When you book travel for a major tournament, you’re putting your trust in a team to look after you.

But what does that look like? What kind of service can you expect?

Following our recent rebrand from Fairway to Forward, we want to highlight some of the things we do to provide our clients with a frictionless travel experience — starting with the Travel Desk.

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From Fairway’s launch in the early 90s through to the 00s, our focus was on sourcing hotels for golf tournaments and creating group flight bookings with airlines.

Back then, all plane tickets were paper-based. So our travel representatives would regularly fly down to London to meet professional golfers and their teams at the airport to hand them out.

They would stay the night and do the same the day after before flying out to the event.

While there, they’d take enquiries and bookings for future events and manage the cut, getting those that missed it home early. This was the case for both the main European Tour and Challenge Tour — the events we continue to work with to this day.

A few years later, in 2008, advances in digital technology meant there were more opportunities than ever before to provide services remotely.

But there was something special about seeing our clients face-to-face, shaking their hands, getting to know them and being there if and when they needed us.

That’s when the idea for the Travel Desk was born — an inside the ropes fixture at major tournaments, ready to answer questions and book travel at a moment’s notice.

The first one was at the European Open at the London Club in Kent and operated by two of our long-time colleagues Mark and Paul.

14 years on, now under the Forward name, the Travel Desk remains an important part of our offering. No other professional sports travel team in golf provides this type of service and it gives our clients confidence that they’re placing their trust with the right team.

It’s proven to be an invaluable part of the service. Our on-site representatives are adaptable, as hours from Friday onwards can change due to weather delays amongst other things. And they remain contactable outside of the desk hours.

The Travel Desk is only one part of our proposition — our business travel team is on hand to look after clients via calls and digital tools before, during and after events.

But we’re proud to say the most personal part of our service is here to stay.