When is it more profitable and cheaper to buy tour packages? In advance, a month or two, or a week before the rest? Early booking or "last minute" tours.

How does a travel agency work. Last Minute Tours, early booking and discounts. October 14th, 2015

In I told, albeit very approximately, how tour operators form prices for tours. Today, although later than promised, I will continue the topic and tell you what the concepts that are often encountered in conversations about tourism mean: "last minute tours", "early booking", "Fortune system".

Early booking.

I have already said that tour operators buy blocks in hotels long before the season starts. For example, already now, in October, programs for the next summer are slowly being formed. At the same time, the tourism business is highly seasonal. Despite the fact that most of the operators work both in summer and in winter destinations, sales in winter are significantly lower than in summer. In order to smooth out seasonality, block numbers are almost always sold at a discounted price. This is called an early booking promotion. At the same time, discounts of 30 - 50 - 70% are declared. In principle, this is how it is, everything is fair, but I mean a discount on the price of the hotel, but for the whole tour. As a result, the difference in price is less. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to save 20 percent on the total tour price.

Most often, there is no deception, closer to the date of departure, prices rise, although anything can happen. Tourists are very offended when they see that their hotel, bought six months ago, has become cheaper before departure. The operator also absolutely does not need the negative, and literally last season a kind of "low price guarantee" began to appear. If a tour to an already purchased hotel is cheaper for some reason, the operator can recalculate it down and refund the difference.
I repeat that such price reductions are still an exception. In my memory, only in a couple of cases did I manage to take advantage of the "guarantee", in the overwhelming majority of cases, the price went up.

In any case, you can always refuse and return money from the operator, although it is not a fact that the hotel will re-confirm the same tourists at a new price. True, if the price has dropped significantly, then nothing prevents you from booking a neighboring one. The return process is not always easy and deserves a separate post, which I will definitely write. For now, just believe that the agency's statements that "the money cannot be returned", or, moreover, the words "operator's penalty" are nothing more than horror stories. What penalty can be imposed on the part of a commercial organization to natural person? Rave.

Summary: early booking is a profitable promotion for tourists. In any case, you can cancel the tour and get your money back if something more interesting appears closer to the trip.

Last minute tours.

Favorite topic of tourists. Particularly pleasing are the questions, for example, at the beginning of autumn: “Pick us something burning on New Year"Or similar.

Let's start with the fact that tourists and employees of the tourist business most often put completely different meanings into the concept of a "hot" tour. Tourists mean a tour for a penny, although in fact, the "last minute" tour is not the cheapest, but the cheapest tour. As for the reasons for this decline, for example, many tourists left at once, or something else. The main thing is that it cannot be predicted in advance. Perhaps there will be a failure in sales, perhaps not. During peak dates, such as New Years or May holidays, nothing will be lit for sure.

Let me illustrate this with an example. We have a section on our website Tour calendar ... The cheapest prices in all directions are collected there. Let's take Egypt from Moscow for the next dates:


The minimum price is 15584 rubles per person.

Now we look Last minute tours.


What do we see? The Regina Aqua Park hotel has fallen in price the most, the price of which has decreased by 8.5 thousand rubles. This is a very good decline, but nevertheless, the usual, not "burning" price turns out to be lower than the "burning" one. Can burn and expensive hotels, sometimes it is realistic to find a hotel with a price list of 300 thousand for 180 thousand or something else, this will also be a "last minute" ticket. But tourists, more often than not, when requesting a "hot tour" mean the lowest possible price.

Nevertheless, it is quite possible to fly away on a "last minute" ticket, if you take into account the following:

• "last minute" vouchers do not exist in advance, they can appear only for the coming dates;


• "last minute" vouchers for the required dates may not be available, on the dates of increased demand they most likely will not be at all;


• the more restrictions, the less chances that a suitable option will be found. For example, catching a “hot” tour to a certain hotel on a fixed date is much more difficult than “next week to Hurghada for 5-7 days no more than 30,000 rubles”;


• speed of decision making is extremely important. There are never many last minute deals, so if you think about a purchase for a long time, then someone more nimble will buy it.

Fortune system.
Often and not quite deservedly, tourists treat Fortune with disdain, but in vain, this is a very interesting and profitable scheme for selling tours, which combines the advantages of early booking and last minute tours. Often and not quite deservedly, tourists treat Fortune with disdain, but in vain.
When buying a tour "fortune", a tourist buys a vacation not in a specific hotel, but in one of the hotels of a given category. For example, 4 * in Sharm el-Sheikh with all-inclusive food. The price is usually very attractive.

How and why is this done?

To begin with, you need to understand that the sale of "hot" tours for the operator is not earnings, but minimization of losses. And if the share of burning people becomes too large, then the entire business of the operator will become unprofitable. And tourists quickly get used to the "last minute" and begin to wait until the last price reduction, which is not conducive to sales at all. On the other hand, some of the rooms purchased by operators in hotels are not for sale, 100% occupancy is an unattainable place. Leaving them completely empty is somehow completely stupid. To combine the incompatible, the sale "by fortune" was invented.

The operator knows with good accuracy what percentage of prepaid rooms, according to statistics, he does not have time to sell at a normal price, but it is very unlikely to guess in which hotels they will remain empty. It is this percentage that goes on sale at the price of last minute, but without specifying the hotel. Several goals are achieved at once: you do not have to fill up the price before departure, you get a guaranteed loading of some of the seats on planes, the loading of hotels improves and becomes more even, but for a tourist - a good price.

Again, let's see an example:

In mid-February, Coral Discount 5 * (the so-called Fortune of Coral Travel) costs 15 thousand less than in the case of a hotel of the same category. A similar picture and 4 *. In addition to Egypt, Fortune operates in Thailand, India and Vietnam, it is found, albeit less often, in European directions.

Summary: in my opinion, those tourists who want to save money on vacation and expect to buy a hot tour, it makes sense to pay attention to Fortune. It will definitely not be worse than the last minute prices and you will not have to catch prices on the eve of the vacation, wondering whether it will be possible to fly away or not.

Finally, about the discounts.
It makes no sense to choose an agency for purchasing a tour solely by the size of the discount, without reference to the price of the tour. An agency can give a discount within its commission (which is about 10% of the cost of the tour), while a competent search among the operators' offers can give a much greater benefit. For such a search, our

What is early booking and does it really help you save money? What are the pros and cons of early booking? Who benefits from it? In this article I will tell you everything in detail and give advice.

This article is for people over 18 years of age.

Have you already turned 18?

Early booking of travel packages is gaining in popularity every year. Travel agencies offer tourists to book a summer tour in winter, and book a trip for the New Year in summer and promise huge discounts. Everyone wants to relax well, but no one wants to overpay for their vacation, and this is quite logical.

What is early booking and who benefits from it

Early booking is booking a tour at least 21 days before departure (usually this is not particularly popular destinations). it special offer with an attractive price and the ability to pay for the tour in several stages. In the tourism business, like any other, everything depends on demand: high demand - high price, low demand — low price... The "winter season" is considered a "low season" in tourism; after the "New Year boom", the tourist market dies down. Of course tourists are resting all year round, many go to warm up, others go skiing or fly to sales in Europe. But still, February and March are months when there is no huge tourist flow. What can you do to "cheer up" the tourist market?

Let's first remember what a tourist package (tour) consists of. The cost of the tour consists of the cost of the accommodation facility (the main part of the tour), air travel, transfer and health insurance... Many Mediterranean hotels work in the negative in winter, and, of course, they need money. Where can I get them? It's simple: hoteliers give good discounts to tour operators, subject to receiving money Here and now. Accordingly, the tourist operator has the opportunity to reduce the price, the tourist will book the tour and pay part of it right now at the "low »Season. Everything is simple enough.

Everyone benefits from early booking, starting with hoteliers who can “survive” the winter: in any case, they will not work at a loss, because the “high season” is ahead, for which they will earn very good money. The travel operator is also satisfied, he still has the opportunity to earn money during the "low season" and be sure that the income will be there. And the tourist gets his discount.

And now about the most important thing: is it really worth running to a travel agency or tour operator in February-March and booking a tour for the summer period? Below are the pros and cons of early booking for a tourist.

Pros of early booking

1. Choosing a convenient flight. In the "high season", the most popular destinations are usually several flights a day. By booking a tour in advance, you can choose a convenient flight and airport of departure (in most cases, you will have to pay extra for specifying a flight). But in the season they fly mostly charter flights, which means, even if you made a specification of the flight, the departure may be postponed.

Advice!If you are addicted to departure times, book your tickets for regular flights - this will help to avoid unpleasant surprises, But regular flights are always more expensive than charter flights.

2. A wide range of accommodation facilities. By booking a tour in advance, you have the opportunity to choose exactly the hotel that you need. This is the most important plus, because the choice is huge, you can choose among thousands of hotels, apartments and villas. You can choose the category of the room you need - this is important when relaxing with a large company or with children. Some tourists prefer to rest from year to year in the same hotel. If choosing a property is a priority for you, then early booking is for you. Indeed, in the "high season" there may simply not be places in the hotel.

3. Tour cost and tour payment. The cost of early booking is lower than in the season (of course, "last minute "Has not been canceled, but they may or may not be, and remember that a" hot tour "is almost always a leftover that could not be sold). The cost of the tour for early booking is fixed in currency (dollar, euro) and is paid at the rate of the tour operator on the day of payment. This means that the cost of the tour will only change depending on changes in the exchange rate. Tour operators pay for the tour in different ways, but most often you first need to pay 50% of the tour cost, then you can pay in installments, and 2 weeks before the start of the tour, the payment must be 100%

4. Planning. Many tourists like to plan everything in advance and know that they will fly to rest on a certain day, to a certain hotel. Booked the tour in February and relaxed until August. During this time, you can plan, for example, excursions of interest. Or if you are flying with one company, but from different cities, then it is very important that the whole company rests in one place at the same time. For many, vacation takes place on fixed dates, and if you do not take care of the tour in advance, then on this day there may simply be no seats on the flight.

Cons of early booking

1. Cancellation. Many tour operators apply very severe cancellation penalties. And some are even fined for making changes to the application, for example, changing the surname. Or, let's say you decided to remove / add a tourist to the application. Although every year tour operators are becoming more and more loyal. In any case, carefully read the contract for the provision of services, especially the clause with the terms of the fine.

2. "Last minute tours".TO as I wrote above, this is most often what is left, for example, the board flies, and 70 seats are bought from the tour operators, and 68 are sold, the money for the seats has been paid, and the tour operator gives it back at "cost", respectively, the price is reduced. The same is with the numbers in the accommodation facilities. But good tours also sometimes burn, but again, this is a matter of a happy accident.

3. Exchange Rates.The question is controversial. The cost of the tour is fixed in foreign currency, and the exchange rate is not always stable. For example, tourists who booked tours for the New Year in the summer of 2014 did not save, but rather overpaid, because the exchange rate in the fall of 2014 more than doubled. This does not happen often, but nevertheless we are not immune from it. In any case, most often the tourist immediately pays 30-50% of the tour cost, and the recalculation goes for the remaining amount.

1. Tourism is a business, and no one will do charity work and "give" rest to the detriment of their business. Therefore, when you are promised discounts of up to 50%, this is nothing more than a marketing ploy. Yes, you can really save on early booking, but not much.

2. Buy early booking tours only from a trusted travel agency.

3. Check the tour operator, go to the Rostourism website, make sure that the tour operator really exists and conducts tourist activities. Basically, good travel agencies don't work with unreliable travel operators. Alas, not a single travel operator is insured against bankruptcy, and we have clearly seen this over the past few years.

4. Carefully, no, read the terms of the contract very carefully.

5. Rendering agreement tourist services and keep all payment documents until you return to the p-one, so that in case of unpleasant situations, for example, checking into the wrong room, you have evidence in court.

In any case, it's up to you to decide what is best for you. Early booking is really beneficial, but is it so reliable in today's economy? You need to rest in any case, because travel helps us take a break from everyday life, see the world and get incredible emotions.

Early booking traditionally begins in February-March, and sometimes already in January you can book a hotel for the summer at a profit. Save up to 35% of the tour cost! If you like to pre-plan your vacation to the smallest detail, including the beach, hotel and room with all amenities, then early booking is the service perfect for you.

In today's article, you will find out which resorts it is better to buy a tour for right now, what are the advantages of early booking, where it is better to go on a hot tour and all the "pitfalls" of this system.

Which destinations will rise in price by the summer?

Read also:

Not sure what to choose? In a nutshell, Mexico is the most expensive, but the service is excellent here, Cuba and the Dominican Republic are about the same. You can see the price of visas and fees here. And also, if you had a visa to the United States, you can get to Mexico electronic authorization for entry, which is issued free of charge instead of a visa. All resorts are year-round, but the sea is slightly warmer on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.

What will happen to Asia?

There is no need to book Asian destinations in advance. In addition, in May, the "off-season" begins - there will be not so many people who want to relax in Thailand or Goa, and accordingly prices will decrease. However, this cannot be guaranteed either. Sometimes it is better to overpay, but fix your vacation in Asia in advance.

As for the weather in summer, we do not recommend going to Sri Lanka - strong waves, similar in Vietnam, except for Nha Trang. And the stories about summer rains in Thailand, India and the island of Bali are greatly exaggerated - the climate is changing, now the showers are less frequent and less abundant. And from the beginning of March, direct flights to Hainan Island in China, where you can relax all year round, begin to run.

Pros of early booking:

• You are guaranteed to book a place in a hard-to-find hotel - for example, with facilities for children, good animation, excellent ratio prices and quality.
• You save up to 35% of the tour cost, and for the best hotels on the most popular dates - up to 80%!
• You will not be affected by overbooking and moving to the nearest available hotel.

For those whose life is unpredictable, and plans change at lightning speed, early booking is not suitable. It will not be possible to change the departure date, and also to cancel an already paid tour without fines. Please check if the hotel is suitable for children before purchasing a tour.

Where are our clients already booking tours?

CONVENIENT PAYMENT PLAN

Early booking usually lasts until the end of April-May, depending on the tour operator. You can now pay 50% of the tour cost, and the rest - until the end of the booking The balance is recalculated at the exchange rate at the time of the additional payment. If you notice a sharp drop in the dollar, you can immediately pay for the tour and win a small difference.

All over the world, tourists have long and actively used the benefits of early booking tours. Most tourists in Europe book their travels in advance. And this is not in vain. After all, discounts for early booking tours often reach 40%.

Early booking Is a promotion developed jointly by tour operators, hotels and carriers. Its meaning is that tours booked and paid for months in advance are much cheaper.

Hotels are interested in receiving money from tourists as early as possible in order to guarantee their occupancy, as well as receive cash receipts in the off-season. And since tourists do not really like to plan their vacation in advance, hotels go for very serious discounts when paying for a tour a few months before the trip, in order to interest tourists financially. There are similar motives for both tour operators and air carriers.

The advantages of early booking tours for tourists:

1. Savings on buying a tour. As mentioned above, with early booking promotions, tourists can save up to 40% of their money. As a rule, discounts for early booking tours are 10-30%.
2. Availability best hotels and convenient flights. Good hotel is a popular hotel. It should be remembered that tourists from all over the world come to quality hotels, in particular from countries where early booking is widespread, so there is a high probability that best places will be sold out in advance.
3. Early booking is also advantageous because using it, you do not have to worry about fluctuations in currency rates (and during the season, the rate usually grows). After you have paid for the tour, any changes in the foreign exchange market do not affect the cost of the tour. No additional payments will need to be made in the event of an increase in prices for hotels and air travel.
4. Lack of fuss associated with the preparation of documents. This is especially true for visa countries. Some certificates and permits take a long time to complete. And it's much easier to do it in advance.
5. The enjoyment of planning and anticipation of a future vacation. When we know that relaxation and a sea of \u200b\u200bimpressions await us ahead, we work in a completely different way - more inspired and easily.

Therefore, if you have a stable environment in your family and at work that allows you to make long-term plans, then it is definitely worth using early booking of tours. It should be borne in mind that if you refuse such tours, in most cases, penalties are provided. But don't panic ahead of time. In fact, travel cancellation insurance saves you from unforeseen situations, which provides for a full refund of the cost of the tour, regardless of the reasons that interfered with your trip. This type of insurance will not be burdensome for your wallet (the cost of insurance is only a few percent of the cost of the tour).

So follow the announcements on the websites of the companies you are interested in for the start of early booking, use

Travel Tips

The most joyous is in advance booked tour - this is the knowledge that you are definitely going to rest! But the benefits of planning travel ahead of time don't stop there. Let's find out why early booking is becoming more and more popular with tourists - even those who were skeptical about travel agency offers.

Early booking is considered to be a purchase of a tour before the season, that is, 1-3 months. But in practice, a really profitable booking is 4-5 months before the vacation or even earlier. If you are lucky, you can save about 50% of the total cost of the trip. Agree, not bad?

There is no catch here, the benefits of early booking are easy to explain. Resorts, hotels and airlines are actively making money from tourists during the hot seasons, which different countries happen at different times. But in order to prepare for the influx of travelers, during the low season, all participants tourism industry trying to find resources for this. Hotels and airlines are looking for funds to repair rooms, aircraft and other needs - they sell tickets to tour operators at a low price, and tour operators immediately begin to sell them in order to immediately return part of the invested funds. Everyone benefits at once, including the traveler.

The ability to plan trips in advance will allow you to significantly save on travel!

Things to do before booking:

• Coordinate vacation with superiors

  Even if you do not know the specific departure dates before booking the tour, please check with the guide at least approximate time your vacation. It will be incredibly frustrating if you buy a great tour for the end of August, and your boss says that in the last month of summer you should be in the office, because it is not your turn to rest, this time is occupied by another employee. Always be one step ahead of the rest and remember that in the phrase “early booking tours” to Europe, Asia and anywhere else, the keyword is “early”.

• Decide exactly how you want to relax

  Literally everything depends on how you want to spend your time on vacation: where you better go, which region of the country, in which months and even in which hotel to stay. Decide what is more pleasant for you - noisy streets in the city center or a relaxing holiday on the coast far from civilization, an all-inclusive system or just breakfast and a large package of outbound excursions. If you are going on a trip with a warm family circle, just choose the most comfortable apartments, and if you want to establish contact with locals, chat and make new acquaintances, think about the fact that residents of other countries also go on vacation. For example, in Madrid, as in many others european cities, at the end of summer it is much more difficult to meet a local than a tourist.

• Solve all problems with documents

  If you dare to book early tours to Europe, the USA and other countries where you need a visa, check all your documents. The passport must be valid for at least three more months after the end of your trip. If you neglect this condition, you can get a visa refusal. In addition, any tour is issued according to your valid documents. And if you bought a trip, planned everything, and then suddenly lost your passport or still decided to get married and change your last name, and then all the documents, then problems cannot be avoided. For any changes to the information about the persons who have booked the tour, hotels and airlines will ask for a substantial surcharge.

• Collect enough money

  Most often, early booking of tours for holidays and not only involves 100% payment within a fairly short period, up to three days... If you are going to go on a trip and when you turn to a tour operator for offers, you should at least approximately before that estimate how much the trip will cost in the end, whether you have such an amount or whether you can quickly collect it.

How to book a tour in advance

There are two things in travel planning key points: travel time and destination. It is worth starting from them when it comes to early booking of tours for 2018.

Once you've decided on a vacation timeline or destination, it's time to act! The rules are simple: it is best to plan in winter or early spring summer rest, and in summer and early autumn - winter.

The travel agency will select options for you according to the requested criteria. In the summer, they will offer to book a ticket to, to, to, and to ski resorts for the coming winter season. And in winter, you can think of a vacation in, on and in other countries popular for summer vacations. The best thing is that it will cost you several times cheaper than a few weeks before departure, and besides, you can choose exactly the option of a voucher that suits you perfectly. Early booking guarantees a wide range of deals: all the hard-to-find hotels that are packed during the high season will be available, and you won't have to sacrifice your comfort and be content with what is left.

All travel agencies actively practice early booking of tours, so do not hesitate to contact us even six months in advance.

Cancellation of the tour and travel cancellation insurance

When buying a voucher in advance, you will most likely have to pay the full amount for it in a fairly short time. And the only disadvantage of early booking tours for holidays and vacation periods is that if you cancel your trip, you will lose a substantial part of your money, if not the entire amount. For canceling a ticket or replacing one traveler with another, you will be charged a large fine - from 40% to 90% of the total cost of the tour. And in some cases, according to the rules of the concluded contract, the tour operator may not return anything to you at all, so always carefully read the conditions specified in the text.

Unfortunately, there is always a risk of travel cancellation. In the 4-6 months that separate you from the trip, anything can happen: you change jobs, move to another city, decide to have a child, or, in the end, you just change your mind.

Cancel a ticket from minimal losses incredibly difficult, so some decide to take out cancellation insurance.

The list of insured events for which you can be reimbursed for damage will include:

• illness of close relatives or yours, requiring only inpatient treatment;

• refusal of a visa;

• military training;

• the death of a relative requiring your return;

• subpoena;

• contraindications to vaccination required for entry into the country.

But if you made a suicide attempt, ended up in the hospital due to alcohol intoxication, cannot go because of work, pregnancy or quarantine, become a victim of fraudulent tour operators, or get into the epicenter of a terrorist attack, travel cancellation insurance, unfortunately, will not help you in any way.

Early booking of sea tours

Vacation at sea - early booking. This is almost always the case, even if you are going to. By the way, what prevents you from planning a trip to russian resorts, to Crimea or Krasnodar region? If you think that booking a trip is logical and makes sense only abroad, and on the banks of the Loo you will somehow find your own refuge, then you are very mistaken. Even the most pessimistic travelers, confident that they always want to be cheated, cannot deny that package tours and trips are not evil, but a guarantee that you will get what you want, because tour operators could not sell such an amount unprofitable offers every year.

Most people in the summer prefer exactly beach vacation, therefore, it is very important to take care of buying a sea tour in advance

If you are going to the sea in the summer, like most of the tourists, then the most early booking deadline is usually April. And if your plan is to hide from the New Year's snow somewhere on the beaches, then you can plan even a year in advance, but certainly not later than November.

Early booking tours for the holidays

When the question of early booking tours for the holidays arises, it is important to understand: these are global holidays or only Russian ones. For example, with the same New Year, everything is quite clear - one way or another, it is celebrated almost everywhere in Europe and even in some Asian countries. Therefore, flights not only from Russia, but also, in principle, around the world in late December - early January are always expensive. Accordingly, the cost of the tours also increases.

And if we are talking about may holidays or Orthodox Easter, then everything is not so straightforward, and you will probably be able to pick up a voucher without much cheating due to calendar dates.

We book tours to Europe

Early booking of tours to Europe also has its own nuances. When planning your trip to the country, be sure to check the schedule of national festivals, religious holidays and other events that can enrich or darken your stay there. Having obtained such information in advance, you can catch those events that are interesting to you, and avoid what you would not like to face. For example, in some European countries, in autumn, spring and even summer there are solid floods and storms, which are repeated from year to year. And also all the capitals most the years are flooded with tourists, and if you want to walk freely through museums and narrow streets, instead of jostling your elbows, choose the least popular months for tourists - February or November.

The practice of early booking tours is very common today, and if you manage to correctly and accurately plan your vacation, then feel free to use this wonderful opportunity to save money and foresee everything. For many Europeans who like to plan everything in advance, for example, the Germans, this has long become commonplace and commonplace.