unjet Vacations is
offering travel agencies a free "Go Funjet" booking link to mount
on their Web sites, which will enable agencies to receive online
bookings on Funjet products at the operator's regular commission
rates.
Agencies will be responsible to service the bookings they
receive online.
The booking link first is being distributed to Funjet's
preferred-partner agencies that already are carrying Funjet
information-only links on their sites.
Funjet initially will activate those information links with
booking capability, then it will offer the function to all agencies
that sign up at VAX Vacationaccess.
• • •
In other Funjet news, the operator signed on with Online
Agency (OLA) to join the product roster that OLA provides
travel agencies for their Web sites.
OLA provides extensive travel content for agencies to mount on
their sites for $25 a month. For agencies that do not have sites,
OLA will host the sites for an additional $12 a month.
OLA provides information on travel products from a number of
suppliers, including Apple Vacations, Carnival Cruise Line,
Collette Vacations, Gogo Worldwide Vacations and Pleasant
Holidays.
OLA also provides contact information for bookings, including
e-mail addresses and phone numbers. The system does not include
online booking engines, but the Go Funjet link can be included.
• • •
A group of travel agents on an Abercrombie &
Kent study tour to Peru became the first passengers
(besides the press) to experience the new Hiram Bingham
luxury dining train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the
city located down the cliff from the lost Inca city of Machu
Picchu.
The official launch of the train will be Oct. 20.
Named after the assistant professor of archaeology at Yale who
rediscovered the mountaintop city in 1911, the new line is operated
by PeruRail, which is owned by Orient-Express Hotels and Peruvian
investment company Peruval.
The train excursion will be offered for $350 plus tax,
roundtrip, by a number of high-end tour operators, including Tauck
World Discovery, Lindblad Expeditions, Tourlite, Butterfield &
Robinson, Country Walkers, Mountain Travel Sobek and Backroads.
The price includes a brunch, an afternoon tea, a cocktail
dinner, a bus trip to the ruins and a guided tour.
Trafalgar Tours is offering 17% commission for group bookings of
eight or more on the land portion of its itineraries in Europe, the
U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, South America and
South Africa.
The offer doesn't apply to the company's Winter Breaks
programs.
To qualify, the tours must be booked with deposits in place by
Dec. 24 for travel from April 1 to Oct. 31, 2004.
• • •
As part of what it calls its "five-star services,"
Classic Custom Vacations is offering private jet
service on Blue Star Jets, a New York company that specializes in
private jet charters, for its Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, U.S. and
Europe packages.
The cost for a 14-passenger jet flying roundtrip from Los
Angeles to Hawaii is $77,000, or $5,500 per passenger.
And at 5% commission, that's a nice chunk of change for the
agents booking these trips.
• • •
Tauck World Discovery established a Global
Alliances department to focus exclusively on building international
partnerships and business alliances.
The department will be headed by 25-year Tauck veteran
Phil Otterson, who previously was vice president
of product resources.
Initially, plans are to focus primarily on Europe, Australia and
Asia, but the search will not be limited entirely to those
areas.
To contact reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].