A few times a year, someone comes to us certain of what they want, and we tell them they are wrong.
It is rarely what they expect to hear. A couple writes asking for a week on a Nile cruiser, because that is the picture of Egypt they have carried for years. We talk to them for half an hour and conclude the cruiser is not for them — they want quiet, and small, and the freedom to linger, and a large ship gives none of those things. So we say it. We suggest a dahabiya instead, or fewer days on the water and more on land, even though it is a harder trip to sell and, often, a smaller one to book.
We do this on purpose, and it is worth explaining why.
A journey to Egypt is not a small thing. It costs a good deal of money. It costs something rarer still — the days of a holiday people wait years to take. And it carries the weight of a long-held expectation, which is the easiest of the three to disappoint. When a trip goes wrong, none of that cost falls on us. It falls entirely on the traveller, who flew a long way, spent a great deal, and came home with the wrong memory. We would rather lose the booking than be the reason for that.
We would rather lose the booking than be the reason someone came home with the wrong memory.
So we tell people true things, including the unflattering ones. The Pyramids stand at the edge of a city of twenty million, not out in silent desert; if you are picturing the second, we would rather you knew before you arrived than after. Tutankhamun's tomb is small and nearly bare — the boy is famous, but his is the least of the great tombs, and the real grandeur is two doors away, in Seti I. Alexandria has lost its library, its lighthouse and most of its ancient self to the sea, and the only travellers who leave it unhappy are the ones who came expecting another Luxor. Two days in Luxor is not enough for what stands there. July in Aswan is a punishment. Some of this costs us a sale. We say it anyway.
It runs the other way too. Sometimes the honest advice is to spend less. A client asks for the grandest hotel in a town where the grandest hotel happens to be closed, or simply not the best, and we say so, and send them to the quieter place with the finer view and the lower rate. We would rather you slept well and paid less than paid more and wished you had not. We are not the cheapest company, and we will not pretend to be — but neither will we sell you something costly that fails to earn its price.
A good thing, not a cheap thing — and never a dear thing that isn't worth it.
Underneath all of this is a simple idea about what we are for. A travel company's first duty is to the traveller's experience, not to its own margin. The two usually point the same way, because a person who comes home glad is the person who returns, and who tells their friends. But when they part — when the easy sale and the right advice are not the same thing — we follow the advice. It is the only way we know to be worth trusting.
And that, in the end, is why we say any of this out loud. When we tell you that a place is extraordinary, or that a journey will suit you exactly, you can believe us — precisely because we are the same company that will, when it is true, tell you not to go. Honesty is not a marketing position here. It is the whole basis of the relationship, and it has to work in both directions or it is worth nothing.
So if you come to us sure of something, expect us to agree most of the time, and to say so warmly. But do not be surprised if, now and then, we gently ask you to think again. We are not trying to win an argument. We are trying to make sure that when you finally stand where you have waited so long to stand, it is exactly where you should be.
Sillage Égypte