Insight Vacations has become the latest tour operator to create a product designed to help agents convert cruise passengers to tour-goers and simultaneously attract what many see as a growing market of independent-minded travelers.
After 31 years of selling bread-and-butter escorted motorcoach tours, Insight has launched what amounts to a new tour concept: a hybrid between escorted tours and FIT that it calls Select.
Unlike classic FIT packages, Select itineraries are group departures that include airport transfers, a meet-and-greet, accommodations, breakfasts, a guided orientation tour in each city and group transfers between destinations via either a 40-passenger motorcoach or rail.
A tour director will be assigned to the group for the entire itinerary, but travelers will have free time in each destination to explore on their own or take the tour director's recommendations on places to eat and things to do.
Clients will also be able to purchase optional excursions, to choose between two levels of hotels and to shorten the trip and leave early or to extend it with pre- and post-tour nights. Insight can also arrange port transfers for cruisers.
The idea is to offer flexible and somewhat customizable itineraries.
The Globus family of brands offers a similar product: Monograms tours offer independent travelers a set itinerary, with a local host in each city to help with any details or with purchasing optional excursions. But as with most FIT packages, travel between cities is independently arranged by the Monograms client, who can choose rail, car rental, air or in some cases ships.
Select, on the other hand, is an escorted group tour when it comes to travel between cities but is more of an FIT model after arriving at individual destinations.
Insight President Marc Kazlauskas said Select was geared toward the "independently minded traveler who thinks they want to [explore] on their own but wants the security, value and the fun of traveling in a group."
These products lend themselves to what escorted tour companies believe is an expanding independent travel market fueled by aging but active baby boomers.
"The independent travel market could be as big as escorted travel for us over the next five years," Globus CEO Scott Nisbet recently said of the company's growing Monograms business.
Converting cruisers
These independent travel products also lend themselves to another market that tour operators are aggressively trying to lure: ocean cruisers.
"Agents have become very verbose about their frustration with cruise pricing and commissions," Kazlauskas said. "They want to sell escorted tours."
Insight and Globus both see opportunity in the growing agent frustration with selling cruises. They and other operators are hoping that agents are now adequately motivated by falling cruise prices and rising noncommissionable fees to sell tours that offer their clients good value while also carrying higher price tags and generating higher commissions.
They're trying to seize the moment with new, cruise-friendly products.
For Insight, that means taking a sizeable risk. Select is launching with 260 departure dates for 2010. Ten itineraries are in Europe, where operators see the most potential to capture cruise business.
The 2010 Select itineraries are: London and Paris; London, Paris and Rome; France; Imperial Capitals (Budapest, Vienna and Prague, Czech Republic); Rome to Paris (includes Florence, Venice and Lucerne, Switzerland); Italy (includes the Italian lakes region, Venice, Florence and Sorrento); Spain and Portugal; Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg); London Week; and European Journey (Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Lucerne, Venice, Vienna and Budapest).
The eight-day Select London Week and 12- or 15-day (depending on if travelers opt for the early departure option) Select Italy itineraries have the most departures, with 40 and 37, respectively. The remaining itineraries have about 25 departure dates each, and Select Russia has 11. There are already 12 departure dates for Select London Week scheduled for 2011. Departures begin in April and run through December 2010 for London and Italy.
About 40% of the departures correspond with popular ocean-going cruise ports and departure dates, according to Kazlauskas.
Select tours are slightly less expensive than Insight's classic itineraries, averaging $176 per day, compared with $210. However, Select clients will be responsible for their own lunches and dinners and other nongroup expenses, which add to the total daily cost of the tour.