Last Word: Grumbling

This month, British holiday giant Thomas Cook announced that it will close 21 stores and cut over 300 jobs. Given the current political and meteorological climate this is hardly surprising.

Indeed, I recently read an amusing article highlighting some of the complaints the travel agent had received over the years. They included the following gems: ‘On my holiday to Goa, India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry’; ‘I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom suite and ours was significantly smaller’; ‘The beach was too sandy’; and (perhaps the most British of all); ‘I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits’. I laughed out loud.

Nevertheless, as I reflected further, I was saddened to think of the Thomas Cook employee who had opened all of those emails or envelopes. Here was a company that (I trust) had sought the best for their customers as they flew them to the likes of Goa and Gran Canaria. Yet all they got was grumbling. The net result is that fewer are now jetting off to paradise.