Saturday, December 5, 2015

جودى و ميرال فى المغرب

بفضل الله قدرنا نجيب جودى و ميرال الى المملكة المغربية فى هذا العام 2015 وقعدوا معانا شهر وشوية مع منال طبعاً 
يا رب دايماً نقدر نخليهم مبسوطين و يشوفوا العالم معانا ونعملهم اللى معرفناش نعمله احنا لما كنا صغيرين


Thursday, December 3, 2015

my experience in Morocco with OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel)

I might have mentioned earlier that I joined the American travel agent (Grand Circle Corporation) in January 2010, if I didn't, then here I am
I started with them as Program Services Coordinator 
worked in Egypt office from January 2010 till January 2012 when the whole office was dismissed because of the unrest of Egypt
then the president of GCCL (Gran Circle Cruise Line) Franco Guirrero was kind enough to give me a job in the fleet of Europe on the ships which I accepted as a NGA (Night Guest Agent) then I was promoted to Step up Assistant Hotel Manager, I worked there from June 2012 till July 2014, through three ships (M/S River Melody - M/S River Aria - M/S River Allegro)

but the event I am talking about started when I was on the River Allegro in Germany and the ex. Regional Manager of Egypt (Ms. Shannon Levi) proposed if I am interested to be back in Program Services field which I immediately accepted because it's the job that I always loved
she said that I will join Morocco Team in transition period of changing the office staff, so I will be a buddy pair to the Program Services Manager till December 2014
I left Germany back to Egypt in August 1, 2014 to start having a visa for Morocco, then I flew to Morocco 1st of September 2014 and met the Program Services Manager
without getting into much details, the Program Services Manager was fired in October 2014 and I was assigned temporarily till the agency finds a Moroccan who fits for the job, along with a Tunisian colleague (Chaker Abichou) who was appointed as an Area Manager
in January 2015 the agency appointed Moroccan (Yassine Aballouche) to be the Area Manager and to reformat the office hierarchy, I kept my position and Chaker was moved down to an Operation Coordinator which was hard for him to deal with and so he was sent back to Tunisia in August 2015
Yassine was kind enough to request that I stay permanently in Morocco as a Program Services Manager and so I am still there
actually I am writing this post from Marrakech (where I live) 

interesting experience that I learnt lots of good staff in it, we managed to move the quality of Morocco from 74% to 81% in the first year and I hope we can reach the highest marks and I can prove my validity of that promotion, who knows what will happen next
(to be continued)  

03/07/2017...Marrakech, here I continue what I started...so we managed to keep 2015 excellence of the region at 81% out of 80% which was our goal, and because of that progress and the money spent in Morocco for investments to keep the business running in Morocco through the main office of OAT in Boston, the supreme management took the decision to move the excellence goal starting 2016 from 80% to 90% and it was a shock for me, 10% points of excellence with a team that is still suffering from formation issues and individuality, to cut it short, we have concentrated - as Morocco Team - to build a strong team that is able to get the excellence and master all situation in addition to sharing all successes and failures and we managed to close the first half of 2016 at 88% which was (-2) from the new goal but we were very proud and unfortunately we dropped in the second half to 87% and closed the year 2016 at 87% which is (-3) from our goal
because of the drop an coaching that was chosen for me, I got the chance for the first time ever soince I started with this agency in 2010 to go visit Boston office in the United States of America in end of October 2016 and for the training done there along 14 program services managers and area managers, I was chosen by Boston associate as the top performer and number 01 among the attendees in terms of values and skills...thanks to aggressive training happened in 2015/2016 by John Martino (my manager at a certain time) and Mehmet Guler (Turkey assist) and of course my dear friend and manager Usama Sokker (the manager of my manager)
this training was helpful to me in all levels
and it was one of the main drives of the strategy I am using with the team in 2017 which kept us so far till today at 98% of excellence, I pray we remain there
of course this score was not only achieved by the guides and myself, but also the remarkable operational and product change done by our Area Manager Yassine Aballouche and our Operation Rachid Dagdougui who joined us in August 2015 after Chakir has gone back to Tunisia

(to be continued)