Fresher tutor, better course
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-04-03 07:20:21 - Graham EllisOur favourite airline has gotten itself into trouble in the last few days by handing it letters to passengers it has failed to carry telling them it will pick up to hotel bills for them ... "up to 100 pounds" ... if they have to stay overnight in the area. "You can't stay overnight for that!" was a comment I heard. Well - I'm not so sure but I do know that hotel prices have rocketed in the past four years; a £60 room has become a £90 room.
Four years ago, petrol was 76p per litre, and it's now risen to around 108p - that's another leap. And much of that leap since the start of the year.
Can you believe that our Well House Consultants travel and overnight subsistence rates are no higher now that they were four years ago? The increasing costs have been met, to a very large part, by my going "down market" in where I stay - you'll see where I am at the moment in yesterday's blog. But it's becoming an issue; I do need to have space to work in the evening (and tonight I really haven't), and I do need good light, and power points in sensible places. I can get away without a clock (though I overslept yesterday morning), with a misleading sign that tells me to put my towel on the towel rail if I want to reuse it (there IS NO towel rail), and with a shower that should be called a dribble. And I just laugh off the peeling paint, the peeling wood chip paper and the MFI furniture that seem prevalent in so many hotels.
And so - a modest rise in our travel expenses and overnight subsistence rate for all new quotations. Very modest, actually - I've taken a 10 student course 165 miles from our base as an example, and see that it adds less than a fiver per delegate per day. And is this just for the tutor? No - it's for the customer too who will get a more refreshed, better prepared presenter. "You get what you pay for" they say, after all.