Leaders Guidelines

Management of your Group Holiday with us

Apologies for blowing our own trumpet, but we do have a pretty good system for booking and running holidays! We have invested a lot in a tailor-made database which allows us to output carefully composed tailored emails to clients; we also have an” all-singing all-dancing” web site (apologies for the pun). It makes things easy for our leaders. We are booking ever more group holidays well into the future and hope to continue to make the process smoother for both you and us.

We hope that the following does not appear too prescriptive! We are only at pains to make things simpler for both you and us and ensure that clients have clear information. It is important that leaders do not communicate with group members on the booking process, availabilities & queries about Morocco & flights. We very much welcome your suggestions on the process, but we want it to be easy for us to manage the group holidays. Principally, we need to ensure that the guests are not getting mixed messages & it is impossible to update you with the complexities of what is going on with pending bookings (rooms free, rooms sharing, travel & other issues affecting decisions). You will get regular automatic updates showing changes in bookings and you will be immediately informed of cancellations. NB even if you know quite a lot about the holidays, things do change regularly for a host of reasons and it is embarrassing and unprofessional to correct leaders’ errors.

Brochures - beware of mixed messages

We get problems when leaders rewrite their brochure or produce a different version of the one on our web site and changing critical words so that we are unable to deliver what is promised at the cost we quoted – we must avoid guest dissatisfaction! For example, it must say “taxis from & to the designated flight”. If you wish to produce an abbreviated flier please include a link to the brochure on our web site for all the details.

Emails sent to guests

Recruiting: It’s necessary to start recruiting a year before the holiday so that your clients aren’t already committed to other events and especially because we aim to have enough recruited by the time flights are released (or soon after – most are released 9 months or more before). Flight prices are relatively cheap when first published (from under £60 return) and can double or triple in price at certain times of year. After flights are published is a good time to recruit again and there will always be some late bookers (we often put people on waiting lists). If a group fails to recruit a viable number by a certain date, we may have to offer your week to another leader or ask you to share the venue with others – we will try to ensure they are compatible & will allocate one of the 3 outdoor and 3 indoor activity spaces eg. the roof terrace, dining terrace, pool terrace, activity room, library or dining room for your group to work in – all these spaces are 64 square metres or more in size except the library which seats a maximum of 8 people.

Conditions of Reserving a slot for you: if you are new to us and don’t know if you will recruit, we ask you to ask your clients to show an “expression of interest” so you can decide whether to commit. Once we have assessed that the holiday is viable, we will require a deposit of £300 – £500 (depending on group size) for your course to secure the reservation. This is a non-refundable deposit should the holiday be cancelled by you. The deposit will be returned to you when your fee is paid during your week in Morocco, or if you want to roll it over to your next holiday.

Exclusive Occupancy: if you wish to hire the whole property, but may not occupy all the bedrooms, we need to ask for an additional fee. If you still have not recruited a viable number 2 months before departure we will need to discuss options with you.

What the Participants Will Receive

A link to your Brochure on our web site which includes exact details of what is included in the cost of the holiday. This includes a link to our booking form.
A Payment Schedule – A small deposit (usually £100) which is only refundable if the holiday does not proceed. The balance is made in one, two or occasionally three further payments. Clients protect themselves from cancellation by insurance. More information can be found on our booking-conditions, passport and visa requirements page.
A Receipt & Substantial Pre-visit information document – includes links to a detailed document
Time to Book your Tickets – as soon as flights are released (9 months or more before the holiday) and if we and the leader agree enough people have been recruited. At this point we remind clients it is compulsory to buy travel insurance to cover against cancellation and medical matters.
Your Upcoming Holiday – includes a link to an online form where health and dietary needs and travel details must be entered. Again we include Pre-Visit Info covering typical questions , with jump to links so that guests what is important to them.
Last minute reminders about Travel Insurance and Spending Money.
Holiday Follow-up – We ask your guests to provide ALL feedback to us whether it is about the group holiday activity, our work in the office in Wales or what we offer at the ecolodge. Hence we have added a request for feedback on the group activity. We will send the relevant feedback to you. Why? Past experience has shown that tutors asking for feedback results in virtually no feedback to us. Our Welsh Office is “neutral” and can deal with both comments for our tutors and our Moroccan staff. By far the majority of the feedback is exceptionally complimentary.
We greatly value suggestions or complaints too! In order that we give a response that takes account of our own experience of running the group trips, please do not respond to clients on our behalf, because you may not be aware of all the issues, nor the best solution; between us (the Moroccan staff, you & us), we can give an appropriate response.to am

Our Role

Jane, Marie & Steven at our Welsh office of Holidays with Heart are available on weekdays in office hours (usually 9.30 am – 2.30 pm GMT, Monday to Friday) or by appointment. We do essential work at the weekends and evenings and we may be able to speak at those times, but we may not be available at short notice out of office hours. We are responsible for:

Discussing Holiday Content & Pricing: we’ll tailor the holiday to you/your group’s needs both before and during your stay. NB Each holiday is priced individually, so it is important that you do not compare your holiday with anybody else’s. Variables are exchange rate at the time of pricing, track-record or potential to recruit, rooming arrangements, admin time spent on individual leaders, currencies, what is included in the itinerary etc.
Brochure: design & production and displaying the brochure on our website, where we add updates on availability.
Checking your own promotions NB Please note that we need to check all literature that you put out before publication. We need to ensure that precise detail and important instructions are included and that there is no out-of-date or misleading information. We have had some embarrassing incidents in the past.
Handling all bookings and expressions of interest. To ask questions email hello@holidays-with-heart.co.uk; we have over 30 years’ experience of visiting Morocco & running group holidays. To book, please refer clients to the holiday specific link “Book Now” button, which you can find beside the holiday brochure on our Calendar page.
Flights and airport transfers: we provide detailed information about the pros and cons of various options including costs, timings and service to ensure everything goes very smoothly. We designate a suitable flight for each group. We favour EasyJet because they have the best sustainability policies in Europe and fly a highly energy efficient plane on the Agadir route, as well as being very well priced, with good baggage allowances and our favoured flights usually fly at similar times on the arrival and departure days, which allows guests to be met by the same vehicles rather than incur a supplement for a special taxi.
Answer queries about Morocco (even if you have been before) in order that clients are not misled – for example over a few months all these significant things have changed: best restaurants to visit, where to meet at the airport, airline regulations, flight schedules, changes to itineraries and projects we visit etc.
Pre-Visit information is regularly updated. Clients receive a password (souk) to access this page once we have received a deposit and are reminded to view it again before travelling because of updates. Here is the link to the pre-visit page
Communicate with the staff in Morocco
Pay you! We pay by bank transfer soon after the holiday begins, by which time the number of participants will be finalised. Late cancellations will be paid. Please supply your full account details to facilitate prompt payment and let us know if you change your bank. Thank you!

During the administration of your Group Holiday we will...

Agree with you a minimum number of participants to make the holiday viable for you (and us). We usually accept a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 22.
Agree the number of bedrooms and the number of rooms with single occupancy to allocate for you. We run some smaller groups parallel to another compatible group. We have 14 rooms. For larger groups such as singing we would suggest 8 as twin/double and 6 as singles = 22 persons ; for a yoga group we would limit to 16 students then it could be 12 singles and 2 shared rooms; for smaller groups we would offer 7 rooms to each group (3 singles and 4 twin/double = 11 students in total)
Update on recruiting regularly (these reports will be sent automatically overnight the day after we update the group members) – we ask leaders not to send us lots of emails asking lots of questions, including who has booked. Why? Everything will happen in sequence at the appropriate time, and it allows us to do the important work of preparing the reports for you, eg arrival details of the group – once the group has recruited the minimum number to make the holiday viable or the group is full we will let you know.
Bcc you into emails that we send to the group.
Please send via us any emails you send to the group. This can save you a lot of trouble and save the clients getting conflicted or repetitive information which results in confusion and not reading messages because there is too much to absorb.
Send you a template with a suggested itinerary, based on what we have agreed to include for your group. Any changes are always easier discussed orally because there will be many factors to consider, especially respect for the daily routine that both our staff and hosts in Morocco need to follow (for example, unless you are on excursions the hours 12 noon- 4 pm are ideal times to timetable your specialist activities because there will usually be no other activities on offer at those times)

Group Leaders are responsible for:-

Collaboration with us to produce a brochure and disseminate the information to potential participants. All brochures will be on a web page (not as a PDF which for several reasons is not the way to send information these days).
When recruiting we suggest you put out a separate email about your holiday with us, emphasising the need to book early to get good flight prices and a place on the holiday and mentioning that the holiday is paid for in 3 or 4 instalments. If the holiday is mentioned at the end of an email with day or weekend workshops it can be easy to miss it.
NB it is important to recruit by all methods (word of mouth, web site, email & Social Media) from the outset rather than a drip feed approach because it’s necessary to get a reasonable number signed up at the outset to make the course viable and beat flight price increases.
To advise clients to book via our simple booking form at www.cecu.co.uk/book/. Here clients then have the opportunity to access our booking conditions and privacy policy. If you have asked permission to pass clients’ contact details to us, then of course you may send us a list of names & email addresses & phone numbers.
Answering any queries about your activity sessions (it is important that we answer any queries about Morocco – please note that your experience and information may conflict with ours, which is regularly updated on our Pre-Visit Information page. Of course, if you see that something is missing, please let us know).
Meeting up with clients en route if you are travelling on the same flight. In that case we suggest you supply your mobile phone number to the group in case they need to contact you en route. Friends should also ensure that they have each other’s contact details. We will seek the group’s permission to supply you with the group’s contact details in order that you can arrange travel to the airport, meeting up for a meal the evening before your flight to Morocco or for any other reason connected with your travel. Unless you have everyone’s permission to share contact details, you must meet the requirements of the new privacy law (GPDR); all correspondence by email should have your own email address in the “To” field with all the other addresses in the “Bcc” box (this means ‘Blind Carbon Copy’); then none of the other email addresses will be visible to any individual recipient.
Collecting Travel Insurance details from group members before or during the journey Please take seriously We provide a table for you to fill in. Since we have so many elderly clients these days, we do feel a strong responsibility to ensure we can access medical help promptly. Travel insurance is compulsory by law. However, clients have the right to decide not to disclose information about any medical condition and we therefore strongly encourage everyone to carry their insurance details on their person at all times.
If you are going on a tour it will be necessary to ask guests to fill in a form showing their passport details which you should carry with you on the tour.

When in Morocco

Our lovely manageress Latifa is responsible for the day-to-day management of the guest house. At twice-daily group meetings after breakfast and supper, there is an opportunity to speak to Latifa either privately or in the presence of the group as appropriate. There is a great deal to absorb – we try to give it in bite-sized chunks, with the booklets in the rooms providing further information and explanations. Rest assured that, even if you have not travelled with us before, you only need be responsible for delivering your part of the holiday. NB Latifa has nothing to do with the pricing of the holidays and any extras that we have booked for your group; you or the guests will need to consult their documentation including the holiday brochure and their statements or the contact our UK office about these matters.

Our Manageress receives a series of detailed reports relating to arrival & departure, financial, dietary and other needs; your itinerary and room allocations etc.

The Staff Team
Latifa is a superb manageress – competent, caring and charming .

Her husband Said is the Chief Guide and wildlife expert, though he is an expert on almost anything Moroccan and understands the buildings & gardens & how to maintain them better than anyone, having been heavily involved in their planning and construction.

The highly experienced kitchen staff Fatima and Little Latifa remain in charge of the kitchen and housekeeping ably assisted by Naima & Zineb.

Rachid is Head of Transport & Tours; his driving and other practical skills were used to good effect during the building and creating the garden.

Nordine is head of purchasing & maintenance (including helping you with purchasing in the souk and many items we bought for the ecolodge).

Youssef, a delightful young Berber with a good command of French & improving English, looks after the grounds and buildings and is on duty over the lunch break.

Aziz, Youssef’s cousin, is our night guardian; he loves music, singing & dancing. He loves to join the band that comes some evenings.

Karima our masseuse is loved by everyone she meets. She speaks a little French & very little English but has a very good sense of what each person’s body needs.

All the staff are involved in other activities.

Dealing with any problems whilst in Morocco

Our staff are NOT involved in the booking process so cannot be aware of details of our personal communication with the individual clients. Therefore, when the occasional problem arises, Latifa are not usually in a position to offer a solution. Hence, it is essential that you seek clarification and/or solutions from us (via Latifa if need be). We endeavour to avoid any negative feeling in groups, which has been known to spread quickly if client(s) has(have) a problem that is only being aired amongst the group. If dissatisfactions occur, they are most likely to begin to circulate soon after arrival when people are tired, unfamiliar with the set-up and have not had time to appreciate the quality of what is on offer. Our experience shows that problems are often the result of misunderstandings or forgetting the details of certain discussions or arrangements. We like to have the opportunity to deal with them sensitively and promptly by drawing on our broad overview of the situation. It is very important to avoid letting a problem – which could be resolved very quickly fester – until after the return of the group as we are therefore impotent to address it. Please contact us by email or WhatsApp +447787148142

**Note about timetabling

Our itinerary and timetable for your visit is linked to our respect for the daily routine of our staff and our Moroccan hosts, who have commitments such as feeding animals, prayer, preparing meals and children.

GOOD TIMES for you to do group activities

1) On alternating days (usually Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) there is nothing timetabled from 9.30 am to 3.30pm or 4pm. Most of our staff have a long lunch break (from 12 noon until 3.30 pm which is a traditional time for the family to get together, eat the main meal of the day and take a siesta) though there will be at least one member of staff on the site to serve & clear up after lunch & assist you in any way you need.

2) After supper – generally from 7.30 pm onwards

3) During excursions which take place on alternate days (usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday). The most moving/magical events often take place spontaneously with local people – singing and dancing lend themselves well to this. Singing in the Claudio Bravo mausoleum (part of a half day (usually a morning) trip to the palace or gardens which can be offered as an alternative to one of the 3 excursions or an extra. Leaders are given free entry here.

CHANGES
Please do not hesitate to ask the staff to make changes to your itinerary whilst in Morocco: so long as logistics allow and given enough notice (ideally 24 hours in advance), they are incredibly accommodating and helpful.

For those who have not been before, we believe you will find the excellent service and expertise of our staff to be exceptional – and ours isn’t bad either!

GROUP SIZE AND ROOMS
As a general rule we prefer to keep group size at 22 or less (including leader) because of transport limitations and also group dynamics beyond that size tend to change – we would like to retain the family feel. Because we have 14 rooms that would mean up to 6 singles & 8 twin or double rooms. We also have a beautiful room for partially disabled guests (with wide entrance and bathroom doors, low electrical fittings, open plan bathroom with washbasin easily accessed from toilet, detachable raised toilet seat and seat in shower that folds onto the wall). This room is easily used as a normal room without the aids. It was given a 5* rating by a friend who visited recently.

Any queries, please email us. We will always be glad to help.

Further Leader Information here