Don't You Get Tired of Spin?

I received an offer in the mail today. From my bank. It was for a platinum Visa card (thank you to all those clients I have chartered aircraft on credit for!). One of the advantages touted in the card was "24 hour concierge service. Take a helicopter to the coast!". As someone who often takes helicopters to the coast I started getting interested. What's this? Is someone finally beginning to understand VIP service in New Zealand?

So I called the concierge service. They couldn't tell me the best Thai restaurant in Auckland. They were based in Sydney. They could only just understand or speak English. But they had links with a couple of travel companies in Auckland. "Oh - who are those?", hoping to find someone I knew and seeing how we could work together....on further research one was a Tahiti outbounder and the other was a Taiwan outbounder.

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh.

We have found specific bottles for our clients. Specific seats at specific tables in specific restaurants. Specific crayfish on specific beaches transported by specific helicopters. Specific specialists for specific services, be they tourism or business related. We have been providing concierge services for five years. What gives this national organisation the right to jump on a marketing bandwagon and announce services when they have no idea what they are announcing means?

We love being at the cutting edge of tourism. We love developing new products. We love performing somersaults for our clients. In reading the marketing spin on all of those travel websites it seems everyone else is doing the same as us too. Lucky consumers! So why don't I see them when I'm eating a crayfish on a beach or pressing noses with a Maori warrior or tickling a lion cub?

The answer - it's all about "spin". And spin has nothing to do with what the client actually experiences. Sadly. Meanwhile our beautiful country uplifts ordinary experiences through its backdrop of lovely sights and people and another client goes away satisfied. They had an "exclusive" experience with 200 other people but are quite happy and go back with tales of a lovely country.

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