Dear Ernest, Hope also the last day of the congress went well. We would like to thank you for the opportunity to attend the congress, it was a great and useful experience for us! I would also like to ask you by when we could receive the final invoices for the three of us? Thank you in advance and wish you a good start of the week. Best regards from Lithuania, Ieva – Lithuania Travel
Dear Ernest, Thank you very much for a useful and rewarding congress. From personal experience, we know just how much work is involved in preparing and running such a complex event for so many people from so many places. Your staff, the exposition vendors, the coach drivers, the visit location staff, and the meal providers were excellent. The Legend Hotel and its friendly staff were faultless. The other delegates provided a rich mix of contacts and information. All these helped to ensure we gathered plenty of material and possibilities for the future. For further congresses, we would suggest: • A slightly less ambitious itinerary and timetable. • Lecturers and sellers to be more focused verbally and visually on key facts and unique selling points, avoiding repetition. • Possibly a city-periphery hotel(s) location to avoid some of Kraków’s heavy traffic. • Perhaps a widening out to a non-Catholic site, or to the increasing market for spiritual renewal and retreats, if this exists in Poland. Siiri expects to provide an article for Reisimaailm (Travel World) in Estonia, particularly as this is a subject little covered there at present. Nigel will contribute information about the Congress and Polish pilgrimage sites to the British religious press. We shall let you have English-language copies, when they are available. We were sorry to have only the briefest contact with you during the Congress, but realised how busy you were. We wish you and all at Ernesto Travel the very best for the future. Siiri Merila and Nigel Kelly
Good day, Ernest, Thank you so much for your gracious hospitality and generous invitation to the ICORTAP conference in Poland! I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Poland. The Q Hotel Plus was wonderful and convenient. I enjoyed my walks back and forth to Old Town. The visits to the Holy Sites were invaluable to me and will help me going forward with my groups. Lynn and I enjoyed our last night together over dinner and the wonderful Classical Music Concert at Sts. Peter and Paul! What a great way to end our stay in Krakow. I look forward to working with you and your office staff in the future. Best regards, Evelyn P.S. I know you were looking for feedback on the conference. My only suggestion would be for the presenters to have more slides of their destinations, and not so many statistics. Also, as I was travelling as a single, it might be nice the first night, to invite the solo travelers to perhaps dine together. I felt a bit disconnected at the start of the conference until I met Lynn and Natalia.
Здравствуйте, Эрнест! Еще раз хочу поблагодарить за отличную организацию Конгресса, за прием и внимание. Все было на высшем уровне. Думаю, что наша встреча не последняя и надеюсь на дальнейшее сотрудничество. Приглашаем Вас с женой приехать в Украину, и в Киев в частности. P.S. И пару фотографий на тему "Все отдыхают - они работают") Natalia
Dear Ernest, Good Day , trust my email finds you well. I want to thank you for all the hard work done to make the congress successful, for the good arrangement & organization. Hope you had a successful trip as well to Portuga and Spain. Regarding the our feedback for the congress: • Organization : Well done. • Meeting & updates: well done. • Hotels: we Stayed at Q Plus Hotel , actually not in the centre but not too far from The town. But the hotel will not be suitable for Lebanese people as a 4 * Hotel & we cannot offer it to our clients as it is not centrally locate and the amenities are not good: no tissues in the room, no water on daily basis, no slippers & no toothbrush, no toothpaste, all rooms are served with Twin beds eventhought it was booked 1 DBL & 2 SGL rooms. • Lectures : NOV.07: maybe the lectures that held in the beginning was too long as it is not too useful for agencies coming abroad to Poland to have the statistics & economic numbers. All the lectures with videos was well presented & very useful. - Regarding the Expo: it was good actullay to meet the local expositors but the 3 hrs was too tiring & long for the small number held especially we had a presentation of their products during the lectures. (One and half hour was more than enough). Even you noticed that we all went out to relax after one hour & waited in the Lectures Hall till depature time at 18:00. We could went to see the Divine Mercy a bit earlier when it was still daylight to check it from outside as well. Regarding the Meals Basis: the Breakfast at Q Plus Hotel was good & acceptable; we have some complaints regarding the below: NOV.07 : was good , dinner at Garden Square Hotel was good with a Buffet choice. NOV.08: Lunch at Hotel Imperiale was not suitable at all actually, there was a very small starter ( Pork choice only). Then the Main dish portion is too small to fit after a tiring day. For these types of groups there should be a open buffet or at least a set menu choice (Me, Kamel & Carmen do not eat Turkey nor meat, nor Pork), so there should be an international meal instead that might suitable others ( like Spaghetti, Pizza or others) with no drinks at all. For Dinner at Karczma restaurant , we did not join. NOV.09: lunch at Dworek Mikolaj was with too limited choice as well for a set menu (soup with Turkey, we asked to have other vegeterian soup, they accepted after a long negotiation to bring us Broccoli soup; the main dish was Troute fish also we eat only Sea Fish & not river fish with no other choice, so we were obliged to eat french fries only). Therefore i need to recheck with you Ernest regarding the meals included for our group as we will face big problem with them if the meals choices & menues will be the same as we had during our trip. As well i need to check with your about the possibility to have a small lecture for Samana Travel to present Pilgrimage in Lebanon during next year Congress that will be held in Poland. As Lebanon is listed by the Vatican this year in the list of countries suitable for Pilgrimage. What are the procedures? Waiting your reply with thanks For any further information do not hesitate to contact me Best Regards, LINA DAEZLY HMAYED
Dear Ernest, I am sorry for taking so long to write to you and say a very big thank you for the event and the given possibility to present Vilnius there. I really liked the congress and I hope to participate there next year. As I mentioned, maybe we could think about organising one of the post tours to Vilnius? But we can talk about it later, as I believe, that your hands are very full now after the congress, so it is just a quick email to say thank you for everything! Also, I am talking with Dagmara and about to book the flights for her. The hotel is already booked and it will be one of the brand new ones Hotel Vilnia: https://hotelvilnia.lt/. Really looking forward to this trip and I hope that next time you can participate there yourself. Thank you again and enjoy your weekend. Augusta
Dear Ernest, Thank you so much, was so interesting all what visited & saw and perfect organization, CONGRATULATIONS, discovered a nice Krakow area and surroundings, you & your team a good partner for Poland. All the best!!! Alexandra ZAMFIR
Hi Ernest, I wish you are well and you recovered your energies after the congress and your trip to Portugal. Thank you so much for your excellent organization and your hospitality. Take care Mariana Delgado
Ernest Thank you so much. I loved it Very well organized and very proud to be the only Brazilian present Many thanks Marilucia
Dear Ernest Many, many thanks again for arranging such a comprehensive event in Poland. I thoroughly enjoy myself, made useful contacts & learned a great deal about the country & about your organisation. The program was very full & apart from some time management issues it all pulled together. Overall the suggestion I would like you to consider is to run the fam trips before the workshop event as that gives an insight into the destination & allows participants to plan & target their meetings. It also allows buyers to get to know each other a little before the final activities in Krakow which makes more detailed conversations easier. I found that you had pulled together a very diverse group of buyers & sellers covering a wide range of interests & needs. Using a mixture of staff & guides did make some things a little more confusing than they needed to be but everyone eventually found the information needed. My personal arrangements worked perfectly, I enjoyed staying at the Legend Hotel (although my room was small for a 4 or 5-night stay) & the location was excellent. My visit to Poland was extended so I could visit Zakopane & the Dunajec Valley & I can see how these combine well with Krakow. Ernest, we will now start working on extending our offerings to Poland for the Australian market & will consider what can be done in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia etc. I will contact you directly if & when we need something further. Many thanks again & VERY well done to you & all the staff involved, it was a pleasure to meet you. Best regards Martyn Paterson
Dear Ernest, I come to you to thank you for the amazing experience we lived during the ICORTAP 2019. It was something I did not quite expect and no doubt exceeded my expectations. Your team work was unbeatable accompanying us always with sympathy and knowledge. Thank you for allowing me to be there with you and learn from you what Poland has to offer and what turism sector has and needs in the near future. For me it was very important to understand what travel agencies look for when they set up travel programs so that we here may better manage what we can offer. Also now I know, whenever people ask me for advice for their travels, where to send them and to whom they should speak with in order to make the most of their time. For now and as I might have wrote to you before, in order to transform the county where I work regarding its religious and cultural heritage, we are planning a 1st congress between the 16th and 19th of may 2020 dedicated to Saint Anthony and, because 18th may 2020 is the celebration of the 100th birthday for Saint John Paul II, also to him. In this congress we what formalize partnerships as well as combine faith with culture, arts with letters, tourism with pilgrimage and reach the largest number of people nationally and internationally. Regardless of that I would like to share something we you that I don’t quite know if you might be interested but anyway… If one of your target market is the senior tourism and if you want them to visit Portugal, especially Fátima and/or Lisbon and the surroudings but at the same time be out of the city and take cared 24/7 and relax and have exclusive custom programs planed for them, text me whenever you feel the need, I have a proposal for you. For my part, I reiterate my appreciation for the experience of ICORTAP and for have enabled me to establish major contacts as with the Peter’s Way Tour by the shrewd and extremely sympathetic Karen Rohrecker. Hope we may keep in touch. It was a pleasure to meet you and your team. Best regards, Sandra Alexandre.
Dear Ernesto, good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to this conference and for giving me the opportunity to present ACISO and our International Workshops on Religious Tourism. We’re also grateful for your time and effort in involving us. We strongly hope this exchange continues to give us a chance to strengthen our relationship, with mutual advantages in working with Religious Tourism. See you in Fátima next March, at the 8th IWRT. Melhores cumprimentos, Pedro Mafra
Hello Ernest, I just returned to the States a few days ago, so I apologize for taking so long to respond. First, I would like to thank you for the tremendous effort you gave to organizing the Congress on Religious Tourism and Pilgrimages. Congratulations on a successful “3rd” Congress! As I shared with Dagmara, I am going to draft a more detailed summary of my experience and the experiences of the guests I brought through Peter’s Way Tours. Please give me a few more days and I’ll be back in touch to share those thoughts. Thank you also for the hospitality so evident in all the members of your team; especially Dominika who we loved! She took very good care of us and I am grateful. I will be in touch again soon. Blessings! Karen
Dear Ernest! Thank you so much for organizing this Workshop! Wish you all the success!!! Hope to see you next year! Melhores Cumprimentos/Best regards/Cordiali saluti/Bien cordialement/Z wyrazami szacunku/Saludos Vânia Campos Sardinha
Hello Miroslaw, Thank you for your mail. We were much happy to be able to participate at the Congress, it was an useful experience. Next year we are planning to organise a pilgrimage on the occasion of the 100 jubilee of the birth of saint John Paul II. Will contact you. We are also looking for companies which are producing devotionalia. We were trying to participate at the Fair in Kielce for several years, but the date in June is very inappropriate. Best regards, Andreja
Hello Ernesto, I am fine, hope that you are OK also. Thanks for your organisation, that was wonderfull.. I hope to be there next year! Have a nice Sunday. Sincerly, Paul
Good AM to u! It was awesome! I love the hotel you put us! Thank you for everything! Nida
Hello Ernest, Thank you for the congress with many intressting news about Poland. Father Josef Scharf
My dear Ernesto! I began a "thank you letter" to write you but have soo much to do that I could not finish it! I must tell you you are really professional!! Everything was super organized, even that we reached Czestochowa in the afternoon so nice lighted, and the mine also in the afternoon not too many people. It was really a perfect tour and I want to offer it in Hungary in that hotel Legend, that is absolutely perfect also with the location! SO will come back to you soon! What is the high season by you? Thank you again! Dora
Hello Ernest, thank you for writing! We had a really great time in Krakow, we are talking very often about it. Everyghing was very well organized and we met a lot of interesting people. Thank you!!! Best regards Marianne
Good evening Ernesto The Congress was awesome. I made many interesting contacts. Thanks for this great organization. Kind regards Guillaume
Hi Ernest, Well received. My pleasure to attend your conference. I look forward to bring our group to Poland in April 2020. Thank you. Best regards, Maria