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New Delhi: Planning a holiday? Should you take a package tour and leave the planning and execution hassles to your tour operator or plan you own vacation as you want. Shalini Amarnani weighs the pros and cons.
Have you been dreaming about Europe? You want to take that vacation that you have been planning since your college days. Should you take a package tour and leave the planning and execution hassles to your tour operator or plan you own vacation as you want. It is a tough decision to make – so lets look at the options and weigh the pros and cons.
Taking to friends and colleagues who have had a recent vacation leaves one more confused. Every person's experience is different. Your colleague emphatically tells you to take a packaged tour if you want to keep your marriage intact and fights about going to a museum or a pub. Your next door neighbour gives you horror stories about getting up at 6 a.m. to pack and more in a smelly bus to the next city (once more) – 17 cities in 11 days.
What are the options?
An all inclusive package
This is what you see the full page ads about. 'Experience Europe in just Rs 3 lacs for the whole family'. What does the all inclusive package include a return air ticket, visa charges, hotel stay, entry tickets to certain tourist attractions, food (prepared by our Indian Maharaj) and inland travel.
Meher Bhandara, GM Corporate Communications, TCI, explains, "Packaged tours as the name entails is a holiday in which you have a group of people travelling together and seeing various destinations. You normally have a group of around 40-45 people travelling together -catching the same flight, staying in the same hotel, travelling by the same bus while sightseeing".
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What does it offer?
1. The itinerary is fully planned out by the tour operator.
2. The hotels are guaranteed to be of a certain quality since they have been tested out by the tour operators. Also you have a choice of 3-5 star hotels.
3. Because they have tie ups with hotel and they book airline tickets in bulk, this means of travel certainly works out cheaper.
4. One of the main advantages is the food. After eating at McDonalds for 2 days you would kill for a chapatti and some dal fry. In most places finding food to your liking is difficult and often very expensive. Vegetarians especially have a severe problem in Europe. A packaged tour eliminates that problem.
5. Another advantage is there is tour guide with you to show you the best in the limited time you have.
The downside
1. You have to get up at 6 a.m - no exaggerations, every day at 6 a.m. or you will either miss your breakfast or your bus or both.
2. A lot of the best sites entrance prices are not included in the all-inclusive - which you may find out later.
3. You are forced to tolerate a lot of irritating people for a period of 10 –12 days.
4. Most inland travel is by bus (or coach) – fairly uncomfortable for 10-12 hours journey
5. Often the lunch provided will be a packed dry lunch in the same coach.
6. You have no time to explore on your own and experience the country.
Do it yourself holiday
If you are more independent minded and have the extra money to splurge then a customised holiday is the way to go. Travel agents will customise your holiday according to your needs. Several airlines also offer holiday packages with a tie-up with some leading hotels. Usually these are in a theme holiday destination - beaches like Maldavies and Goa or shopping destinations like Dubai and Singapore.
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What does it offer?
1. It gives you the flexibility of setting your own schedules. No getting up at 6 if you don’t want to.
2. Customised holidays are best if you are not a first time traveller and do not feel the need to see 17 countries but instead want explore one or two countries at leisure.
3. You can choose the hotel and airlines of your choice. No need to fly with the matrons of Air India if you want to see those girls in Swiss Airways.
4. You will have a more relaxed pace and will come back refreshed instead of exhausted. It’s a private personalised holiday. If you are on your honeymoon you do not want to be surrounded by people. If you a wine enthusiast you can spend a day in France’s vineyards.
The downside
1. It is definitely more expensive. Nagsri Prasad Sashidhar Manager - Leisure Travel (F.I.T Product Development) Thomas Cook (India) Limited says, "you could say that the do it yourself holiday could be higher by say 15 per cent – 20 per cent as the case may be".
2. You may get bored with your own (or your wife’s company) - remember the marital spat.
3. Food can be a serious problem. Only the adventurous palette can survive the onslaught.
4. You may have some nasty surprises with hotels and travel arrangements that you have seen over the net but are quite different from the reality.
What they experts are saying
Meher Bhandara - GM Corporate Communications, TCI.
1. A group there is economy of scale and the cost is cheaper by 10-15 per cent as compared to a FIT tour.
2. The negative attribute is the packages are not flexible in terms of sightseeing, hotels, food or for that matter airline as everything is decided in advance.
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3. Normally packaged tours are gruelling as a typical day starts at 7 am and the holiday seekers are rushed through the various sightseeing destinations without any breather (except lunch).
4. The Indian tourism industry is heavily skewed in favour of FIT holidays as compared to Group tour, which is also a worldwide phenomenon
Nagsri Prasad Sashidhar, Manager - Leisure Travel (F.I.T Product Development) Thomas Cook (India) Limited
1. A group tour is mainly designed for a first time traveller, people and place where you are unsure of the language, you are on a budget, have a time constraint.
2. A person looking at a tailor made holiday is one who is on their honeymoon, mature traveller, looking at a relaxed at your pace holiday and has more time in hand.
3. In some cases the price could also be brought down in a Self planned holiday by choosing cheaper hotels and eating meals with a budget.
The author is a freelancer.
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