(Having joined Rover/Triumph Overseas Service Division and settled in, I was advised by my boss, Freddy Troop, regarding my first trip.)
“After speaking to Freddy about my first overseas trip for the company, he advised that I should visit Thailand, Singapore/Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in that order. According to Freddy these were among the most active of our distributors, except for Taiwan, which he tagged on the end because no one from Jaguar/Rover/Triumph had visited them for some time. As the reader can imagine, I did point out to Freddy that Taiwan was a long way from Hong Kong, but he did his usual trick of looking at his wall map and declaring that there was only an inch and a half between the two countries!
Naturally I took his advice and settled down to organise a visit to all these countries during the period 19th March to 27th April 1974. I pulled out the previous visit reports and began to study them to determine who I should contact and how the companies had fared the last time they were visited by one of our engineers.
I soon discovered that it wasn’t easy organising an itinerary such as the one Freddy had imposed on me. I had to decide how many days I would allocate to each company, make allowances for travelling to each country, the airline schedule that would get me there and consider the weekends. Then there was the question of whether they could accommodate me on the dates I had chosen. I laid out a rough timing plan and then proceeded to telex the companies concerned, introducing myself as the new man on the patch, asking if they could accommodate me on certain dates and book suitable hotel accommodation on my behalf for the period of the visit.
As is the way of the world, some of our distributors were slow to reply or couldn’t meet my date requirements, for very plausible reasons. However, after a little bit of shuffling I was able to get confirmation of the final visit dates from them all. They also confirmed that accommodation had been provisionally reserved at various hotels within convenient commuting distance of their premises.
Once the distributors themselves had confirmed they could accommodate me on the dates agreed, I sent the itinerary to our central travel office. They would book the flights required to meet my itinerary. I was quite pleased that the travel office carried out this part of the arrangements because it can get quite complicated trying to obtain bookings with the appropriate airlines and ensuring that all the connections occurred smoothly. There was also a requirement for visas to enter Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan. These had to be applied for at the appropriate embassies in London, except Taiwan, where it was necessary for me to obtain the visa personally in Singapore. Here again, the travel office dealt with most visa requirement once I had handed my passport over to them and received a receipt……….”
African Tales 