Re tours’ expected hotels

My wife and I have been either traveling or living abroad for nearly 50 years. With rare exceptions, we have always traveled independently. Being 69 and 71, respectively, and getting a little leery of traveling by ourselves to the more underdeveloped parts of the world, we decided that we would experiment with group tours.

We took a trip in May ’07 to Morocco with Odysseys Unlimited (Watertown, MA; 888/370-6765) and in September ’07, Vantage Deluxe World Travel’s trip to Croatia and Slovenia. (It turns out that Slovenia and Croatia are countries which even older people can visit quite comfortably on their own.)

We were mostly satisfied with Odysseys Unlimited. They delivered a quality product exactly as it was advertised. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a tour that is higher-end in price and has a smaller number of participants in the group.

Before moving on, I’d like to get out of the way a minor irritant regarding the advertising of tours.

Almost all tour operators, in promoting a tour of a given length, include international air travel days in the total number. But we all know that, for example, a 15-day tour of Europe actually means 13 days of in-country travel plus two air travel days.

The reason they do this is obvious, to me. It creates the illusion of spending more time on tour. And yet “touring” is what takes place once one reaches one’s destination; in these days of overcrowded aircraft and frequent flight delays, only a masochist would consider economy air travel as being “on tour.”

Some companies advertise only the actual days that they provide full tour services in-country. (One is Adventures Abroad [Blaine, WA; 800/665-3998, www.adventures-abroad.com]. I have not traveled with them.) I think this is the most ethical practice.

Far worse is tour companies’ practice of what seems to me to be bait and switch in advertising hotels. The tour operators cover themselves in part by using small asterisks to refer to disclaimers stating that similar properties may have to be used, but they know full well that many people do not read the fine print and are attracted to descriptions of the only hotels showcased in the brochures.

For our Sept. 13-24 trip to Croatia and Slovenia, Vantage Deluxe highlighted in its glossy brochure the Excelsior Hotel in Dubrovnik. It overlooks and is within easy walking distance of the Old Town.

In our initial preflight materials, that was still the hotel of choice, but several weeks before we departed we received notification that we would be staying at the Dubrovnik Palace, a decent hotel but one a 30-minute bus ride away in an isolated locale and not within walking distance of any shops or restaurants. One is literally a captive of this hotel in bad weather.

We chose this tour in part because we wanted to treat ourselves and because friends recommended the Excelsior. Being stuck in the boondocks was not our idea of a treat.

But Vantage had other surprises. In the Istrian Peninsula town of Opatija we were scheduled to stay at the Milenij Hotel, with guaranteed sea views. On the afternoon of our departure from Zagreb to the hotel, the tour director said we would be put up at the Camellia Hotel in order to guarantee everyone a sea-view room.

Fine, except the Camellia is not in the same class as the Milenij. Also, if one thought about it for a few seconds one would realize that Vantage did not make this decision at the last moment to please its clients, since it would have had to cancel 22 rooms and book 22 new ones at the last minute — a highly unlikely event in high season in Croatia. Undoubtedly, Vantage had made this decision long before we started on our tour and then delayed informing us.

Another problem cropped up with Vantage’s selection of Hotel Toplice at Lake Bled in Slovenia. This hotel has splendid views of one of the most scenic lakes in the world, but Vantage failed to tell us that only a few tour members would get rooms with that view. The rest of us were stuck at the back of the hotel overlooking a busy road.

As any reader of guidebooks describing this hotel will know, the rooms at the back are stuffy and noisy. Compounding the problem, for us — we could not even close the windows because in September the hotel owners cut off the air-conditioning.

There is absolutely no reason to stay at this expensive hotel unless one has a lake view, and the tour operator should know that. It only created hard feelings and resentment among the tour members, many of whom had sleepless nights.

What we strongly urge is that companies like Vantage be more honest in their advertising about the hotels they will use and not limit their advertising to the best hotels and best views in those hotels to lure clients.

In Dubrovnik, for example, they could easily list several hotels they use and simply state that hotel selection will vary. At least, potential clients would know exactly what they might expect and could decide whether or not to take a chance on being near the Old City or not.

We have already made this point to Vantage in writing.

JACK KAUFMAN
Lake Quivira, KS

ITN sent a copy of the above letter to Vantage Deluxe World Travel and received the following reply.

Thank you for affording Vantage the opportunity to respond to the issues raised by Mr. Kaufman. We value the opinion of our passengers and, in fact, survey them both pre- and post-trip to determine how we did and what we can do better.

Mr. Kaufman raises several issues involving more than one company. In reviewing his letter, I would like to respond to the following points.

1. Number of tour days versus number of total travel days

In the case of Vantage, all of our promotional material clearly states how many hotel nights are included. We state the total number of days because we find that many of our clients want to know the number of days they are going to be away plus the beginning and ending dates of their time away from home.

In addition, because Vantage includes round-trip international air in its pricing, we include both the departure and return days as a part of the “count” because the customer is paying for services on all the days of the tour.

2. Change of featured hotel in Dubrovnik

Mr. Kaufman is correct that on his specific tour, the Excelsior Hotel was changed to the Dubrovnik Palace and passengers were advised of this change several weeks in advance.

We do note in our materials that sometimes an alternative hotel will have to be utilized due to hotel overbooking or special events. When this happens, our policy is to insure that we move to a similar or better-quality hotel. Our sources rate the Palace higher than the Excelsior.

On our post-trip survey from this specific departure, 100% of the guests rating this hotel rated it as good or excellent, with 72% of the surveys reporting it as excellent.

3. Change of hotel in Opatija

Mr. Kaufman is correct on this issue as well. In this case, the hotel “out booked” our confirmed departure two days prior to our scheduled arrival. They claimed that they had a double booking and that they had arranged sea-view rooms at their sister hotel, Camellia.

They further provided direct compensation to all guests for the inconvenience in the form of an in-room bottle of wine and an à la carte meal at the Restaurant Jakov.

100% of guests rating this property rated it between good and excellent, with 68% rating it excellent.

4. Hotel Toplice lake-view rooms

A review of our promotional material doe not state or otherwise promise lake-view rooms. Contractually, this hotel books “run of the house,” and while we chose the hotel for its exceptional location, we made no promise of lake view.

In spite of Mr. Kaufman’s disappointment, 68% of his fellow travelers rated this hotel as excellent overall, and an astounding 96% of them rated the location of this hotel as excellent.

We recognize that our customers are very sensitive when it comes to last-minute changes, and we do all we can to minimize those changes. I have enclosed the ratings from this departure to reflect the generally high level of satisfaction most customers had on this specific tour.

Of note, 72% rated the tour’s overall quality as excellent; 96% stated that, based on this trip alone, they would travel with Vantage again; 100% rated the learning and cultural experience as excellent, and 88% rated the program manager on the tour as excellent.

With almost 25 years of experience, Vantage is committed to bringing its travelers memorable journeys. As I am sure many experienced travelers realize, operating tours on a worldwide basis with multiple vendors and multiple features does occasionally result in disappointment if one or more of the tour components is not exactly as it should be. I once computed that, in total, we have almost 600,000 moving parts to manage, based on the number of tours times the number of components times the number of departures.

We genuinely do all we can to minimize the number of “defective” parts that occur. As in any good business, all we can do is apologize, make an attempt at service recovery, and hope that the customer’s sense of “fair play” will give us the chance to show him that we can do better. We sincerely hope that Mr. Kaufman will allow Vantage that opportunity.

DAVID GEVANTHOR, Executive Vice President, Vantage Deluxe World Travel, 90 Canal St., Boston, MA 02114