D. How Tour Company Pros Design Tour Packages with 'free time' segments?
... and why you should care?
Designing an exciting & worthwhile Large Bus Tour package at a profitable and afordable price is very time-consuming, meticulus process done by ravel professionals whose reputations & guest satisfaction are crucial.
YOU just book a package & show up on time. 😀
Anecdote: Itinerary creation: I know how time consuiming & difficult itinerary creation is because I have done it many times.
As a solo, independent traveler, I researched & planned 1 month for every month I ACTUALLY traveled. Often times I created detailed 2-3 month long trip itineraries for 1-4 countries at a time, many cities, & hundreds of sites & activities and all my logistics. I easily invested 6 hrs of planning for every day of travel, Foreign Travel Itineraries
So, again, … Why should you care? Understanding how a Tour Designer balances competing tour objectives will show you how to easily design your own simple & effective 'free-time' itinerary.
1. Carefully crafted mix of Characteristic variables:
Large BusTours range between fast paced, max bang-for-the-buck road races to a vast array of more relaxed itineraries. For business reasons as well as tourist demands, many packages include 'free time' segments. I'll focus here on 'free time' tours.
All tour packages are designed to achieve an array of tourist goals in a complex mix of intineray characteristics including a chunk of 'free time' segments.
s.
Tour Characteristics:
a. Site & Activities: Most large bus tour packages are designed to appeal to a variety of specific tourist goals usually centered around a geographical area (Tuscany, Italy) or themes (Douro Valley's wine region east of Porto, Portugal.)
Example: Intrepid Travel's "Portugal Real Food Adventure, featuring Galicia" : "Uncover the flavours of Portugal on this seven-day adventure full of delicious bites, local wines and age-old culinary traditions" etc., etc,.etc.
Start: Porto, Portugal. End: Lisbon, Portugal
b. Pace: Large Bus Tours range from break-neck road races from site to site, packing in as many sites & activities as possible for the time & dollars allocated TO the more relaxed, comfortable pace seeking as immersive experience as possible in the time alloted: more relaxed guide conversations & indepth commentary.
Kruja Castle's (Albania) impromptu guide
c. Dining & hotel quality: range from welcoming 4 Star to modest B&Bs to antiseptic large hotels often on less rexpensive outskirts of a town.
d. Transport: High end luxurious tour buses and various sized & mode of transport that can park large tour buses & accomodate their numerous guests. Smaller convyeances when appropriate & feasible:.
Anecdote: S Vietnam's Mekong Delta tour
e. Optional Excursions: highly curated for safety, skilled guide & variety of sites & activities
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2. Research & Test the Tour Package’s Design. Once the ideal large Bus Tour package is roughly designed it must be thoroughly researched & tested on the road, so to speak. Transport routes, schedules & accessible site parking, restaurants tested for quality of ambiance & food, hotels reconnoitered for bus & luggage accessibility & amenities, and guide’s professionalism…. so your tour’s execution is smooth and professional.
You DO NOT have to do that because you are only choosing a Loacal Excursion to FILL your 'free time' segments. The tour you choose, like other large tour copanies will have done all the haevy itinerary & logistic work. You just habve tp choose the best & most ideal for you. You cant't really do that
Anecdote: St. Petersburg ‘cruise’ restaurant: A Cruise Ship's Shore Excursion’s restaurant served a horrible fish dish. Vast majority of 60 guests left it untouched. Cruise company should have vetted Shore Excursion restaurant better. I would never trust either again.
Also, each newly designed tour must compete with the company’s other tours AND more importantly, with the hundreds of other companies' tour offerings. An extremely complex task.
You DO NOT have to do that because you are only choosing a Loacal Excursion to FILL your 'free time' segments. The tour you choose, like other large tour copanies will have done all the haevy itinerary & logistic work. You just habve tp choose the best & most ideal for you. You cant't really do that
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