| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 14/08/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 46 |
| Copyright: Other |
What’s new by David Tarpey
New tours look sure to get motors running
Themed holidays and short breaks set to dispel negative image
It seems the old image of coach tours as an option for the bovine or the unimaginative needs updating.Now, the omnipresent bus can be seen whisking passengers to themed breaks in Disneyland, through the jungles of Laos and across the Mongolian steppes.
The coach tour market is developing a raft of segments to meet the diverse demand for its services, and products are split among age bands, geographical preferences, special interests or even according to an individual’s sense of adventure.
It really is a case of, ‘have bus ticket, will explore’, although many of the coach tours within Europe often involve a flight out to a convenient starting point.
Rock and Rivers: in Australia Contiki customers can opt for a five-day tour that features Ayers Rock
Long haul
The long-haul market is proving to be increasingly popular for the typical 55-plus passenger according to Wallace Arnold.
New to the operator’s current Destination Worldwide brochure is a 15-day escorted Kingdom of Thailand tour.
The price per person leads in at £1,549.
At the other end of the age market, Contiki’s 18-35-year-old customers who wishto spice up a visit to Australia can choose to take its ever-popular five-day Rock and Rivers tour.
On board a specially customised bus, complete with a tour guide, accommodation involves camping under the stars.
The tour is priced from £220 and starts from Darwin.
United Kingdom
In response to a trend that is seeing a desire for shorter UK breaks, Wallace Arnold is launching 40 new four-day domestic breaks across the country for its Christmas and New Year programme.
Prices start at £229 and include three days’ full-board hotel accommodation. The company also runs its own seven-strong chain of hotels. Prices for a four-day New Year break at The Grand Hotel, Exmouth start at £255.
Insight Vacations’ most popular UK product is its eight-day Grand Tour of Scotland, a circular route that takes in the most compelling sights on both coasts such as St Andrews, Edinburgh, Isle of Skye and Glencoe.
Prices per adult for the product range from £565-£590.
For those with the stomach for greater mileage, the Trafalgar Cost Saver 2000 brochure offers an eight-day Wonderful Britain tour from £395 per person, which includes Stonehenge and the Grampian Mountains.
Adventure
The options for doing something more daring within the safety zone of a coach tour are growing. The Imaginative Traveller’s new brochure, due out in September, features trips to Mongolia, Laos, Borneo and Thailand. In Mongolia, the 15-night or three-week trips will include sleeping in Mongolian yurts (round tents). Typical clients are aged between 35-40 and the company has three different holiday types – pioneering, adventurer and traveller, according to whether clients want a basic holiday or one with more creature comforts.
New to the current brochure is a 12-night River and Reef trip to Egypt under the Adventurer category. This costs £425 per person and includes coach transport, an overnight seat on a local train, a private Nile cruise boat, horse-drawn carriages and donkeys.
The single most popular product in Contiki’s current Adventures to Africa brochure is its 12-day Zambezi Discovery safari which costs from £799 per person. This includes stays at safari lodges and a house boat on Lake Kariba.
Imaginative Traveller: has adventure trips to Mongolia
Short haul
Shearings Holidays’ most popular European tour is its 10-day air/coach Italian Highlights, which costs £699.
The company is doubling capacity on this programme for 2000/01 due to strong demand. Accommodation is in three and four-star standard hotels and the route goes from Lake Maggiore to Rome.
Cosmos Tourama is the European brand name for Cosmos Coach Tours. Its nine-night family friendly Sunlink to the Costa Brava costs £189 per adult. Children enjoy reduced rates. Pick-ups are at various points in England and Wales.
Upmarket Insight Vacations has found that its most popular short-haul trips are those to Italy, Spain and Eastern Europe, with the 14-day Highlights of Eastern Europe top of the list.
It takes in cities such as Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Cracow, Warsaw and Berlin. With flights to Vienna and accommodation in top-of-the-range hotels near to city centres, prices lead in at £1,120.
Themes
Themed coach tours are increasingly popular and come in all guises. Leger’s Disneyland Paris product ties many of its tours around the Disney theme calendar. Besides a Halloween trip at half-term, during October, the Frontierland section of Disneyland is transformed in to what the Leger Disneyland brochure describes as “a spooky world of scares and surprises”.
Adult prices of £179 for two nights include theme park entrance and a tour of Paris. Children over three years pay £79.
Wallace Arnold has a section devoted to special-interestholidays and its current booklet is relevant until October this year.
Special-interest tours include whist and critiques.