My Corner Of the World

Planning a major tour for a year from now? Good! Because now is the time to start. Most successful tours – whether in the United States or international – need one year’s lead time.Of course, mini-trips like weekend or one-day excursions may not need that much lead time. And trips that are already put together by a major tour operator or cruise line and that you are “buying off the shelf” so to speak may not need the full year. Let’s look at a year’s calendar in the life of a fictitious tour. It should be divided into three major segments.
Liberty Bell

If the trip were to depart on December 31, the first three months of the year would be the set-up phase.During these three months of January, February, and March you would be designing your itinerary, booking all hotel and air reservations, and making arrangements for tour services. These services would include sightseeing, social activities, motorcoach reservations, step-on guides, any rail segments, and the like. Start by securing the most important elements of your trip to avoid having to cancel or rebook components because your “key” activity wasn’t available on the date you chose.

And in this same three-month period you would planning any promotional activities such as advertising, brochures, direct mail, or other publicity so you can accurately cost these expenses into your tour price. If you publish your tour and its price first and then later discover you need to pay for some promotion, it’s too late to absorb these costs or raise the tour price to cover them.