When a father loses track of a travelling daughter, the whl.travel local connection goes where others can’t

On June 15, Len Cordiner, CEO of whl.travel received an email from an anxious father searching for his daughter. She and a friend were travelling in Laos and had booked accommodation in several cities through whl.travel. Len put the father in touch with Teamworkz, our whl.travel partner in Vientiane, Laos.

“My 19-year-old daughter was supposed to stay at the Cheuang Van Na Vong Hotel [in Vientiane] the night of June 12,” the father quickly wrote to Teamworkz. “She was supposed to contact us a couple days ago, but perhaps there is a problem with both her international cell phone and with her computer. We wanted to get a message to her through the hotel front desk: ‘Call home.’ We do not know where she is now, so it would definitely help her mother and I to know if she indeed made it to the Cheuang Van Na Vong Hotel. Attached is her picture. She would be travelling with [a friend], whose name is on the reservation. Can you please find out if she stayed at the hotel and let me know? I am very grateful for your assistance.”

All parents grapple with the angst of watching their children disappear into the world. The tools of today – cell phones, email, skype – allow us to maintain a vital and affordable lifeline so much more immediate than the fortnightly faxes and staticky collect calls I made when I first hit the road. I can only imagine what my parents felt back then in the days before Web-based booking was possible. They had no idea know where I was for weeks on end. Today, a long communication lapse is even more nerve wracking. To whom does one turn, especially if a booking is made through an anonymous engine that cares nothing of one name or face any more than another?

In this case, having booked through whl.travel …your local connection… the daughter left her father with just the right kind of details.

Within three hours of his email to a Vientiane-based Teamworkz operator, the father received a reply:

“I have shown the picture to the front desk. The receptionist confirmed that she had checked in and then checked out a couple of days ago.”

Since the booking was in her travelling companion’s name, this would have been a very difficult situation to manage remotely. However, someone from Teamworks had actually printed the photograph and gone directly to the hotel to ask the question.

To everyone’s relief, the father soon replied:

“Thank you SO MUCH for your help.  A few hours after your message I heard from my daughter. She is in Hanoi Vietnam and doing well. I would recommend your travel organization to anyone. When my daughter goes to college (about 20,000 students in her school) I know she will tell those travelling to East Asia about your site and about the experience I had with you. I hope you have a GREAT day.”

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 1:41 am and is filed under the following categories: