales Joe Harvey: “It gives them a full understanding of the whole process. At Tourvest, we focus on the crew and customer, as well as the customer. That’s why we set up a crew department and we’re looking at things we don’t believe other concessionaires have thought about.”
Powell added: “It’s great to do something that’s fun but also relevant to the business. This has brought lots of parties together, incorporating learning as well.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like this and we’ll look at how we can learn from this and implement it elsewhere.”
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British Airways crew work on their presentations |
Looking back at ISPY2013
Harvey also explained some of the work behind the scenes which had been put in to ensure the concessionaire’s airline partners’ success at ISPY2013. This included putting the crew members in touch with each other ahead of the event to share knowledge and appointing mentors to guide them through the process.
Reflecting on the achievements, he said: “The success we had was fantastic. We started planning it for months ahead. We put the guys from all the airlines together, as well as two previous ISPY winners, and they all shared their knowledge.
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Virgin Atlantic took the Airline of the Year prize at the ISPY awards |
“They’re not competing against each other for duty free and there’s always been a good understanding in the industry of sharing knowledge and helping each other out.”
South African Airways’ Nozzie Masela, who won a team award with Jaco Botha, described the experience as “life-changing” and explained how what she learnt will filter through to other crew members.
“Not only did I make great memories and lifelong friends while having a fabulous time,” she said. “I also left ISPY inspired and motivated to be the change in my airline to create a dynamic sales culture.”
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South African Airways’ Jaco Botha and Nozzie Masela, winners of the In-flight Sales People of the Year award |
