Would you book a group tour holiday with a brand new company?

[Millie654]

I'm considering starting my own holiday company (running group tours internationally). I've got a niche and have a business plan.

However I'm aware that the biggest challenge will be selling the first few tours, given that it'll be a brand new company with no prior reviews or reputation. I guess I'm here to do a little market research.

My question for you is:

Would you book a group tour holiday with a brand new company if:

• The trip really appealed to you and there is no alternative similar trips on the market
• the tour price was within your budget
• The company was ABTOT protected
• The company has a professional website and booking system etc.

Or would you steer clear? The cost is £4000 - £5000 by the way, so not cheap!

Is there anything else that would make you more likely to book?

Honest answers please :-)

To take a punt on a new company you would need to be competitively priced for that kind of trip, and offering a usp that is different to going independently, I think you need to be selling yourself to a certain extent, making me believe in you. We do holiday in this price range and do switch between holiday types including fully independent and fully arranged. I do not think the website and booking system have any bearing on it though as anyone can build one, even me (I do design them!) if anything a little homespun can be attractive especially the paying system, I like getting an invoice confirmation everything from a real person before arranging payment, rather than full online booking

How much experience do you have in the market, and would you be prepared to be available 24/7 to sort out possible client issues whilst they are on holiday?

I used to work for a niche tour operator (did their accounts for them), and it is a tricky industry, to say the least.

I'd never heard of Abtot, had to Google.
I only book with abta and atol protection.

Forgot to mention - how much do you know about VAT? You would probably have to operate under the Tour Operators Margin Scheme (TOMS) for VAT and it is not for the faint-hearted even HMRC don't know how it works half the time. You would need to take considerable advice from an accountancy practice about that.

As far as I know ABTOT doesn’t cover flight packages? so either you are selling very expensive packages for within uk or your clients won’t be fully covered for whatever they book with you?

The tour operator I worked for didn't book flights, they found the available options and then passed the information on to their customers so they could book their own flights.

I've worked for a small group tour operator and now work for a tailor made tour operator in commercial roles, agree it isn't an easy industry!
Questions I'd probably ask;

• Is the niche you have significant enough that you would be the first choice in a fairly crowded market?
• Is your expertise and experience significant enough to be worth paying for?
• Would I be able to find similar with a provider that could do the tour as an ATOL package
• What out of hours support are you likely to be able to offer? This is SO important, particularly if customers are booking their own flights and taking a risk on being unprotected if they miss the start of the tour.
• What back up plans do you have if something happens to impact the tour, for example vehicles breaking down, accommodation being unsuitable etc.
• Will you be looking for direct contracts with hotels or using bed banks? If bed banks what contingency do you have for booking issues?
• Would you be the tour guide? If so what can you offer that a local guide used by the bigger operators can't?

That's off the top of my head! I'd love to know what your niche is, the market for small group tours is growing hugely so I wouldn't rule it out but it is a crowded market.

Also in my experience many customers booking trips like this want to book by phone rather than online. Despite the many pages of trip notes on websites they always have loads of questions!

If what you could provide is better than I could arrange then I would. For example if your tour included access to otherwise inaccessible archaeological sites.

A friend of mine set up a small tour company a few years ago, and it’s still going well.

His first few tours were for friends/ family / other contacts (he’d had a previous successful career), and were quite heavily subsidised. That gave him a track record which he could then use to get ‘real’ business.

Thank you everyone, some great food for thought here! It's good to hear that you wouldn't rule out booking just because the company is new... although I appreciate attracting customers won't be easy, niche or not, it's a very competative industry!

I've familiarised myself with TOMS (although will be using a specialised travel industry accountant anyway) and the tours themselves will be operated by a DMC with a 24 hour helpline - so they will deal with the majority of issues albeit I will, of course, be contactable for anything more serious. I will essentially be designing and selling the tours from the uk under my own branding/ company while the DMC handles the logistics.

I think it massively depends where it is, what your deep experience is of that place, and, most importantly, what you can offer over people just DIY. Also how much you trust the DMC, and what happens when things go wrong (flights being a good example, weather another, border controls / visas). It is definitely horses for courses when it comes to this stuff. I tend to DIY as much as I can, so I am not your "market" but have briefly looked at organised tours to some of the less travelled places where you cannot book local trains (india) where you cannot easily get to some places (the stans). Someone being new to the game would not necessarily put me off if they had deep expertise of the places I was going and had a very good DMC, and it looked like I had little opportunity to DIY because I did not have the contacts that you may have, and could not sort myself out easily.

Yes I may do , for me it would depend on the amount of people on the tour.

I do quite a lot of organised small group tours. I know I'm often paying more than organising the trip myself but as a solo traveller I enjoy the security of being part of a group and having a guide who knows local procedure and can speak the language. I also think you get a lot more out of the trip with an expert guide.

To do one with a new company, and break my loyalty to the two or three I usually use, you'd probably need to be both very good value for money and offering a trip the others don't.