TRAVEL HUNGRY Lucknowites no longer prefer package tours which give them barely 15 minutes time to finish breakfast and board a coach for Trafalgar Square in London.
An increasing number of tour operators are now finding holidayers demanding more breathing space in the form of tailor-made tours which offer them much freedom on tours abroad.
The tailor-made tours are at best 10 to 15 per cent more expensive than package tours considering the fact that tour operators have to work extra hard to keep the itinerary of their clients completely flexible abroad by booking taxis and hotel rooms outside the ambit of the packaged tours.
A resident Amitabh Srivastava, who had just arrived from a long packaged tour of Germany, told HT Lucknow Live that the military-like drill of getting up at 7 am and finishing breakfast by 7.15 am before boarding an 8 am tour coach for sightseeing trip in Berlin, is too much for a tourist.
“My friends tell me now that there are more flexible options of a “tailor-made tour” planned by travel houses where you need not bother about missing the tour coach leaving the hotel at 8 am”, he said.
Another resident Arunav Ghosh almost missed his flight back home in Amsterdam when he had ventured out of the hotel for a quick shopping spree downtown without informing the tour manager who after not finding him after desperate searches allowed the airport coach driver to move without him on board. “Tour managers aren’t the friendliest guys if you don’t follow their schedule in a packaged tour,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Another resident Arunav Ghosh almost missed his flight back home in Amsterdam when he had ventured out of the hotel for a quick shopping spree downtown without informing the tour manager who after not finding him after desperate searches allowed the airport coach driver to move without him on board. “Tour managers aren’t the friendliest guys if you don’t follow their schedule in a packaged tour,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Vivek Pandey, Regional Head (UP & Uttaranchal) of the Delhi Express Holidays—one of the country’s premier travel house accepted the fact that Lucknowites are increasingly opting for tailor-made tours. “One of our clients compared the packaged tour to a “parade” with stifling schedules on fun holiday abroad. We had at least 25 families booking for holiday trips in Europe during July this year who had opted for a tailor-made tour instead of a packaged tour,” he said.
Pandey said the tour operators normally ask first-time travellers to opt for package tours in South East Asian tourist circuit comprising Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to get the feel of a foreign environment before planning for a flexible tailor-made tour trip to Europe or United States the next year.