Imaginative Surprises through the Manchester Gateway

Each year, over 2 million of your fellow countrymen and women make their way to our shores and believe you me, many of us here in the UK recognise and appreciate what you do to help them to develop their love affair with our country.

Between us, it’s our job to ensure that your customers get the very best out of their UK experience, but things don’t always get off to the best of starts. There's often an Immigration/Customs delay at LHR and LGW, the rush hour traffic into London can be dreadful and with rooms not ready until 2 p.m., the gritty-eyed customers we’ve worked so hard for are feeling decidedly disgruntled and unhappy.

We can offer these anglophiles a much better start by inviting them to fly into the northern gateway of Manchester where they can then park their jetlag in the English countryside before fetching up in London bright eyed, bushy tailed and on GMT a few days later.

If you’ve not checked the airline schedules, you’ll find that there are non-stop flights from Atlanta, Chicago, Newark, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. If you can kick some of the Brits off the returning flights, Virgin Atlantic has direct flights from Las Vegas and Orlando. From any of these U.S. gateways, Manchester’s your next stop.

With airside/kerbside in less than 45 minutes it then takes just over 30 minutes to get to your hotel. If you take a closer look at www.visitmanchester.com you’ll begin to catch the vision of just what’s here for you. It’s one of Britain’s most diverse and cosmopolitan cities and the third most visited destination in the UK. The hotel stock is impressive, the menu of restaurants is long and very tasty and the shopping never fails to impress. With over 60 museums and art galleries across Greater Manchester, there’s no shortage of fascinating places to see and things to do.

Take the online course manchester-master.com and impress your customers by your in-depth knowledge of the area and how you can make their traveling a great deal easier and even more enjoyable.

For those who are uneasy about driving on the wrong side of the road, you can either use a knowledgeable and entertaining local driver guide or hop on trains for some memorable travel, plus see more value-added programs that include:

Liverpool, Home of the Beatles

I have a hunch that you might be a Beatles fan. I also think that you could put together a list of clients and friends who share your love of the Fab Four. Fly them into Manchester for a customized, easy-paced tour that includes the Beatles Story www.beatlesstory.com the Cavern Club www.cavernclub.org the childhood homes of John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney, the Magical Mystery Bus tour www.cavernclub.org/beatles-tours and the Casbah Coffee Club www.petebest.com/casbah-coffee-club.aspx where the story really started. The overnight base? The Hard Days Night Hotel of course! Then it’s a train ride to London for a Rock ‘n’ Roll tour, an evening at the theatre and plenty of time for shopping. Into Manchester, out of London — it really couldn’t be easier.

Celts, Romans and Vikings

This seven-nighter brings together Roman Chester and Viking York, but it opens with some Celtic encounters in the North Wales mountains of Snowdonia www.visitwales.com/explore/north-wales with leisurely visits to the 12th century castles at Caernarfon and Conwy, the Italianate village at Portmeirion, a ride on one of the Great Little Trains and the breath-taking garden at Bodnant. The walking tour in Chester www.visitchester.com can be led by a Roman Centurion, and shoppers will be ecstatic as they meander around the galleried, medieval streets. The Viking theme comes alive in York www.visityork.org where you can also follow a mouth-watering wander along the city’s Chocolate Trail, check out the latest colourful exhibition at the York Quilt Museum, (unique in Britain) and finish with a Fish and Chip supper and the famous Ghost Tour. It’s then just a two-hour train ride to London for the rest of their holiday.

Girls’ Getaway With a Twist

Use the Manchester Gateway to access the ancient city of Chester www.visitchester.com. It has been offering retail therapy to visitors since it developed as a bustling market town in the Middle Ages. It then created the unique double deck galleries, known as the Rows, giving visitors stores at street level with steps to another tier of shops above — undercover heaven! Fly in on a Wednesday and stay until Friday morning and then take the train to London for a few hours in Harrods and much of Saturday at Portobello Road Market. Finish with an evening at the West End musical of your choice and fly home on Sunday with a really good four-nighter behind you.