Leer InterMICE beter kennen door deze vragen
 |  |  |
Can you please introduce yourself and your company.
It is a pleasure for me to have the chance and introduce to you our country, company and myself.
I am Irina Manjgaladze, I have been working in the tourism industry since 1993. I am the founder and General Director of IntermiceTour.
My hobbies include travelling, cooking, music and arts, I hope during your visit to Georgia you will be able to taste Georgian Cuisine prepared by me :)
When did you know you wanted to work for a DMC (or start your own DMC)
Since 2010 year, when I registered my travel agency I decided that the main field of activity of Intermicetour would be MICE.
What are your company's greatest strengths?
We have a team of professional coworkers with big experience in this industry, due to this they can manage the work and solve any problem in any critical situation if this kind of situations takes place during the project.
What are the USP's for your destination?
Georgia is a unique destination itself, As the country is very small, one can go Skiing in mountains and go down straight to Seaside - and this all can be done in the same day. All around Georgia you can manage and organize team buildings, outdoor group activities in the ecologically clean environment.
Tell us about the best part of your job?
As we mentioned above our team consists of professionals and we have a very good team collaboration, we clearly understand each given task, each coworker has their part in the project, which helps us to organise and manage the project in shortest deadlines, this is managed only because the job we are doing gives us a lot of pleasure, the most pleasant thing for us in our work is a satisfied customer/partner, the largest project which we have done was the group of 340 persons, we worked for minimum two projects a month, which gave us big experience.
What’s one tip or trick you can share with us, that you use on a daily basis to do your job more quickly or efficiently?
We get to each project with teamwork and decide everything together, which gives us high efficiency and the job is done in the shortest deadlines and get the efficient results.
What do you like most about working with Dutch and Belgian Travel & MICE managers?
As Netherlands and Belgium are new destinations for us, unfortunately we have not had any experience on these markets till this time and we hope that from now on we will have a fruitful and wonderful collaboration.
Why should the Travel/MICE agent book with you instead of an online booking site, incentive house or direct with the hotel?
Despite the fact that the online booking platforms are the faster way to book services, booking via our agency is more secure and reliable, as we are available 24/7 to support our partners in any situation, the current Covid - 19 pandemic has already shown that it always matters when you have strong and reliable partner abroad who can solve any problem and not to leave you without help.
What effect do you expect the current pandemic to have on international travel over the next year or so?
The pandemic had a huge impact on all business sectors including tourism industry, what I can say about Georgia, here situation is softer, for this time we have only had 408 cases, also we think Georgia will be among the countries who recover fast. As the country is very budget friendly (Hotel, accomodation, food, transport prices) and we have had plenty of direct flights to European countries(Most of the destinations can be reached in 3-4 hours), we are almost sure that travel will be possible maybe after 2-3 months after the lockdown is ceased.
Given the divergence in approaches and success in dealing with COVID-19 among European countries, is there a danger citizens of some of them might see themselves “locked out” of travel?
For this moment it is very difficult to make any predictions according to situation but, Georgia is very guest friendly country so we are sure every guest will be greeted warmly who will be given permission to travel by the governments.
Like other sectors of the economy, tourism stands to be badly hit by the pandemic this year. What mitigating action can governments and industry players take, in your opinion?
As tourism is one of the main sectors of Economy we think that there will be benefits, investitions and subsidies from government to promote tourism after this crisis to help the Economy of the country.
Could we be seeing an end to the current era of mass tourism?
Of course not !!! We all should stay positive and continue working from distance for this period of time and very soon the world will start traveling again.
How are you dealing with the current situation and how do you see the coming future of travel.
In the current situation as most of the world we are working on distance, giving information to our clients via social media, we are hoping that maybe after 2-3 months after the lockdown travelling will be possible again.
Final Message
All of us from the tourism industry are very positive and optimistic people, we are the people who are systematically taking care of pleasant holidays and trips for guests, we are always working to bring happiness to people. Let us all be positive and after the virus passes we together will make the world happy again.
I hope we will meet in Georgia after the crisis passes.
