A tour operator is a person or a group of persons making a company that will think about different ideas to spend your holidays. Tour operators make itineraries, travel plans, arrange cars, accommodation, etc. for the tourists. Travel agents are respective stakeholders of the travel industry. They were an indispensable part of the system. Now in this era internet brings all the information in your palm, now the biggest question is how important it is to hire a tour operator for your travel plan especially in this age of the internet. I will share the PROS and CONS of hiring them.

PROS –

1)Into the internet

Tour operators

‘Tour operators near me’, ‘tour operators of Kolkata’, ‘packaged tour operators’ are the most searched keywords in Google. In India, at least 75k monthly searches are performed for these keywords. This data denotes that people till now are searching for tour operators. Why this is so, why people are considering the travel operators as their holiday managers.

2) A relation for the ages

When there is no internet, people depend on tour operators for their holiday management. In the ancient era, there was no concept of travelers. People who went outside usually were pilgrims. Other than religious tours, there was no idea of eco-tours or educational tours, family tours, etc. From that age to the present people depend on tour operators. They research the destination and make a wireframe of the itinerary. After final approval from the guest, they make a detailed itinerary of the plan. In this way, a long-term relationship builds between a tourist and a travel operator. Mutual trust and understanding develop in between them. For example, I know someone who has some preferences for his food, and his tour operator knew this. He always arranges this for this particular guest on a priority basis.

3) Tour operators for them who are not internet lovers

So everyone is not browsing all time. Even in this era, many people are not very frequent on the internet. They don’t know how to plan a vacation. They don’t know whom to tell for booking. They rely on tour operators who help them to get a nice holiday package around the world.

4) New unexplored destinations by Tour operators

Tour operators have a good network. Most of them are quite updated about the new destinations. They explore new places first and then they suggest the same to their guest. So if someone is interested to spend their holidays in virgin place, they contact their know tour operators.

5) Lesser time, bigger expectations of travelers

Each holiday planning needs a lot of research. The main backbone of the wireframe making includes getting a ticket, distance calculation, booking, etc. A huge set of work involves. So the planning part demands attention and time. Unplanned trips are exciting but challenging. If we want to spend our holiday in a more managed way and save our time, we must seek a holiday manager or tour operator who will do everything for us.
If the People who don’t have enough time for planning or mapping their holidays then they can get help from tour operators.

6) One contact point, i.e Tour operators

When we plan a long trip, it usually involves a lot of stakeholders and contact persons. You need to contact different homestay owners, car drivers, ticket booking persons for a single trip. People are contacting tour operators to avail a single-point contact facility. It may cut down the additional hazards.

7) A big help in a foreign trip

Foreign trips demand more planning. Passport arranges visa permit, local permit, currency exchange, protocols, etc. A lot more things are needed for a successful foreign trip. Planning a foreign trip demands more time and effort. Professional help may do it easily and effectively.

8) Permit help

Forest trips or restricted area trips needed special permission. Some are pretty hard to manage. Tour operators or professionals help people to get those permits.

9) Discount and offers

Tour operators sometimes offer discounts and offers for single or bulk booking. They manage to make it because they sometimes get offers from hotels and homestay. Tour operators often offer a much lesser quotation than the usual price.

10) Lesser harassment greater enjoyment because of the tour operators

Imagine you live in Tamilnadu and want to spend two delightful nights in Kashmir. You got stuck in bundles of projects, deployment, client meetings and can’t spend single second time planning on this. Your vacation can be hazard less and smooth with the help of professional tour organizers.

Now I am going to discuss, what are the cons of going with operators.

CONS –

1) Knowledge king/queen

In my experience, I have found that if anyone is planning for his/her trip then a lot of research needed. The research work made the person more knowledgeable about the route, itinerary, road conditions, weather, booking process, etc.

2) Fraud or bad service

It is reported that sometimes tourists rely on some tour operator and they offer bad service or came out as a fraud. This is unfortunate and arranging everything on your own can lower the chance of getting cheated.

If anyone wants to choose some operator then they should check their physical address, google review, other clients’ feedback, TripAdvisor review, website, Fb page, travel community, etc. Travelers should not deposit money before checking the trustworthiness of the tour operator.