Introduction
You are a travel agent working for Honours Travel Agency in Sydney, Australia.
You organise travel for groups to destinations all over Australia.
A family from England, the Middletons, have contacted you asking you to organise a trip around Australia in December. They have a list of attractions they wish to visit and a short time to do it all.
They have told you how long they have to stay in Australia and how long they wish to stay in each destination.
Your job is to design their holiday that will best make use of their time.
Task
The Middleton's are a family of four: mum, dad and their daughter aged 10 and son aged 6.
They will arrive in Sydney on the 22nd of November, 2017. They have 6 weeks to spend in Australia and want to see as much as they can while they are here.
Their list of places to see and the time they want to spend in each are listed below:
- Sydney/Newcastle/Canberra: 14 days.
- Cairns: 4 days
- Darwin: 4 days
- Alice Springs: 2 days
- Uluru: 3 days
- Broome: 3 days
- Adelaide: 2 days
- Melbourne 4 days
The days spent in each place is flexible, depending on the availability of flights.
They fly back to England on the 2nd of January, 2018. They want to spend New Years Eve in Sydney to see the fireworks and would like some time in Sydney before they begin their travels.
They have already planned some activities:
- They must be in Cairns in time to catch a ferry to Green Island on 29th November at 3:00 pm.
- They must be in Darwin in time to go on a tour of Kakadu by 6th December at 10:00 am.
- They want to spend Christmas in Melbourne with relatives. Their relatives cannot pick them up from the airport until 5:00 pm on the 23rd December and they would prefer to arrive as close to that time as possible.
They would like you to plan some local travel using public transport.
- They would like to visit friends in Newcastle and need to catch the train from Central Station in Sydney to Broadmeadow in Newcastle where they will be picked up by their friends. They will spend 2 nights and return to Sydney.
- They would also like to visit Canberra and would prefer to travel by bus from Sydney to Canberra and then back again. They would like to have 3 nights in Canberra. They will organise their own activities and transport once they are there so would like to arrive as early as possible in the day.
They want to fly Qantas and Jetstar for all of their journey.
The Middleton's would also like you to provide the price for each airfare and bus fare and total price for all the airfares within Australia.
Process
The following Qantas link shows the destinations offered by the airline. Check this to make sure that Qantas flies to all of the destinations selected by the Middleton's.
http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/route-maps/global/en
This link has the timetables Qantas:
http://www.qantas.com/au/en/destinations/all-qantas-destinations.html
Sydney Intercity Train Map:
http://www.sydneytrains.info/stations/pdf/intercity_map.pdf
Sydney train time table:
http://www.sydneytrains.info/timetables/#landingPoint
Greyhound Bus Service:
https://www.greyhound.com.au/service-info/timetable-selection
Remember to:
- Book flights for 2 adults and 2 children.
- Ensure they arrive in time for their booked activities.
- Provide the price for each flight for 4 people.
- Provide the date, time of departure and time of arrival for each stop.
- Provide the price for each airfare and bus fare.
- The price of all airfares in Australia in total.
Evaluation
Was the Honours Travel Agency successful in organising the holiday for the Middleton's?
Were there any problems?
Were you able to get the Middleton's their desired number of days in each destination or did you need to change some to fit the timetable of the airline?
How much did the flights cost in total?
Conclusion
Congratulations on a job well done!
Being involved in the travel industry means you need to be able to read timetables and convert between 12 and 24 hour time.
Being able to read a timetable is important to get people to the correct destination on the right day and time.
Most travel sectors operate in 24 hour time, while most people operate in 12 hour time. If you get the conversion wrong you might have some very upset people who have missed their flights! That is definitely not good for business!
Other industries like health, emergency services (police, fire and ambulance) and the armed forces also use 24 hour time.