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For the first time in more than 15 years, Trafalgar was able to do something last week that is going to make selling its 2017 tours much easier: The tour operator made 100% of its 2017 summer Europe and Asia departures definite.
“By this time of year, in a normal year, we might have 75% of the departures [be definite],” said Trafalgar president Paul Wiseman. He added that he has never seen that percentage shift so much in the 16 years he has been with Trafalgar.
But this year it did. Early into 2017, all of Trafalgar’s Europe and Asia vacations are confirmed to depart this summer — circumstances beyond the company’s control notwithstanding — and Wiseman cited several reasons why he feels the company could make that commitment.
“It’s the volume of bookings,” Wiseman said late last month, citing an unusually busy time for Trafalgar’s reservation agents. “It’s a crazy volume of bookings. The call center is basically underwater again today.”
He attributed the jump to the strength of the U.S. dollar, and the resulting attractive costs of tours and low airfares.
“For the first time in my life, I’ve seen people from the call center running down the hallway exclaiming about amazing airfares,” Wiseman said. “They’re all booking [flights] themselves. There have been amazing air deals, and what that does [is] it helps close the sale.”
When it comes to ‘definite’ or ‘guaranteed’ departures — these mean essentially the same thing, that the departure will not be canceled for any reason other than ones beyond the operator’s control — policies vary considerably.
Some, like Trafalgar and the Globus family of brands, launch their brochures with a certain percentage of tours guaranteed to operate. In Trafalgar’s case, they launch with about 20% of their tours marked as definite departures.
Other tour companies, such as G Adventures, guarantee all their tour departures right out of the gate, something that company has been doing since 2013.
For its part, Tauck said the company does not guarantee departures because in the words of Jeremy Palmer, senior vice president for Tauck Land Journeys, it has “frankly been a nonissue for us; our guests don’t ask about it with any real frequency. More than half of our customers are returning Tauck travelers, and we’ve historically operated virtually all of our departures, so we’ve built up a very strong element of trust with our guests.”
But for some tour companies, tours need to be sold to a certain minimum number of passengers to make them financially viable. If only two people book a tour that can accommodate as many as 45 guests it can be a money-losing endeavor to go ahead with the itinerary.
As it gets closer to the departure date if no one else books, the operator might be forced to cancel that departure and offer already-booked passengers the opportunity to join another tour that departs on a different date.
The possibility of that happening is usually explained in the brochure and/or by a travel seller, though it is, of course, a less-than-ideal scenario for all involved.
As bookings come in, however, operators that run their business on this model can start converting more departures to definite or guaranteed. For example, Wiseman said, once a tour is at least 40% filled, it usually shifts into the definite category.
Steve Born, senior vice president of marketing for the Globus family of brands, said that for his company, “the process of converting a departure to guaranteed is both science and art, meaning we don’t have a definite watermark where a departure automatically becomes guaranteed. We start the sales year in the fall, with a significant percentage designated [as guaranteed], and we add as we go. We take into account popularity of the destination, popularity of comparable tours, volume on adjacent dates and recent sales trends to the destination.”
As of the first week of March, the vast majority of the Globus companies’ departures were guaranteed, Born said. He added that all Avalon Waterways and Monograms departures are always guaranteed, and 70% of the company’s 2017 Globus and Cosmos departures were guaranteed at the start of March, a number that grows weekly.
“We have 468 Globus and Cosmos tours with guaranteed dates at this time,” Born said. “In comparison to last year, we have a larger percentage of guaranteed departures for Globus and Cosmos at this point in the year, as passenger volume is up substantially for both brands.”
As for how much product tour operators have out in the market, Wiseman said that Trafalgar kicked off 2017 with about as much capacity as the tour operator had in 2016 but has since been adding inventory to keep up with demand.
For example, capacity had been reduced in France following a softer year there, but it was increased in popular destinations such as Scandinavia, Ireland and Central, Southern and Eastern Europe. And regardless of capacity, all destinations are booking well he said.
“There are just no dog destinations for once,” Wiseman said. “We are on track to beat every year since 2007.”
Sоurсе: travelweekly.com
