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Summer News 2002
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As usual we are planning new stuff for 2003, and we are already out and about collecting and researching - Neil is off on a big 8-week trip checking EVERYTHING for the 2003 brochure!
As we were writing this, a huge piece of mainstream prime-time British TV exposure was being filmed about our Trans-Sib trips! We are going to be stars... but we can't reveal the full details yet! Watch for us in the Autumn/Winter TV Schedules, though....
... and as if that was not enough we have also been active shooting our OWN videos of both the Trans-Siberian Express trips and our Beetroot Bus trips. The Trans-Sib video is already done and at the editing stage, the Beetroot Trip will be shooting imminently. Both videos are going to be available in cd-rom format alongside our 2003 brochures, from approx Dec 2002 onwards, and lower-resolution highlights will be available on our websites. Everyone who's seen the Trans-Sib one agrees it's a super bit of filming! Congrats to Hilary and her production team!
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New Extra Staff
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We're delighted to welcome two extra members of staff.
Brenda has joined us in London, and will be helping you book your trips before you go. Brenda's already been to Russia twice, is going again soon, and joins us with a wealth of experience from another well-known Tour Operator. Katya has joined us in the Moscow office, and is working away on ensuring that everything is ready for your trip when you finally arrive, as well as making our Beetroot Bus bookings directly. She joins Lera in our Moscow office, which is also where Managing Director Neil is based.
Odette Fussey has now become Marketing Director at Russia Experience.
LAM Journalist Jeremy Head went on one of our trips recently, organised by our great London-based agents Global Village (see the item below). He's writing-up his trip in LAM, but for those of you outside the London area, you can see his great pieces on the Net too. The latest has stirring tales of bravado and an encounter with Russian low-life, and you can read it at http://www.lam-online.com/travel/travelfeatures/moscow%20to%20asia2.htm
We got a rash of stories about our trips in the UK media, notably:
and a nice article in the Sunday Times which mysteriously didn't make it onto their website :-(
and whilst we didn't get into theGuardian, they at least said this website was "Well-constructed, visually impressive and packed with information about unusual trips". :-) Which came as a complete surprise to us, since we do it on the kitchen table.....
Around half our visitors find us from Search Engines. And we can find-out what you were looking for when you searched! (In case you think we are being very "nosey" - ALL sites can do this! but we are just honest-enough to tell you!). We do this to find-out how successful we've been at making our site pop-up into Search Engine Results. And we can tell you that this week, nearly 50% of Search Engine visitors used "Trans-Siberian" or some, errr, mis-spelling of that (!) to get here. Others used combinations of that plus "Russia", "tour", "travel" etc.
BUT! There is always a residue of people who got to our site using the STRANGEST search-words! And we don't understand either WHY the Search-Engines served-up THIS site as an answer... OR why they clicked on us to visit, if they were looking for something else entirely! But every week we have a little fun, checking-out what a small minority were looking for! OK, it's no secret that when we registered our website with the Search Engines, we used search-words like "Russia", "Trans-Siberian", "Moscow", "St Petersburg" etc. But then we get visitors who (this week) were looking for:
but undoubtedly the most outstanding search-request must be this man, using Yahoo! and combining his requirements using their "plus" option:
More of this next issue - please keep sending-in those requests to Search Engines! :-)
2001 was our first year exhibiting at the Daily Telegraph show, which was great! Over a 1000 people came by our stand, including lots of ex-passengers dropping by to say hello - one even recognised himself on one of our posters! Neil gave a Trans-Siberian talk - the highlight was the slide-projector eating the slide of Ekaterinburg Cathedral, after which Neil explained you'd have to imagine we were "in one of the Trans-Siberian's long tunnels" for most of the rest of the talk! Luckily a technician fixed things in time for us to show the slides quickly at the end, before everyone downed a shot of real Russian vodka!
Thanks to everyone who came along to see us! Those who came got to meet Jo, Colette and Marina from the London office, and Neil and Lena from the Moscow end of things :-)
Wow, it was our busiest summer ever! (see below). So we have not had a lot of time to update the News page much. However, here are some new pics of the Beetroot-Bus trips, and more stuff to come....
In 2000, we had more clients than ever before! Not only on our famous Trans-Sib trips, but also on our new micro-bus service around Western Russia, Beetroot Bus!
Thanks for visiting our site!
More On-Line Coverage of our Trips!
Russia Experience in the media
The Independent
although for some strange reason the link to us isn't clickable, although it is to the other travel companies they mention :-(
"About You"
(it was the final request that it be "free", which added that really "classy" touch in our minds!)
Russia Experience at the Daily Telegraph Adventure Travel Show - Jan 2001
l-r: Colette (London), Neil & Lena P (Moscow), Marina (London)
Old News from 2000More passengers than ever before....
"Russian children's TV heroes Crocodile Gena
and Cheburashka getting on a train...."