Welcome back to Heidi, Arja, Hans, Tuija and Miia from Finland. our 1000th booking at Flats in Luxor, Egypt. Established in 2003 Flats in Luxor now has 1000 satisfied clients from all over the world who have used its accommodation or gone on its tours.
Luxor, Egypt (PRWEB) August 5, 2008 -- Flats in Luxor welcomes its 1000th tourist since its formation in 2003
The 1000th guests are Heidi, Arja, Hans, Tuija and Miia from Finland, who have booked tours of Luxor for the 4th year running. As members of the Finish Egyptology Society their requirements for tours are not run of the mill.
They said 'We found Jane through the blog she writes in Tour Egypt. It was very easy to contact her on her website www.flatsinluxor.co.uk and book trips by internet.
The beauty of her, that you can choose yourself the sites you want to see and a schedule it as well. And there are a lot of sites from which to choose from.
Jane makes you feel welcome and her humour is over the top! But she´s also a true professional in what she do. You get tours so intensive and individual, and no one explains the sites like her.
We respect and rely on her and when we get home to Finland, we miss her a lot every time. But we can always comfort ourselves, that we will see her again next year.'
They are typical of the kind of guests that use the services of Flats in Luxor for either tours, accommodation or both, they want to get away from the standard offering, be more independent, have a more in depth look at the history and get underneath the surface of the Egyptian culture. Jane Akshar of Flats in Luxor was delighted to oblige and looks forward to welcoming her favourite Finns back to Luxor.
Flats in Luxor was founded in 2003 by Jane Akshar and Mahmoud Jahlan, their mission to provide high quality flats or apartments for the tourist market and to enable them to enjoy a unique and individual tour of this fascinating and historic country.
Having rented a flat in Luxor, Egypt themselves and been disappointed by the standards of cleanliness and lack of facilities they perceived a demand for Western standard flats in Luxor. For both those guests and those staying in hotels they also provide guided tours and all aspects of holidaying in Egypt.
Jane was a computer specialist by background and an Egyptologist of 40 years. She utilised her IT contacts to set up a professional website with availability calendar and booking database. Jane says 'I was over the moon when I found the domain name FlatsinLuxor was available. However I wished I had realised that Americans have no idea what a flat is. They would call it an apartment and being as our market is international this often leads to confusion.'
Although Jane has plenty of IT, sales and marketing experience she had never worked in tourism before. That was Mahmoud's side of the business, as a local he had worked with tourists in Luxor since he was young, knew everything there was to know and had all the contacts. The internet was an ideal medium for their business and utilising her Egyptology expertise Jane built up a dedicated following in the online Egyptology community which she used to publicise their business.
Jane goes on 'Mahmoud taught me everything about tourist, tourism and renting flats. We made a few mistakes at the beginning, the flats today are not the same as those early days and the swimming pool came later but everyone was supportive of the business. We still have repeat bookings from those early guests and we are in touch with many of them.
Heidi and her party are typical of our guests, coming back year after year and recommending friends. We have a Belgium group who come with their friends and family and rent several flats, a retired Australian couple who come every spring for month, a British man, keen Egyptologiust, who spends his winters here and finally an American working in Cairo who has sent dozens of his colleagues here as well as staying three times himself. They are all like family.'
The first business success was becoming part of Tour Egypt which is the premier tourism website about Egypt. That relationship is as strong as ever and Jane writes a blog www.luxornews.net on the Tour Egypt website with over 3,500 unique visitors a day.
Then after petitioning by many of their satisfied guests the Lonely Planet inspected the flats and included it in their guide book, the Rough Guide followed and most recently Responsible Travel approved them as Luxor's only 'Green' accommodation. They feature regularly in Trip Advisor both for accommodation and tours.
Now some 5 years later their company Flats in Luxor Group, which is registered in Egypt, have 4 apartment blocks with 21 flats some in development, some sold but the majority are available for holiday rentals. Their tours which include the more remote places in Egypt like Amarna, safaris in the Western desert, are exciting and unusual. They even offer sailing holidays on traditional feluccas. www.sailthenile.com
Mahmoud says 'To have reached 1000 guests is an important stage in our business. But we have even more plans for the future; especially green and eco friendly offerings, it is an exciting time for us.'
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