Having run a small business for 35 years, I have always made my own travel arrangements when going overseas to trade shows, visiting suppliers etc and in honesty, I had the misconception that using an external company such as Travel Counsellors would be an unnecessary expense and also a risk not understanding my requirements...well...how wrong I was..! Firstly, I would like to thank Cath my Travel Counsellor who went above and beyond to arrange a recent business trip to China for myself and 3 members of staff. The reason I asked TC to arrange this trip was that I simply didn't have the time to organise it myself. Cath organised everything from arriving at Manchester Airport to flying to Beijing to the private transfer to Beijing South to catch the bullet train to Jinan (including train tickets), to hotel accommodations and transfer to Quingdao, to fly back to Beijing to catch our flight back to Manchester. Despite my apprehension in handing over my travel arrangements, Cath was an absolute superstar using her knowledge and resources and making this a very smooth and well organised trip. We even had an app from TC which we all had our travel arrangements, including flight details, hotels, train details etc and 24 hour contact in the event of any issues. This proved invaluable when Cath noticed our flight from Quingdao to Beijing had been delayed by several hours which would have meant us missing our flight back to Manchester, we were booked on a slightly earlier flight which made sure we caught our flight home. In honesty, I cannot understand why I haven't used TC before but from my experience, I don't see the point of making any of my own arrangements in future, I will simply contact Cath at TC. Also, in honesty, despite this phenomenal service, I really don't believe it cost any more than if I had arranged it myself.