Gold Crest Holidays
The Ilkley-based coaching-break specialist claims to be the cheapest ABTA member coach tour operator. Prices include £159 for seven days to Prague and £199 for nine days to Rome and Sorrento.
The operator has expanded its programme from 10 to 27 tours and produced its first full-size brochure.
Sample itinerary: three-day Belgium Beer Festival break to Diksmuide, with weekly departures throughout October, £95.
The current crop of brochures from coach tour operators is putting the emphasis on spending less time on the road and more time in resort.
Most operators offer a combination of fly/coach and traditional touring, but flight-based packages are becoming an increasingly important part of operators’ product range.
Shearings is even offering Eurostar and TGV options in its first year-round European and Mediterranean brochure.
Alongside traditional touring itineraries, operators are also featuring a greater range of resort-based holidays where clients stay in one hotel with the option of daily excursions. This year also sees the entry of Trafalgar Tours, which has launched its first dedicated brochure for the UKmarket, while Insight will be targeting a younger audience with its new Budget Europe selection.
Shearings
Shearings has five brochures on the market: Britain and Ireland; Europe and the Mediterranean; Sunshine Express (to Disneyland Paris, Spain and Italy); Festive Breaks; Worldwide by Air.
The latter programme features North America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and 11 European tours with air content.
The first year-round Europe and the Mediterranean brochure features more Eurostar and TGV options and 16 new tours to France, Germany and Italy.
The Britain and Ireland brochure features five and seven-day breaks for singles and a new all-inclusive option which includes full board and entertainment.
Sample itinerary: eight-day Italian Lakes fly/coach via Milan, staying four nights by Lake Maggiore and three nights by Lake Como, from £559.
Wallace Arnold
The operator offers centred and touring coach holidays across the UK, Europe, the US, Canada, South America, Australasia and China. Its brands are: Britain Jersey and Ireland; Europe andWorldwide.
In the UK, special-interest holidays include walking, birdwatching, cross-stitching, gardening, whist, photography and painting.
Thirty tours added for next autumn/spring include new five and seven-day Scottish itineraries, four/five-day Scenic Dorset breaks and European packages to Brittany and The Emerald Coast, the Cote d’Azur and Lake Lucerne.
Sample itinerary: five-day Llandudno & North Wales Coast, based at WA’s County Hotel in Llandudno, includes excursions to Anglesey and Snowdonia, from £109.
Leger Holidays
Discover Europe is the operator’s main brochure, featuring an expanded programme that includes fly/coach, traditional touring, long weekends, five-day breaks and Christmas markets.
Additional fly/coach product for 1999 includes Majestic Madrid, Toledo and Segovia; the French Riviera and Eternal City of Rome.
Leger is the selected coach operator for Disneyland Paris and has a new dedicated brochure. Other programmes include Christmas and Millennium packages.
Sample itinerary: three-day Autumn Funbreak to Disneyland Paris includes two nights in an on-site hotel and full-day admission to the park, from £169 (children 3-11, £59; 12-16 £99).
Trafalgar Tours
Europe ’99 is Trafalgar’s first dedicated brochure for the UK market, pitched between upmarket sister company Insight and the mainstream coach tour operators. It includes 14 tours of Britain and Ireland in a programme that extends to Egypt and Morocco.
The Club 21-35 section will be reintroduced into the Cost Saver brochure next year. Also on the UK market are Australia and New Zealand and dollar-priced USA and Canada brochures.
Sample itinerary: new 10-day Grand Tour of Morocco includes return flight to Casablanca and visits Rabat, Meknes, Fez, Erfoud, Ouarzazate and Marrakesh, from £899.
Crusader Holidays
Britain and Europe brochure features three, four and five-day trips in Britain and Europe; also itineraries of one week in the UK and one to two weeks in Europe.
New are two seven-day Scottish tours, Royal Scotland and Western Highlands, both priced at £289.
Sample itinerary: eight-day Killarney and Ring of Kerry tour, via HSS Holyhead-Dublin, spends five nights at Castleisland, near Killarney, from £369.
Cosmos
In its Tourama programme, Cosmos offers fly/coach and traditional touring in 30 countries of Europe and North Africa, as well as escorted holidays in the US and Canada.
New product includes upmarket fly/coach tours from sister company Globus; Leisurely Touring centred holidays; and resort-based packages by air with excursions included.
Free domestic connecting flights to Heathrow are offered outside the summer peak to clients joining the US and Canada tours.
Sample itinerary: eight-day Jewels of Italy, including Venice, Assisi, Rome, Florence, Lugano, Innsbruck and the Tyrolean Alps, from £298. Seven-day Sorrento extension, from £170.
Titan HiTours
The operator’s Worldwide escorted touring brochure is strong on US and Canada product and also includes Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Far East and Australia.
Next year’s programme, released in August, will add the 14-day Canadian Coastal Splendours and Cascades tour taking in Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, the Cascades and Whitby Island.
Sample itinerary: 16-day California and the Golden West operates year-round through Los Angeles and takes in San Diego, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite and San Francisco, from £925.
Insight
The upmarket operator’s current European Escorted Journeys brochure, featuring largely fly/coach touring, is its largest yet at 116 pages and includes a new 12-page Budget Europe section of British and European tours aimed at a younger market.
The new off-motorway Country Roads of France section features Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria.
Sample itinerary: 10-day Highlights of Spain includes Madrid, Ronda, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Granada, and Cordoba, from £699.