Posts made in February, 2011

Travel Agents – A Well Informed Advisor

Posted by admin on Feb 28, 2011 in Travel Agent | Comments Off

Earlier if one wanted to go one a vacation then one was required to do a lot of go around looking for good travel agents and then browsing through some travel brochures, plus the pain of paying and exuberant price. Then, after selection one had to sit across the travel agent waiting for him to enter all the travel information on their green monochrome computer screen. We assumed they had been everywhere and knew everything about world travel. They were the rock stars of the retail world. With the advent of the internet connection the face of travel had changed forever. As the information is available 24×7 about any destination one wishes to travel.

A travel agent does the legwork for you from booking trains, flights and hotels to finding the best deals and securing upgrades. The key is finding the right agent for you and helping them understand your needs. Most travel agents offer the travel package that consists of everything from airfare to toll taxes.

The services of a travel agent are usually free to consumers, as agents are paid commissions by suppliers. The smart travel agents have embraced technology and are using it to provide better service to their clients. Saving you time; they sift through the options and suggest only the ones that meet your preferences and budget. It is the responsibility of the travel agent to help and guide the travellers about the constantly changing schedules and airfares, availability of packages for vacation, and a lot of travel information that the traveller may not know about. Information on weather conditions, restaurants, tourist attractions, and other such necessary information are also provided.

Many hotels, cruise liners, resorts, and special travel groups make use of travel agents to market their travel packages to the ever increasing rate of people choosing to travel both inland and overseas. A travel agent can prevent headaches in the form of Cancellation policies and hidden costs which may create a problem during the trip, the travel agents can act as an advocate to resolve any problems as well. The bottom line is that the travel agents help you get the best value.

The Truth about Travel Insurance

Posted by admin on Feb 27, 2011 in Travel Insurance | Comments Off

You’ve seen it before. The little “click here” box to purchase travel insurance when you buy a plane ticket.  Do you really need to spend that extra .95 to insure your trip?  Wandering Betty is here to give you the pros and cons of travel insurance.

There are four types of travel insurance that you can purchase:

Trip interruption/cancellation insurance Flight insurance Medical insurance Bad weather or  infectious diseases insurance. Let’s break it down.

Trip interruption/cancellation insurance provides coverage if the event that your trip does not operate, say if your flight gets cancelled, or if your cruise ship doesn’t sail.  It can also cover trip interruption due to illness, injury, deaths or involuntary job loss.  More comprehensive policies (often with more expensive rates) can also provide coverage if you cancel your trip for any reason, such as an important business conflict, a family obligation or even if you simply change your mind.   Trip interruption/cancellation insurance rates are generally based on your trip cost. 

Deciding when or if to buy trip interruption or cancellation insurance will depend on how much your trip costs.  If your flight is 0, then depending on your fiscal comfortability, you might decide to just forfeit the 0 if something happens.  If you just paid for a ,500 custom tour of the Mediterranean then trip interruption/cancellation coverage could become very important. 

Check your credit card terms before you buy trip interruption/cancellation insurance from a third party: some credit cards offer trip interruption/cancellation coverage automatically if you purchase the trip on your credit card. 

Flight Insurance, also known as flight accident insurance or travel accident insurance, pays a lump sum in the case of accidental death or certain loss of limbs to your beneficiary or you in the event of a plane accident.  You can also get common carrier accident coverage, which covers accidents occuring on other forms of transportation such as trains, buses or subways.

If you already have life insurance or disability insurance then purchasing flight insurance policy can become redundant.  Make sure to read the fine print to see if you are covered for travel, but in most cases those policies will offer coverage for what you need.  Flight insurance, just like trip interruption or cancellation insurance, can also be offered through your credit card, so it is important to check there as well before purchasing flight insurance from a third party.  

Medical insurance for travel can be the most important insurance available to travelers.  Medical insurance offers coverage for emergency care which can include emergency prescriptions or emergency evacuation.  It is available for a single trip or on an annual basis.  If you have health insurance here in the U.S. it often does not cover medical needs abroad, so it is very important to check your current health insurance for limits in coverage.

Not all medical insurance policies are created alike.  There is a wide variety of coverage and prices as well as host of fine print regarding pre-existing conditions.  This is one policy that your credit card is not likely to cover.  Medical travel insurance is highly recommended for everyone, especially those who are traveling to areas where health care is not accessible or sub-standard.

Adventure travel such as mountain climbing or even snowboarding is often not covered in medical insurance policies, so it is important to check that your policy covers you for all your planned activities.  If not, there are often extra riders that are available.

Bad weather or infectious disease insurance is a policy that offers coverage in the event that inclement weather such as a hurricane, earthquake or fire, as well as trip cancellation due to travel warnings on infectious diseases (i.e. swine flu in Mexico or SARS in China) causes either delay getting to your location or a complete cancellation of your trip.  It only covers bad weather that is unforeseen, so if you purchase bad weather insurance right before you leave and the forecast calls for a hurricane, then your bad weather policy will not cover you.  Timing is everything for this type of insurance.

Make sure to read the fine print for this policy, as with the other forms of insurance.  If your resort is still operating during a hurricane, then you may not be covered if you decide to fly home early.

Deciding on whether or not to purchase bad weather or infectious disease insurance depends on when and where you are going.  If you are headed for your honeymoon in the Caribbean during hurricane season, then bad weather insurance becomes very important. 

Tips before you purchase:

Check your credit card for policies that are already available to you free of charge.  No need to purchase the same insurance if you are already covered.

Read the fine print!  Know what you are buying and make sure it covers what you need.

Do research on the travel insurance company you are about to purchase from.  Do they have good user reviews regarding claims?  Check their status at the better business bureau or through A.M. Best, an international insurance rating agency. 

Check to see if the insurance company has offices and doctors in the area you are traveling to.   Do they have English-speaking service providers available so you can communicate with them?

Shop around.  Not all policies are alike, and they all charge different rates.  Do yourself a favor and research for the best price and policy for your needs. 

A smart travel company for all your travel needs

Posted by admin on Feb 26, 2011 in Travel Hotel | Comments Off

The Web is an essential tool for travelers, but as booking engines and trip forums evolve and multiply, you have to know where to look — and whom to trust. To help you, Intra Globe Travel Services has assembled the ultimate online guide for travelers i.e. hotelandpackagesbooking.com

Decide how much you want to spend and when you want to travel, Intra Globe travel Services will overlay the lowest fares pulled from different airlines. Don’t get stuck on the name. This is a great resource for learning about traveling and tourism. Select your two endpoints (say India and Europe) and learn who can get you from one to the other on a direct flight, hotel and packages booking only shows you who flies where; within your budget. Search hotels by ratings in your city of choice, and the site turns up an impressive mix of reduced rates on rooms at luxury properties.

Not only the information about hotels and airlines but hotel and packages booking will explain about an obsessive community of feisty people around the world share secret finds. The site features international locations and most beautiful places with images, videos of local culinary customs, how to travel within the city, and blogs such as the newly launched Tasting Notes. Plan a trip to one of more than 90 destinations from start to finish. Along with all the basics (hotel, restaurant, and entertainment ideas), get tips on what to read before you go. Decide on your transport of choice, as well as how far you’re willing to walk, and get point-to-point directions for all cities on our website.

Our services will help you to get information about different packages offered by travel agents, if you are a individual traveler then also you can check for hotel packages, discounts in hotels, budget travel packages. All information about your tours. And we are providing facility to compare different packages to book online.

Intra Globe Travel Services is a smart travel company providing information, pricing, availability and booking facility for air travel, hotels, buses and car rentals across 5000 large cities and small rural areas around the globe. As an online travel company, hotelandpackagesbooking.com acts as a complete tour planner for travelers and is a one-stop shop for every travel need.

Tourism for Tomorrow Awards 2010 – Held by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)

Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2011 in World Travel | Comments Off

For the last six years, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has held the “Tourism for Tomorrow Awards.” With the ever-increasing concern over the environment and the planet’s dwindling natural resources, as well as the need to preserve cultural and historical resources, the “Tourism for Tomorrow Awards” give recognition and confirmation to those organizations that are leading the tourism industry in promoting responsible tourism.

History of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)

Established twenty years ago, the WTTC is comprised of the world’s foremost business leaders in the Travel and Tourism industry, including some 100 Chief Executives. One of the organization’s main goals is to raise awareness of this mega-industry, which employs over 200 million people worldwide, and generates almost 10% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

One of the most important functions of the WTTC is to conduct in-depth research regarding tourism’s impact on various economies around the world. Over million has been invested into this research, and one outcome has been the creation of a new standard for the organization’s “Tourism Economic Impact Data and Forecasts” –already adopted by the United Nations.

Global Travel and Tourism Summit 2010

Every year, the winners of the “Tourism for Tomorrow Awards” are announced at the Global Travel and Tourism Summit. The summit is an international gathering of the world’s highest-ranking leaders in the Travel and Tourism industry. Board chair members, chief executives and high-ranking government officials meet at this annual convention to discuss how travel and tourism are related to economic growth around the world as well as the issues of sustainable development. The 2010 Summit was held in May in Beijing, China at the National Center for the Performing Arts.

History of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards

The awards first made their appearance in 1989, established by the Federation of Tour Operators. Their goal was to encourage industry members to work towards environmental protection. Three years later, British Airways began presiding over the Awards, and expanded the range of topics to include a wider variety of sustainable tourism issues.

The winners each year are chosen by judges who include world-renowned experts on the subject of sustainable development. The thoroughness and seriousness with which these experts conduct the candidate’s investigation has won the Award’s international respect by the media, governments, and members of the industry.

Four Categories of Awards

The awards are divided into four different categories: Destination Stewardship Award, Community Benefit Award, Conservation Award and Global Tourism Business Award. In each category a winner and two finalists are chosen.

The Destination Stewardship Award is given to a town, state, region or country, where the tourism network has been able to provide successful sustainable tourism, encompassing all aspects including economic, environmental, social and cultural, as well as the ability to engage members from across various sectors and involve them in the sustainable tourism ideals.

The Community Benefit Award is given to an initiative or ongoing business that has shown proven benefits to the local community and its residents. This can have a number of outplays, including helping to build the community’s infrastructure, teaching skills to increase knowledge and potential for advanced employment, or any other ways and means of providing value within the surrounding local community.

The Conservation Award is given to a business or an organization that can prove they have contributed to conserving some form of natural heritage, whether by preserving a natural reserve, aiding wildlife, protecting a piece of land, or any other means.

The Global Tourism Business Award goes to one of the industry’s large companies – hotel chain, airline or cruise line, etc. – with at least 200 employees, and the prerequisite that it operates in two or more countries. Here the award recognizes a company that has developed and implemented best sustainable tourism practices at the level of a large, international company.

How the Judges Select the Winners

The judging process to select the winners of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards involves three important steps and include between 15 and 20 judges who hail from a variety of backgrounds with a range of expertise in the global travel and tourism industry.

After receiving all applications, the WTTC checks each one to ensure that the applicants have complied with the rules, and then sends them on to the panel of judges. The judges are divided into four subcommittees – one for each of the award categories – and each committee evaluates the candidates on their own and then together via teleconference. From these sessions, three finalists are chosen for each category.

Each of the finalists is inspected by experts in sustainable tourism, who visit the finalist at their place of business to confirm that all information they have presented in their application is true and correct. These experts also meet with members of the surrounding community, to hear further input about the organization’s efforts in promoting sustainable tourism. The results of these on-site inspections become part of the final evaluation process in selecting the winners.

A selection committee, composed of five judges, and led by the Chairman of Judges, Costas Christ, a brilliant visionary and exemplary public speaker and authority on sustainable tourism, reviews the recommendations by the judges regarding the finalists, along with the applications themselves and the reports by the on-site experts. This committee ultimately comes to a final decision as to who the winner is in each of the four categories.

The 2010 Winners

This year’s winners in each of the four categories were:

Destination Stewardship Award: Botswana Tourism Board

Conservation Award: Emirates Hotels & Resorts, UAE

Community Benefit Award: Whale Watch Kaikoura, Ltd., New Zealand

Global Tourism Business Award: Accor, France & Global

The Botswana Tourism Board, established in 2003, has the stated mission of working towards the sustainable usage of tourism resources and the development of Botswana into a sought after destination for international tourism, thus helping to build the national economy.

The Emirates Hotels and Resorts have been active for the last ten years with the “Emirates Conservation Programme” to preserve local wildlife, flora and fauna that face extinction due to the development of industry. The Emirates Hotels and Resorts worked hand in hand with the Dubai government to create the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, only the first of what become a number projects to offer responsible, sustainable tourism, including Wolgan Valley Resort & Spa, and the soon to be established Cap Ternay Resort & Spa. Their resorts occupy a small percentage of the surrounding natural landscape, and are devoted to managing the wildlife conserves and marine life which protect these species.

Whale Watch Kaikoura, Ltd. is a marine-based company that offers tourists the opportunity to experience whales from up close through their whale-watching expeditions. Tourists have the opportunity to encounter not only whales but fur seals, dolphins and wandering albatrosses, an endangered species. This award-winning company is owned and operated by the Kati Kuri – an indigenous people that are a Maori sub-tribe of the Ngai Tahu tribe. Now over twenty years old, Whale Watch offered and continues to offer employment to the Maori people, and its success stimulated the economy of Kaikoura and brought vast opportunities for employment and investment in the area- all surrounding the idea of working with, not against, nature.

Accor, France & Global is a true industry leader, Europe’s leading hotel manager, operating in 90 countries and employing nearly 150,000 people. The Group includes some 15 brands, from the most exclusive to economy level, and includes well known names such as Sofitel, Pullman and Novotel. The philosophy of the group, “As guests of the Earth, we welcome the world” illustrates the company’s belief not only in hospitality but in having a profound respect for the members of different cultures. They are equally determined their businesses will have a positive effect on the surrounding communities, aiding in the health, economic and social development.

The Contest’s Sponsors: The Travel Corporation

For the third year in a row one of the two principal sponsors of the “Tourism for Tomorrow Awards” was The Travel Corporation (TTC), and its foundation: The Travel Corporation Conservation Foundation. The Travel Corporation is a leading group of companies specializing in travel, tourism and leisure activities.

Of great importance to this company is helping to do its part to protect and preserve the earth and encourage sustainable tourism around the globe. In addition to sponsoring the awards this year, the Travel Corporation has several initiatives on the go, which include collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund, the University of Glasgow and the National Trust. Their mutual projects have been established as far as Australia, Egypt, the United Kingdom and various locations in Europe.

According to Brett Tollman, the President and Chief Executive of The Travel Corporation and one of the founders of the Travel Corporation’s Conservation Foundation, “Our diverse projects are empowering indigenous communities to protect a small part of their country and culture, uncovering and preserving historical sites and minimizing pollution and the impact of tourism to precious waterways such as the Nile, just to name a few. Through The Travel Corporation’s Conservation Foundation our brands will continue to fund this important work.”

Brett Tollman, who has an extensive history with The Travel Corporation and its subsidiaries, is the company’s President and Chief Executive. With over three decades of experience in the travel and tourism industry, Brett Tollman spearheads the company’s international offices. His years of experience in providing practical management techniques, combined with his intense dedication to preserving the environment and respecting individual cultures and lifestyles, have led him to make several strategic and unique plans for the coming years. This will culminate in, among other things, some very exciting and original travel opportunities for the clients of The Travel Corporation and its companies.

Benefits Of Discount Travel Insurance While Travelling In Australia And Overseas

Posted by admin on Feb 24, 2011 in Travel Insurance | Comments Off

Discount travel insurance provides benefits to people traveling in Australia and around the world because it offers a cost reduction while still providing insurance on what counts most for people traveling.

The benefits to using travel insurance are very important when planning a holiday; policies provide a range of cover from insurance on traveler checks, foreign currency, medical expenses and accommodation to the standard lost luggage. Discount travel insurance policies allow people traveling to have a worry free time holidaying in countries all over the world and domestically in Australia. The benefits of discount travel insurance differ to full priced insurance but if policies are understood and cover everything someone thinks they will need then the price discount outweighs the extra benefits that may be available under full travel insurance.

Discount travel insurance is suitable for people going on a budget holiday as it meets the cost requirements of a cheap holiday. The key to discount travel insurance is to understand what the policy covers and what the policy does not cover. Once this is clearly understood people can make the best decision on low cost travel insurance making sure they are covered for what they believe they will most likely need the insurance for. When holidays are planned well you can also receive travel insurance discounts by bundling travel insurance with many other aspects of the trip plan. Discount travel insurance is also suitable when traveling in developed first world countries and when not undertaking potentially dangerous activities. If you are not undertaking a risky adventure you will be unlikely to need the extended benefits of full travel insurance cover – rather basic cover should be adequate for you.

Discount travel insurance can also be tailored for adventurous holidays if required: for example if skiing overseas it would be smarter to have high hospital cover just in case an accident was to happen. By sacrificing something like theft insurance for a higher level of medical cover you can counter the cost and avoid higher premiums. Discount travel insurance can also be beneficial for cheap short single trip holidays like weekend interstate holidays or travelling to other countries which are not far away, the discount will reflect the length of a holiday and the accessibility to Australia from the country in which you are traveling. If you are traveling for example in Fiji and your origin is Australia and you fall sick, it is a less expensive exercise for the insurance company to return you to Australia quickly and thereby avoid large medical bills overseas. The travel insurance company can then reflect this saving back to the insurance holder in a lower premium. The primary benefit with discount travel insurance is to provide low cost insurance while still covering a traveler’s primary needs. This said, as noted previously, one can always tailor a discount travel insurance to cover additional anticipated risks particularly if traveling in dangerous areas or undertaking high risk activities such as skiing. Get online and enjoy the savings on premiums with discount travel insurance.