Overview
In this unit you will learn about how tour production sale and the relationship between the persons or business entity to achieve a successful tour, and then you will discover the advantages of selling tour and how to building tour`s suppliers database.
Tour Production
Creating and implementing a successful tour is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of the travel business. Tour production is rewarding because a successful tour will enjoyed and remembered forever by many participants. It challenging because it involves the integration of many skills, including some that are business-related and other that are purely artistic.
Part of what makes the production of a tour so challenging is that it requires the co-ordination and co-operation of many different people and operations. For a tour to be completely successful these people, organizations, and the services they provide must all blend together to give an appearance of a single organized unit.
Tour production may be thought of as a pyramid, with the components of the tour at the base, the operators who sell and operate the tours in the middle, and the client who participates and enjoys the tour at the top.
Tour production pyramid
At the base of this pyramid are the tour wholesalers.
Tour wholesaler
Tour wholesaler is the person or business entity that obtains the components of tour such as transportation, accommodations, attractions and sightseeing, and packages them together in the form of a tour for sale to the retailer.
The tour retailer
The tour retailer is the person or business entity that buys the tour product from the tour wholesaler either at a net cost or a commission basis, and sells the tour product to the general public.
The tour retailer may or may not choose to operate the tour.
In cases where the tour retailer does not handle the operation, it is turned over to a tour operator.
The tour operator
The tour operator is the person or business entity that is responsible for the actual implementation and operation of the tour with the tour participants.
In some cases, tour operators own retail travel agencies and sell their product directly to the general public. As you can imagine, because so many people and business entities are involved in the production, sale, and operation of a tour, if any of links are weak the tour will likely suffer.
Building the product & supplier databases
As reviewed earlier the responsibility for developing and maintaining a comprehensive database of products and suppliers lies with the tour wholesalers, tour retailers, or tour operators in the most commonly cases.
This database would typically include the following information:
- An inventory of air charter & low cost company and its rates.
- An inventory of hotels and fact sheets.
- An inventory of cruise boats and their fact sheets, their sailing schedules and their itineraries.
- An inventory of restaurants and available menus.
- An inventory of available domestic flight routes.
- An inventory of available train tours.
- An inventory of vehicle transportation routes and a list of their suppliers.
- An inventory of the transfer that you will offer.
- An inventory of the excursions that you will offer.
- An inventory of sites to visit and their entrance fees.
- An inventory of guides for each destination in different languages and related fees paid.
You can make your database more professional and more comprehensive by :
- Having images accompanying every product so that you can present them to your clients.
- Having addresses and contact information saved with each data.
- Formatting and saving the information in a presentable format.
Once this list is identified, the next step is to evaluate these suppliers and choose which ones you wish to establish a contractual agreement with.