With new destinations, new trip types and even a new operator selling through the trade, the booming escorted tour market is a hive of activity.
Keep up to date with what operators have been up to with our rundown of plans for 2011 – there are plenty of exciting trips to inspire your clients to book.
Travelsphere
The sister brand of Page & Moy and Just You is now selling through the trade. There are four new brochures for 2011, focusing on Europe by coach and rail, Europe and the Middle East, worldwide tours and Christmas and New Year breaks.
The Great Sights of the World brochure has an increased programme in Latin America and the Caribbean, with new tours to Colombia and Bolivia, plus six new tours to China. New tours in Europe include itineraries to Andalucia, the Italian Lakes and a river cruise through Russia on the Volga.
Page & Moy
Page & Moy has new departures across the globe for 2011, from a seven-night Classic Tuscany itinerary to a nine-night adventure to Ecuador and the Galapagos.
All the tours have an immersive element to get visitors up close and personal with the destination; the new Syria and Jordan tour includes a home-cooked meal with a Jordanian family and lessons on how to make glass at a glass factory.
For the first time, the operator is offering optional door-to-door taxi services in the UK. Also new is the Wildlife and Culture brochure, offering tours to destinations including Kenya, Canada, Mexico and Nepal.
Just you
The solo travel specialist offers more than 80 holidays around the world for those holidaying without companions.
New itineraries include a Texas and New Orleans itinerary, a tour of Italy’s undiscovered Cilento Coast and a 10-day trip taking in the highlights of Mexico, including Mexico City, Teoticuacan, Monte Alban and Acapulco.
Trafalgar Tours
Trafalgar’s Worldwide brochure features 86 itineraries, with new Family Experience tours across destinations in Africa and Latin America and ‘At Leisure’ options in Europe. These offer a more relaxed style of travel with more multi-night stays, more free time and no morning starts before 9am.
Trafalgar’s new Cost Saver brochure has good value tours with itineraries in Greece and Turkey.
Insight Vacations
Insight has created a new range of tours for the top end of the market in 2011. There are seven Gold Tours, featuring deluxe hotels, leisurely itineraries and outstanding dining experiences. Featured destinations include Egypt, Italy and Spain.
Insight has also expanded its range of Select Choice tours, which offer more flexibility for independent-minded travellers, and its collection of ‘easy-paced’ tours, which have fewer early starts and more free time. Insight will feature Tunisia for the first time, plus a new itinerary visiting the Balkans.
Cosmos Tourama
Cosmos is tipping non-euro destinations for success in 2011, and introducing two tours in Morocco, a new leisurely itinerary in Tunisia, a highlights of Turkey tour, a two-centre Dubrovnik and Montenegro itinerary, and a new trip to Jordan.
Its new upmarket Select by Globus range of tours offers deluxe coaches, centrally-located quality hotels and door-to-door private transfers. Destinations for these include Italy, Spain and Germany.
Leger Holidays
There are 29 new tours in Leger’s Experience Europe brochure, which offers holidays by coach, rail, air and cruise between November 2010 and December 2011.
New itineraries include eight-day trips to Poland and Morocco. The operator has also expanded the range of Grand Explorer itineraries, launched last year in response to customer demand for ‘trips of a lifetime’.
New Grand Explorer tours include Nashville, New Orleans and Elvis Presley’s Memphis, and Israel – Highlights of the Holyland.
Shearings Holidays
Shearings’ top sellers remain the classic Western European hotspots of Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria and France, but there is a growing minority of holidaymakers who want to get off the beaten track and explore lesser-known destinations.
In response, Shearings has added itineraries such as Magnificent Russia and the Capital of Culture, a 17-day Grand Tourer package that visits Germany, Poland, Latvia, Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. Also tipped for the top is the new 16-day Scandinavia and the Midnight Sun trip.
Titan Hitours
Titan’s 12 new tours for 2011 include the operator’s first-ever triple-centre break, plus its first-ever ‘stay put’ holidays. The former is a 10-day tour of Paris, Dresden and Berlin; the latter includes trips to Sofia and Reykjavik where passengers stay in one hotel throughout.
Medium-haul destinations are popular, with two new tours in Egypt, plus new trips to Syria and Libya. Alaska cruise and tour trips have proved so popular Titan now offers seven options, and its VIP departure service is now available to all addresses in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Collette Worldwide
There are seven new itineraries in the 2011 brochure, including trips to Croatia, Alaska, Thailand and Laos, and Israel and Jordan. Many of Collette’s tours are cheaper than last year, with cost savings of as much as £890 per person on 2010 prices.
The latter is on the Japan’s Hidden Treasures tour, and there are seven other tours that cost much less than they did in 2010. Clients can save a further £100 if they book before the end of the year. Agents will earn £20 cashback on all of these early bookings.
Great Rail Journeys
The UK is booming for GRJ, which has introduced two nostalgic tours visiting Orkney, Shetland and the Highlands and the vintage railways of the Isle of Man for 2011.
The US is also doing well, with a new option for next year in the form of The Transamerican Rail Tour, a three-week odyssey from San Francisco to New York.
A new private Spanish train that runs along the Galician coastline, El Expreso de la Robla, will be featured for the first time by GRJ in its ‘La Robla and undiscovered northern Spain’ tour, and the rail specialist will incorporate the luxurious Pride of Africa train into two new itineraries; the Namibian Explorer and the South African Adventure.
GRJ also has an exclusive partnership with Star Clippers to offer a 17-day rail-cruise holiday dovetailing a luxury rail holiday to Paris, Venice and Rome with a Mediterranean cruise on the Royal Clipper.
Grand UK
The over-55s specialist has more than 50 new holidays in its summer 2011 brochure, which has been redesigned to make it clearer to see what is included in each tour.
There are more train trips in the brochure and a new ship – the flagship of Classic International Cruises, Athena. Also new is the Superdeal range of holidays in the UK, aimed at price-conscious customers.
Sample product
Great Rail Journeys offers the nine-day La Robla and undiscovered northern Spain itinerary from £1,895. greatrail.com, 01904 734200
Shearings Holidays offers the 16-day Scandinavia and the Midnight Sun trip, visiting Sweden, Norway and Finland, from £1,399 on departures in May and June.
shearingsagent.com, 01942 823449
Cosmos Tourama offers the five-day Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains itinerary from £535. cosmostourama.co.uk, 0871 423 8695
, 0871 423 8695
