At the start of September, industry charity ABTA Lifeline announced the travel industry “tributes” chosen for this year’s Gunger Games.
All Leisure Travel Group chief Roger Allard, Cosmos Tours & Cruises’ Giles Hawke, TTG Media’s Managing Editor Daniel Pearce and our very own, head of travel and leisure, Chris Photi went toe to toe in a “loser gets gunged” challenge.
Each tribute was given a JustGiving page, and by 9pm on 20 September 2016, whichever account raised the most would be the gungee!
Roger Allard came out of the blocks using his Twitter account for the first time since 2011 to encourage donations for Chris’ page. This meant that Chris’ account took a sizeable donations lead. Chris responded in kind, meaning that the competition was soon a two horse race.
Not to be beaten, the WHA team used some interesting Twitter tactics to encourage votes, mocking up a fake video of Roger asking for the public to vote for him!
The competition went down to the wire. At two minutes to 9, it looked as though Roger would be gunged, but at the last moment two sizeable bids from a suspicious sounding “Tatiana” came in! This meant that Chris was beaten, with his account rising to a total of £3,611 compared to Roger’s £1,981.
Over £5,250 was raised for ABTA Lifeline, with a possible £3,000 still to come. During the games Roger promised to double the final amount raised if Chris was dunked!
On 21 September Chris was finally gunged at TTG’s offices in central London. He happily obliged, and so did Roger who took delight in being the one to gunge Chris.
WHA are very proud of our Chief Chris Photi, who was an excellent sport throughout the games, and we want to thank both TTG for organising and promoting the event and also ABTA Lifeline who do so much good work within the travel industry.
Chris being gunged by Roger Allard
Roger Allard, your gunging time will come!!!
For the latest travel industry news visit TTG’s website https://www.ttgmedia.com
For more information on the sterling work carried out by industry charity ABTA Lifeline visit http://www.abtalifeline.org.uk/
All image rights held by TTG
