Travel before the Internet:
I have been traveling for over 40 years: in my early days, boots in the Scouts, then came a Lambretta and then my first old banger followed by new and old bangers to the beaches of the Costa Brava.
My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers took me all over Europe and the UK before I discovered that a charter flight to Spain in an old ‘Connie’ could get me to the beaches and bars much faster and allow me more time to enjoy the sights. local travel. horse and carriage opportunities and the occasional bus and train.
‘Go west and prosper’ seemed like a good idea, so instead of taking an 8-hour flight, I took an 8-day transatlantic crossing from Tilbury to Montreal on Polish Ocean Lines’ Stephan Batory, making sure the lag schedule won’t disturb my travel plans. A few years later I was back across the pond on a boat, but this time it was 5 times bigger and I traveled in style on QE2 and dined at Queen’s Grill somewhat removed from my previous experience. I highly recommend sea voyages, but I don’t see myself on one of the modern cruise ships that go from port to port with constant lines to get on and off to buy t-shirts. However, I did 10 Windjammers and a Star Clipper cruise in the Caribbean that were memorable (hopefully the Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their troubles). But I digress.
I had read that Canada is a spectacular country, from sea to shimmering sea, and my entrance to the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, across the prairies to the Rocky Mountains before I finished. . Whale watching off the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island was a wonderful trip for a guy from London. Today the landscape is still spectacular and the best way to go is still by road, so rent or buy a car, motorhome or motorcycle, take the train or the tourist bus but remember the maps, a fishing pole, good boots and take your time.
My favorite part of Canada / US For adventure travel has to be Northern British Columbia / Alaska, to hike the Chilkoot Trail in the footsteps of the 1898 gold prospectors. The Northwest Territories for canoeing down the Nahannie River and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, cast a fly and climb some hills, or drive on endless dirt roads sharing space with elk, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, these are the places to put your list on. The joys and experiences of driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Road can only be felt by doing so. I would have mentioned the Alaska Highway, but now it’s an easy ride unlike mentioned above.
Today, the costs of driving these distances may mean carpooling with others is required, but traveling by RV or just a van and camping is a great way to see beyond the horizon. Some en-route adventures now need to be booked in advance, whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of showing up, checking in with the local ranger office, and heading out. A little more advance planning is needed for today’s traveler and the cost considerations of flights or long trips must be somewhat offset with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable gas prices, I wouldn’t even consider the costs of driving or flying and drove to Key West from the Northwest Coast, up the West Coast to Baja, and up the West Coast from New York. I once even flew my 1946 Fleet trawl tail from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back using about 5 gallons per hour of avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis, I drove from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Fuego, and back to Rio covering more than 15,000 miles of spectacular scenery and without considering the cost of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other memorable tours that may now require a mortgage with gas companies include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon in New Zealand, and the solitude of Australia’s far north and the incredible coastline of Western Australia with a stop at Monkey Mia and Wave. Rock.
We tend to forget that the real cost of travel is often less today than it was during my 40 years of travel. In 1977, my round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia was over $ 1700 in 1977 dollars, so today it’s much cheaper to fly, even with airlines looking for fuel, extra baggage, no service, and no pleasure. The ‘Big Mac’ price comparison method developed by The Economist newspaper gives us a good indicator of most spending today compared to yesterday, but my $ 1500 cost to obtain a private pilot license in the decade 1970’s looks cheap compared to today, but obviously not when using this Big Mac principle. Other travel costs are much cheaper today too, but this shouldn’t mean that travelers should ignore the many methods of cost savings that can then be spent on extended or enhanced travel experiences.
Travel after Internet:
In my 40 years of travel, I have had to turn to travel agents to make even the simplest reservations and buy tickets, without even thinking about asking them if they had “been there, have you done that?” It was just a case where there were no other options for buying trips. Now we have unlimited options and we can search for better travel agents, better prices, better selections and information about any part of the world for our trips, without even leaving home.
The Internet now offers travelers ideas and options on where to go, when to go, why to go, what to do, who to book with, and how to save money and offset costs. We can search and find experts for each travel option. If we are comfortable with the internet, we no longer have to go to a travel agent to make reservations and buy tickets, except to book with some of the larger travel companies that still produce glossy brochures and offer all-inclusive packages or tours that They are only sold through the agency system. The internet also enables those of us who are smart enough to know when to look for a top travel agent with knowledge, experience and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations and activities on where to find them. It is no longer necessary to use our local agents only when we can find one in another part of the world. When we don’t need ‘the knowledge’ and can do it ourselves, we simply surf the web to be able to book directly with tour and travel operators wherever we have decided to go.
Some travel agencies operate their own tours, some are both wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by selling only to their ‘preferred’ providers, and some have professional consultants with years of experience invested in acquiring knowledge, experience and expertise and worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveler. Be careful though, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations simply require the agent to run a rudimentary test offered by tourist offices, destination marketing groups, or even tour operators, and in In my opinion, they can damage the reputation of the travel industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.
Travel is probably the most widely used business aspect of the internet and if retailers want to take advantage of this exciting medium to offer ‘the knowledge’ and their ‘kee’ skills to a global audience, not just their local community, they must embrace the changes that its happening. Travelers now have the ability to search for answers to the 5 key travel questions and the important “How” to save money and offset costs by having information just a click away.
And then it occurred to me that even internet travel prices often include a commission element, even when sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with the operators, we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are doing for ourselves what a retail agent would normally do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that displaying a retail price and cost option could discourage many agents from selling the services, as travelers could use an agent for free advice and book directly with the operator for a ‘net price. commission ‘. . Obviously, this two-tier pricing isn’t available often, but travelers who don’t need advice shouldn’t be penalized by retail prices either. A new way had to be found and I think I have found it!
The need for fairer rate pricing is the reason I developed the Top Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and even found a dot com for it. All travel selections on the site have ‘net commission’ prices for members who handle their own travel arrangements directly with the operators linked on the club’s website using our coupon program.
I invite travel operators from all over the world to join this program, from B & B’s, motels, hotels, luxury cabins, Eco Resorts, Beach Resorts and tour and adventure operators who want to promote their products and services to travelers who They are comfortable with direct bookings and reservations.
I also invite travel agents with knowledge, experience and expertise in destinations and activities to show their skills to a global audience of travelers and to the members of this new travel club. I am suspicious of ‘specialist agents’ and just want the experts to show their services.
This opportunity is available to the travel trade at no cost, except to offer net, wholesale or exit prices to club members and website visitors using the best travel coupons. I believe this program offers fairer rates to travelers who book direct. The operator would normally pay the commission anyway, but now travelers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.
The Top Travel Club was launched in mid-April 2008 and offers thousands of the best travel coupons for travel in more than 70 countries with over 150 tour operators on board. Every week we add more tour operators with more options for members. You can currently get savings on accommodations, adventure trips, boat rentals, culinary tours, hiking, bike and snorkelling tours, vehicle and recreational vehicle rentals, fishing cabins and guides, safaris, vacation rentals, individual trips, solo for women and ranches for tourists. Members get the coupons for free by paying an annual membership fee and non-members can buy the coupons on the internet at the best travel sites at deeply discounted prices at face value. Future growth will include restaurants, travel clothing, travel insurance, and the opportunity to access airline ticket consolidators who want to deal directly with consumers.
The way I have traveled and the way I view travel is that consumers should have unlimited access to all travel opportunities with the ability to do their own due diligence or find a professional who can offer quality advice and services to fair prices, and find it all without the need for hours of searching.
For more information on the new way of travel cost compensation, go to The Top Travel Club and my apologies for the spelling (traveler / traveler), but that’s what they taught me. As long as we all understand the meaning, live the difference!