A BOOM in armchair holiday bookings saw staff at a busy call centre deal with more than 20,000 inquiries over the Christmas break.

Connections Plus in Burnley handled a deluge of calls in response to holiday firm adverts for brochures for the summer season screened between Christmas and New Year.

"While the convenience of making a booking and requesting information is a great boon for the consumer, it does mean that someone has to be be at work to respond to these requests," said Jan Downie, managing director of Connections Plus.

The firm encouraged staff to don Hawaiian shorts and bikinis to get them in the right mood.

"By creating the tropical mood we hope we can give out callers a better service and compensate for staff working during then Christmas break."

Connections Plus offers a range of telemarketing services including emergency phone call overflow facilities when customer's switchboards can't cope at busy periods.

The company was recently relaunched with a £1 million investment by new owners Guernsey-based Oxygen Investment and Management.

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