Prologue
There is gossiping on the bus and in the hotels: he does not wear a Rolex. Let them. I am the last tour director to buy a Rolex. Such an ugly watch.
But: life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.
I am doing a European tour, and on that tour there is also an Asian couple with two children. I sell excursions, and on one of those excursions we go to Monaco. We are staying in an affordable hotel in Nice, and for the evening excursion we go back and forth. The customers get a chance to play in the casino. And I say: ‘I will take you to an unreal world.’ The Bentleys and Rolls-Royces are on the left at Café de Paris, the Lamborghinis and Lotuses are on the other side. You park your car together with the same kind.
The Asian couple comes up to me: ‘Benjamin, this is not unreal, it’s like at home.’ I respond a bit pedantically: ‘You wish, you wish.’ The man shows me a few photos. They have eleven cars: three Bentleys, a Rolls, a Lamborghini, two Porsches. The smallest is a Mercedes 500 SEL.
Very ordinary people. Their children, aged 9 and 10, are well-behaved. Not spoiled at all. As a Flemish person, I can appreciate that. ‘Mama, can I have a Coca-Cola?’ ‘No.’ And a little later: ‘Okay, you get one Coca-Cola… to share.’ Everyone in the group wants to take those children on their lap and adopt them. They are from Malaysia and they live in Australia. ‘I am just the dentist,’ the husband apologizes, ‘she is the moneymaker.’
She sells high-end properties on the Chinese market and speaks Chinese, Korean and Malay. Nothing under ten million dollars. Depending on the deal, she gets seven to twelve percent commission on her sales. The lady is constantly online in the backseat of the bus. We have arranged it thus at her request. She yells: ‘Champagne tonight! 335K.’
The first stop is in Innsbruck, where we go to Swarovski in the Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, obviously. She gets back to the bus and she presents me with a gift. A black crystal bracelet. I know all the prices at Swarovski: that one is 230 euros. ‘I have a little gift for you.’ ‘No, no, for God’s sake, this is too much,’ I answer, because I have seen the faces of her fellow bus mates. If she is giving this to the guide already, what are we supposed to give him? She realizes her slip up. ‘Sorry, Benjamin, I will give it to you later, discreetly.’
She buys, and she buys and she buys. ‘Ben, go back, go back to the store,’ she whispers to me. As we bring in so many new clients to their stores, obviously you can make good deals as a tour director. I feign: ‘No, no.’ ‘Yes, yes, we bought enough.’ ‘Okay.’
‘This is the tour of our lives,’ I tell our bus driver Stefano. ‘But we can’t share it with our colleagues, because it might lead to jealousy.’ They buy the most expensive watches at Bucherer in Lucerne. As our clients are loyal visitors to these high-end stores, they often hold promotion campaigns for the tourist industry. That week they offer a super deal for tour directors: for nearly half the price I can now buy a Rolex watch.
And that’s what I do.
In those days I spent several months a year in Argentina and planned to sell my watch in Buenos Aires. Brand new, out of the box, bought in Switzerland. But I never did. I wear it almost every day now. From a Rolex-hater, I became a Rolex-lover.
Since that tour, I notice how my Rolex does something to my tour guests. They recognize the watch. Respect, you’ve made it. With a Swatch on my wrist, tour clients take a different attitude. I play along, but I wish people would not judge the book by its cover.
On a low-budget tour, it’s risky to wear the Rolex. You must never stand out. Besides: why should we still tip you; you seem to have everything already?
This Malaysian woman collected Hermès bags. I have learned a lot from her. You can only buy one bag per store. That is how they want to preserve the exclusivity of their bags. And also, only one scarf. She said: ‘In each town my husband and the kids will do the city tour and I will go to the Hermès store. Point them out and I will do my shopping.’
I put all the Hermès stores in the program. The first one is in Vienna. And there she comes out of the store, with that beautiful orange Hermès bag in her hand, with a bag and a scarf inside. Eight thousand euros for a bag and four thousand for a scarf.
I had to play it well: first that bracelet from Swarovski and now the Hermès bag. I scream: ‘Oh my god, Hermès, we want to see it!’ I had to get the bus on board. Our profession revolves around group dynamics. Jealousy ruins the atmosphere. Her shopping extravaganza had to be the delight of the whole bus. She understood that perfectly, and thus is became our bash.
She was very rich, but she had the ability to empathize with others. I started calling the tour The Hermès Tour, and everyone on the bus took that on. ‘Which bag are you going to buy?’, they ask excitedly. Some skip the city tour and go shopping with her. Not to buy for themselves, but to see her buy. For dinners, she lends her bags to the group. ‘Can I use the green one for tonight’s dinner?’ The group had become one.
I knew what would happen at the end of the tour in Paris. A pricey perfume, Terre d’Hermès, had just hit the market. ‘We will get it as a farewell gift, along with an envelope’, I say to Stefano the driver. Just you wait and see. I was proven right.
The Hermès Tour was unforgettable. Everyone had to leave with an unforgettable bang, at our expense. I called the office of cruise company Les Vedettes de Paris for a boat. The blinking lights of the Eiffel Tower were new back then. The lights would go on at ten in the evening, not for too long, only for three minutes.’
We depart on a boat and I tell the captain to be at the Eiffel Tower just before ten. Champagne for everyone, on our tab. The lights go on, we raise our glasses, and the whole group starts crying. Bye, bye. The Malaysian lady says: ‘You’re not going to pay for the champagne, we will.’
If I ever knock on their door in Australia, I am certain they will welcome me in with open arms. I gave them an unforgettable tour, and they gave me one. These people were extremely wealthy, but they hadn’t become unbearable and could enjoy the moment.
This brings me to an important life lesson. Sometimes you get those from particularly banal situations.
Before I did tours through Europe, I worked for Alpha Animation of Jetair, one of the biggest tour operators at the time in Belgium. I was hired by Annemie Brackx, the daughter of founder Gerard Brackx. Her friend Julie was invited to a golf event in Portugal with some rich folks. ‘I don’t have shoes for it,’ said Julie. She was crazy about shoes, expensive ones like Christian Louboutin. I am no golfer, but I can appreciate a good pair of shoes.
We fly with a Sobelair plane to Barcelona to buy golf shoes there. Since we are staff, we sit in the front of the plane. The stewardess knows Julie. ‘How are you? What would you like to drink?’ Julie hesitates. What should I drink? ‘Ah, a coupke’ (a glass of champagne in Flemish). I look at her and I say: ‘But Julie, what’s that? You always drink a coupke.’ She grabs me by the arm and she says: ‘Never forget where you come from. Do everything as if it is the first time.’
That reprimand hit me. Julie was right. The glass you drank yesterday no longer matters. The glasses that will come do not exist, and they may not come at all. The glass you drink nów is special. Live in the moment. You never know what tomorrow may bring.
At the start of every tour, I therefore quote Forrest Gump: ‘My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’ And then I say: ‘His mother made a mistake: Life is like a box of Belgian chocolates.’
That’s where I come from, just like my mom: from Belgium, from East Flanders. I am from the dockworker’s neighborhood in Ghent.