16d • Community Café
Connection Begins with Curiosity
✈️ I was in Brighton, wandering past a travel agency, when curiosity pulled me inside. I browsed the brochures on the shelf until a young agent approached me — polite, not pushy. She asked where my next holiday would be.
“South Africa,” I replied.
Her eyes lit up. She quickly gathered brochures: Rovos Rail, package tours, a generic catalogue. Then she launched into a pitch about why South Africa is wonderful. But it was all second‑hand — a rehash of what she’d read or heard. I listened politely, but nothing she said connected with me.
Halfway through, her older colleague joined us. He didn’t interrupt. He simply listened. When she tried to hand me the brochures, he asked one simple question:
“When are you going?”
“January,” I said.
“And where?”
That opened the door. I told him: starting in Cape Town, heading to KwaZulu‑Natal, watching turtles hatch and hippos on night walks in St Lucia, visiting family — my daughter and grandchildren — delivering donated cameras to a children’s club in Limpopo, photographing birds and wildlife, camping along the way, and enjoying plenty of braais.
In that moment, he knew my story. One question asked the right way revealed everything.
📖 The Lesson
Selling travel isn’t about brochures or rehearsed facts. It’s about listening. The younger agent tried to tell me about South Africa. The older agent let me tell him about my South Africa.
The difference? Connection.
🌍 The Outcome
I didn’t walk in to buy a holiday. I walked in to see what they offered. But I walked out reminded of this truth: the right question, asked with genuine curiosity, is worth more than a stack of brochures.
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Connection Begins with Curiosity
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