HOLIDAY COURIERS HAVE TOUGH JOB

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31071, 28 May 1966, Page 2

HOLIDA Y COURIERS HAVE TOUGH JOB

(By

HELEN HOWARD

Would you be on 24-hour call, ready to play interpreter, doctor, comforter, legal adviser and anything else of which you can think for a basic wage of £6 10s a week? I know I would not.

Yet, at this moment, scores of pretty girls are preparing to do just that. They are holiday couriers, chosen by big travel firms to shepherd flocks of tourists round the Continent this year.

Those of us who think of the courier girl as a smiling, suntanned “super - holidaymaker" cordially greeting us in the foyer of a luxury hotel, should see her at the end of the four-month season when, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, she packs her bags and vows: "Never again.” This often happens. At least half this year's couriers will have had enough after this season. It is a glamorous job but also often hard and thankless.

"I was a teacher once,” one girl said, “and if I had the choice of having 50 adults or 50 children on the Continent for a fortnight, I’d pick the children every time.” Strange things, it seems, come over us when we go on holiday abroad. We become nervous, petulant, fussy—and, above all, completely helpless. I am not referring to the hardy souls who venture out jn cars, on bicycles or even on foot, but those of us who patronise what are known as “package tours” —fully-super-vised excursions by train or coach.

I have just been to a courier school to watch a dozen elegant girls being confronted by a selection of what are termed "disaster situations” to prepare them for the coming season. One agent said: "Courier schools may be valuable for a complete beginner, but they can’t really teach the most valuable qualities a courier needs—tact, a cool head, and patience.”

Looks are very important. So. of course, is a complete command of at least one foreign language.

£6 10s WEEKLY An agent finding a girl with these qualities will employ her for a season on a basic wage of about £6 10s, plus keep. She will be delegated an area and be based in a hotel.

She will be given about a week before the first party arrives to get settled, and find out everything about the area. Girls based in popular retorts will have a continuous stream of tourists from when the season opens in May to its close in September.

A courier based in an Italian resort said: “If you have 100 tourists, you might make £2O on the side in a good week —and just about kill yourself in the process.” This is done by collecting commissions from restaurants, lor from excursion or amusement proprietors, for bringing them custom. A courier usually collects about 10 per cent of entrance fees —and up to 25 per cent in plush night clubs and restaurants. There is also money to be made from cycle, car, or boat hire, and taking small groups of tourists to fashionable social functions.

Parties may vary in size from 30 to 100 —usually the absolute maximum one person can manage. Large parties may be put into up to six hotels, probably in different parts of the town. One girl said she dreaded arrival and departure days. “Both nights you have virtually no sleep. Everyone wants you—normally the matters are trivial, but people on holiday seem to leave all their initiative at home. OBSESSION

“Luggage is an obsession. It’s not enough to tell them the heavy luggage is being taken care of and will arrive at the hotel in the morning. They want to see it now.”

A pretty Scots girl, who has spent the last three summers on the Spanish coast, said: “People are usually very kind and terribly grateful for everything you do for them. But four months a year is the most an average person could stick. Tourists are on holiday and usually want to go out every night I seldom get home before three and must be up at eight the next day to arrange the day’s excursions, while they sleep in until about 11.”

One tours proprietor, who has about 20 couriers scattered across Europe said: “I tell every girl who comes in for a job that they’re on call 24 hours a day and must expect to have absolutely no personal life.” The girls agree. “The strange thing,” one said, “is that the tourists don’t seem to mind your extra money on the side, but they resent the fact that you may have a boy friend, or may want the occasional evening off.” NEW FACES

Many couriers are artists or writers who find they can save enough in the summer to live in the winter without regular work. Others do it because they like people and enjoy the stimulation of seeing new faces. As one hardened courier put it. “Many of the people we get are abroad for the first time. If we send them home with a little less prejudice about foreigners than they came with, we have at least achieved something.”— Provincial Press Features.