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Newsletter 46  |  July 2005

P.O. Box 13600, NOORDSTAD, 9302          E-mail: info@etniquetravel.co.za
Tel: (051) 406 2500                    Fax: (051) 436 3793

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AFTER HOURS EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBER:  083 461 2561

Seldom in the past did a major change to an industry have such an impact on its people. Luckily, those travel agency groups that were well prepared, also succeeded in managing CHANGE accordingly and are reaping the success in terms of service and client relations.

Right from the offset, it was our opinion at Sure Etnique Travel, that no reasonable customer would have any objection in paying a professional transaction fee for professional services rendered. If we as service providers have been transparent in our dealings, the customers will know exactly what they are paying for and can therefore evaluate the added value.

In the end the customers can now decide whether they want to explore the uncertain world of internet travel, with its maze of rules, regulations and restrictions towards cancellations or flight changes. Another exciting game is SAA’s Voyager system or application for refunding of cancelled tickets. We can only wish you good luck!

No wonder that the well known client service guru, Peter Cheales, has no less than 2, 5 million visitors per month to his website www.hellopeter.com. Here, customers can get feedback on both excellent and poor service. SAA ranks the top of the list of South African Companies with a poor service record. Anybody with previous experience will know the frustration to get some sort of response to an enquiry or a problem!

According to React Survey, a research company specializing on client service, very few South African companies focus on service excellence; and therefore little passion for people or service exist!

- Johann Beukes

Travel Stories:

The Alpine Passes of Switzerland

Switzerland is one of the world’s great tourist countries. Within a relatively small area (three Switzerland’s would fit neatly into the area of England) it contains an extraordinary abundance of natural beauties, of which the Alpine landscape with its towering mountain peaks and about 600 glaciers is the crown jewel.

One of the most rewarding ways of experiencing this wonderland is by way of a self-drive tour over its passes, some of them among the most fascinating and magnificently engineered mountain roads in Europe. There are at least 34 passes over 1000 m high in Switzerland. Four of them, all well over 2000m, are special to me: the Furka, Susten and Grimsel – closed from December to May - and the Simplon, open all year.

The first three passes form a circuit of about 120 km in the heart of the Alps. This tour circles the Winterberg and Sustenhorn mountain ranges, with peaks reaching an average height of 3 500m, skirting the spectacular Rhônegletscher (‘Rhône Glacier’) and threads beautiful valleys such as Urseren, Meien, Gadmen and Hasli.

The route to be taken depends on where you depart from. We’ve once travelled from Brigg in the Rhone valley, another time from Interlaken, but one can also start the journey from Andermatt. For the sake of this article we will depart from Brigg.

The Furka pass: Follow Route 19 to the village of Gletsch, where the Furka and Grimsel routes fork – Grimsel to the left and Furka to the right (Furka = ‘fork’). At Gletsch you will find the Hotel Glacier du Rhône, set below the spectacular glacier. Little has changed in this hotel since its establishment in 1857. From here the road climbs in steep zigzags (maximum gradient 14%).
 

About three quarters up the pass, you can turn off to the Hotel Belvedere, strikingly situated near the edge of the glacier, commanding a full view of  the valley below, with the Grimsel zigzagging up to the right, and the glacier ‘lying like a glove with its palm downwards … a gauntlet of ice which centuries ago Winter threw down in defiance of the Sun’ (As Longfellow described it in 1830, quoted in the Blue Guide to Switzerland). Adjacent to the lookout point is an ice grotto leading into the glacier. Entering it by way of a wooden walkway the blue-white colour of the icy walls maintains an eerie silence. A sudden thought that you are inside a slow moving river of ice, will ensure that you greet the outside world with a sigh of relief! At the summit of the pass (about 11 km from Gletsch), you have a magnificent view over the diminishing glacier, now 9 km. long, between 1 and 3 km wide, and about 20 sq km. in extent, feeding the Rhône. The pass was opened to wheeled traffic in 1867 and is one of the highest road passes in Europe (2431m).

The road now descends down the Urseren valley, with two magnificent peaks towering to the left (the Galenstock, 3583m and the Winterstock, 3203m), and one to the right (Gross Muttenhorn 3099m), to the small village Realp, and then on to Andermatt. Here you turn left on Route 2, descending for about 20 km to Wassen, from where Route 11 takes you along the Sussten Pass. On the way to Wassen, you will cross the Devil’s Bridge, where a cross commemorates the battle in 1799 between the French army of Napoleon and Russian forces.

On Sundays this parking lot is also the gathering place of members of the Swiss Touring Club. You will then find numbers of motor bikers enjoying the views. Vendors sell warm sausages and other delicacies, whilst tourists play around in the snow next to the road.

Near the summit the khaki-coloured Totensee (the ‘Lake of the Dead’) is to be seen to the right. The name was given after the massive slaughter which took place here when the Austrian troops defended the pass against the French forces in 1799. From the summit a number of zigzags takes the route down to the valley of the Rhône, where it meets Route 19 at the fork at Gletsch, from where the last stretch leads back to the starting point, Brigg.

The Simplon pass: Whilst in Brigg it is well worth traveling up the Simplon pass. It was constructed on Napoleon’s orders between 1800 and 1808, as the shortest route between Switzerland and northern Italy. At one time more than 30 000 men were employed in its construction. Today the road offers a tremendous scenic experience. It winds its way upwards (maximum gradient 13%) through numerous tunnels, under protective galleries and across marvelously engineered bridges, like the Ganter Bridge, 678m long, supported by two huge concrete piers.
 

A number of high mountain peaks (Glishorn, 2525m, Waserhorn, 3246m and Fletschhorn, 3993m) tower to the left and right of the pass. At the summit (2005m) two small hotels will be encountered, namely the Hotel Bellevue, and the Simplon-Blick. A large stone eagle on a mound, erected to commemorate the manning of the frontier by the Swiss troops during the Second World War is to be seen next to the road. Should you decide to have an overnight stay for the night at the Simplon-Blick, the following morning it is quite an imposing sight to see, from your hotel room this statue gradually becoming visible as the dense mist slowly dissipates. From here the road gradually winds down to the border post at the Swiss-Italian frontier.

Other options: Should you decide not to experience these passes all the way by car, there are different alternatives to consider, of which the Swiss Railway System offers enticing options. An excellent value-add is a Swiss Pass, enabling a tourist to travel on its extensive, comfortable and highly efficient train network. The Furka Steam Railway, for example, offers a delightful trip back to the days when travel was less urgent but infinitely more picturesque. The romantic and historic train puffs and hisses its way via the Rhone Glacier to Realp through a winding and torturous route with many tunnels, bridges and precipitous cliffs.

The Swiss Pass also enables you to travel on the Swiss tram, boat and bus system.

But as I said at the beginning: a self-drive tour is for me the most rewarding, since you can stop where you want, savouring beautiful scenery for as long as you wish.

- Manie Wolvaardt

Travel Information:

Snippets

SA EXPRESS - MORE FLIGHTS
AS A RESULT OF AN INCREASED DEMAND FOR FLIGHTS AND IN LINE WITH THEIR STRATEGY TO OFFER SEAMLESS TRAVEL BETWEEN ITS REGIONAL HUBS, SOUTH AFRICAN EXPRESS AIRWAYS (SAX) HAS INCREASED ITS SERVICES BETWEEN JOHANNESBURG AND BLOEMFONTEIN. THEY HAVE ALSO INCREASED THEIR FLIGHTS FROM JOHANNESBURG TO BLOEMFONTEIN BY 5 FLIGHTS A WEEK, THUS TAKING THE NUMBER OF FLIGHTS TO SOUTH AFRICA’S JUDICIAL CAPITAL FROM 43 TO 48 FLIGHTS PER WEEK.

SAA START CODE SHARE FLIGHTS TO WASHINGTON, HONG KONG & BANGKOK
FROM 1 JULY 2005 SAA WILL BEGIN THEIR FIRST CODE-SHARE FLIGHTS FROM JOHANNESBURG VIA ACCRA IN GHANA TO WASHINGTON AS WELL AS THE JOHANNESBURG-HONG KONG ROUTE AND FROM THERE ONTO SEOEL. LATER THIS YEAR SAA WILL ALSO FLY FROM JOHANESBURG TO BANGKOK.

EUROPE BY AIR PASS
AERO FLIGHT HAS JOINED THE EUROPEBYAIR FLIGHT PASS PROGRAMME, BILL WOLF, PRESIDENT OF EUROPEBYAIR, STATES, “AERO FLIGHT’S ROUTES BETWEEN GERMANY AND RUSSIA, ITALY, SPAIN, GREECE AND BOSNIA WILL ALLOW OUR TRAVELLERS TO REACH THE FAR CORNERS OF EUROPE QUICKLY, EASILY AND INEXPENSIVELY. RESERVATIONS FOR AERO FLIGHT’S ROUTES AND THE ROUTES OF THE OTHER 23 PARTICIPATING CARRIERS IN THE EUROPEBYAIR PROGRAMME ARE AVAILABLE FOR U.S. $99 PER PERSON ONE-WAY (PLUS TAX). FOR A LIST OF ALL DESTINATIONS AND NETWORK MAP VISIT www.europebyair.com.
 

Letters from our Customers:

Big Brag

• ”Persi, we had such a wonderful holiday! We did not want to return, especially from Switzerland. Everything was perfect. Thanks!!”
  Delme & Sunette Hurter - Bloemfontein
   

• ”Ons wil net vir Etnique en vir Tessa veral bedank vir 'n uitstekende bespreking en uitstekende diens wat ons ontvang het.  Ons weet as ons met myle bespreek is dit 'n groot ding en Tessa het wonderlik gehelp. Ure op die foon om alles te koördineer en alles het net glad verloop. Ons was 'n week in Berlyn en het  op ons ou voetspore gaan stap en heerlik gkuier en plekke gaan besoek waarvoor daar nie altyd tyd was toe ons daar gewoon het nie. Daarna vir 'n paar dae in die Alpe gaan stap en in Grindelwald, wonderlike akkomodasie gevind. Dit bly darem 'n wonderlike wêreld om in Switzerland te kuier. Die weer was aan ons kant en heerlike sonskynweer vir 5 dae. Nogmaals dankie aan julle en veral aan Tessa wat uit haar pad gegaan het met alles. Sy is 'n groot bate vir julle firma hoor. Beste Groete”
  Bernhardt en Wilma Meyer
   

• ”Hoërskool Sentraal wil u graag bedank vir u bydrae om ‘n vliegtuigkaartjie vir die wêreld bekende pianis, Niel Immelman, te kon finansier. Hierdie oud-Sentraler se optrede saam met die Vrystaat se Simfonie-orkes was ‘n reuse sukses en sal nog lank onthou word deur diegene wat hierdie fantastiese uitvoering kon bywoon. Nogmaal baie dankie vir u ruim bydrae. U kan verseker weet dat dit opreg waardeer word.”
  Annami Smit - Bemarkingsbestuurder : Hoërskool Sentraal
   

• ”Excellent Newsletter!”
  Adv Louis Nel - Corporate Legal Facilitator - Bryanston
   

• ”Well done guys, and very professionally handled re the introduction of the new fee system!
  Michael Jackson - Zebra Crossing Forensic Marketing