How do tour agencies make money nowadays?

Dear friends,

Here are some ideas based on my observations in my recent tour.

1. By advertising the tour as "12 Days Exhilarating West America" when it is actually only 10 days. Check my photos to confirm that.
2. Provide one or two or no meal a day for tourists who usually consume 3 meals a days. Basically get the tourists to carry half the costs of meal or wait for SIA to feed them.
3. Insert one or two FREE days into "12-Day Exhilarating West America" on a very good punchline ie. "We give you a chance for you to pursue your specific interest. Shopping, rock climbing or perhaps just catch up on your sleep."
4. Ask tourists to pay for a particular programme that is too important not to do in the first place. "We give you the option to decide." was the punch line used. Example - We were ask to decide whether to pay USD$30 per person for a 3-hour night tour of "old" Las Vegas and major attractions of hotels along The Strip. We thought we are paying for someone else to do it. Guess what ... it is conducted by the same sweet Tour Manager! Another USD$120 out of my pocket.
5. Get the tourists to partially pay their outsourced contractors eg. tour guide/bus drivers. How? The tour agency actually put it down in their briefing notes the appropriate amount to "TIP" these contractors.

Here is the list given to me with the appropriate disclaimer:-

"The below listed are only guidelines and it varies by the season."

Coach driver                                   USD$2 x 10 days = $20
Grand Canyon Shuttle                     USD$1 x 1 day = $1
Tour Manager (not tour guide hor)   USD$3 x 11 days = $33

Total tips per tourist is USD$54. I paid USD$216 for my family as per GUIDELINE..

Good night.

6 nights with Holiday Inn in US

I have a rather unpleasant experience during my holidays staying in Holiday Inn. Particularly I wish to focus my comments on two ie. Palm Springs, Nevada and Civic Centre, San Francisco.

Holiday Inn, Palm Springs Resort
Incident 1
The hotel is a 3-storey (I think) square building with swimming in the middle. Let us call the 4 corners, A, B, C and D. The main reception is a corner A but the lifts are only available at corner B and D.

So in order to facilitate tourists like ourselves travelling with a lot of luggages, our tour manager has arranged to let us alight at corner B (as instructed by the staff on duty) to be nearest to our rooms. Can you imagine the hassles of moving our luggages over 2 long corridors to reach our rooms instead of entering through the lift at corner D? Question - Was the staff on duty familiar with the floor plan of its hotel?

Incident 2
Upon reaching our room, I was not able to open the door with the electronic card in the picture. Remember that we just arrived at the hotel and obviously not familiar with the layout and trying to look for someone to help us. I almost have to walk the four corners before seeing the bright lights of front reception. The staff on duty said it is quite amazing that I managed to find the reception.

Holiday Inn, Civic Center, San Francisco
Our family of four was given adjoining rooms. We were pretty happy with the arrangement till we opened the doors to our respective rooms. Imagine our horrors.. one room is neat and tidy and the other room was still in a mess.

Already pretty pissed with the last experience at Palm Springs, I confronted the front desk.

How could the front desk release rooms that are still in a mess to guests checking in? Some how this chap in the picture was making some uncompromising comments instead of trying to mitigate the situation. So I ask for the feedback form and ask for his name. His name tag said "Mark".

I asked, "Mark what? What is your surname?" I repeated the question a few times.
Finally he said in a cheeky manner, "Mark SMITH".
And I told my name is "WONG".
And he said, "Yea right" in a sarcastic manner.

And when I want to take a picture of him, he blocked my camera with some papers.

During the exchange of words, he implied that we should be "thankful" that we are given the rooms early as the official check in time is 4pm.

Instead of backing down, he was taunting me to complaint. Towards the end of exchange, he even wished me a good day and that I will definitely get my apology letter in a sarcastic tone, of course.

About half an hour after the incident, I returned to the front office to retrieve the feedback form and close the matter. Mark was not around and the other staff on duty could not locate the form and suggested that Mark might have taken it.

This staff said to me that throughout more than 20 years in this line, he has not seen such thing before and offer to look after my needs as long as he is on duty.

I found out from my tour mates later that they too have had some incidents too. Another family too got a room that is not done yet. Another family with two rooms have to share one toilet. Another family could not lock their door. While waiting in the lobby, I overheard an Ang Moh guest requesting the front office to look into the heater in his room.

Is this the standard of Holiday Inn?

There is no power point at the writing table. There is no free outlet in the whole room except in the toilet. This is the first time in my life that I have to charge my laptop and handphone in the toilet. Come on, is Holiday Inn operating in stone age or did I pay too little for my tour package to get this type of crap hotels?

Is this the standard of Holiday Inn?

Day 1 16 hours later

Dear friends,

I am using this channel to briefly note down the notables during our US West Coast trip. So bear with me :)

I went on any family trip with a lot of hesitation about safety and expected tiring travelling sessions of travelling. So I am obviously going to complain a little bit about the 16-hour flight from Singapore to LA through Narita. By the end of the flight, on board entertainment has been exhausted in a suffocatingly warm environment of SQ12. In the past, passengers would be "frozen" at 22 degrees but on this flight, I was actually fanning myself with a pillow.

I actually and finally learn how to play SUDOKU. I worked in a company for a few years where the CEO was pretty "mad" about the game but I never really tried the game till now. Get to watch movies I really don't have time for during my "normal" time. I sound like a "suaku" but I really don't have time to do the normal things like going to a movie during my normal hours in Singapore.

My first foot step in Japan is a sterile half an hour standing around transfer back on the plane. My first purchase in US is to buy a Starbuck's hot chocolate.

I would really love to fall into a deep sleep. Perhaps will get a drink later. :)

Can you choose not to exist online TOTALLY?

before

I am very curious to know whether one could successfully choose not to exist at all in the online world of blogging, msn, websites, twitter, youtube, flicker, picassa etc etc.

I am talking about a person who is one at the prime of his or her life, economically, socially and sexually active. I am not referring to a hermit in the mountain/cave somewhere. If you are a person, alive, working in Singapore, has colleagues, friends, family and relatives, can you choose to remain non existence in the online world?

At your friend's wedding, if the camera man takes a picture of you and other guests at your table and subsequently uploaded and tagged it, can you tell your friend to remove that picture and untagged you ie. telling your friend not to share its joyous occasion?

I just think it is plain too difficult unless you have nothing much else to do everyday except to just diligently and earnestly googling/binging about yourself online and closing down all traces of you in the online world.

Or perhaps you are no longer among us. Sigh. Can you leave me a fingerprint?

Good night.

Create your own Moon Shots!!

Dear friends,

Before my class started yesterday, I happened to come across this must read article by Thomas Friedman entitled "Their Moon Shot and ours" in Today page 19.

What is a "Moon Shot"?
Well it is not a tequila shot. It is big multi-billion dollar, 25-year horizon, game-changing investments.

Examples of moon shots by China:-

• building a network of ultra modern airports;
• a web of high speed trains connecting its cities
• buying and using 128 DNA sequencers (one of the world largest collections of such equipment)

The author contrasted that with an example in US ie. a consultant trying to sell its firm's intellectual knowledge on tackling terrorism to US government. He said we should be in race with China and not with Al-Qaeda. I am sure it is not all doom and gloom in US but perhaps we can see our future by looking at US now. While Asia could still be in its economic prime for many years to come, it is not forever.

Singapore too has been quietly and surely building its own moon shots eg. reducing its reliance of imported water by investing in purification plants and network of sewage systems to recycle waste water.

While personally I am not in the league of multi-billion game changing moves for my own career, nonetheless it is important for each of us to invest in ourselves for our ST and LT future. We need to see beyond the horizon and make ourselves relevant to that horizon beyond this horizon.

Create your own moon shots!!!

Why Woman's Charter?

The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) proposed a series of changes to the Women's Charter. The Charter was last revised in 1996. The profile of society has changed so much and the laws have to keep up.

A summary of the recommended changes are as follows:-

1. Maintenance / Alimony

• MEN ie. divorcees, who are thinking of remarrying (Edgar - which I wonder why after the first horrifying marriage/divorce) will be required to declare their maintenance debts to their prospective spouses. [Edgar - For the prospective spouses, it would serve as a strong indicator of the type of man she is marrying.]

• The court will be empowered to order a defaulter to post a banker's guarantee against future defaults. The guarantee will be valid for up to three years from the date of the order for up to three months of maintenance.

• To enforce maintenance payments, the Family Court will be authorised to issue attachment of earnings orders more frequently, where direct deductions will be made from the defaulters' wages. [Edgar - I fully agree as this will really make the collection process efficient. Will your employer become aware of your tardiness/mess in your personal life as thus affect your career?]

• The defaulters are also required to undergo financial counselling and serve a 40-hour community service order under certain conditions.

• Claimants will also be allowed to report to credit bureaus unpaid maintenance arrears, which are monetary debts that can be reflected in a person's credit report for assessment of credit worthiness. [Edgar - Many may not realise such negative reports on their credit history have a long and expensive repercussions on their property loans, car loans, credit cards applications and even business loans. I often advise debtors to pay up especially for relatively small outstanding.]

Edgar - I do agree with the need for such measures. I have seen the ex-husband of my friend driving around a car in the 6-figure price range but has been very tardy in keeping up with the alimony to maintain wife and son. My friend had to take leave from work to attend Court trying to enforce collection while her ex-husband can't even be bothered to turn up.

Another suggestion - The alimony should also be pegged to some inflation indicators.

2. Preventive Measures
To mitigate the divorce problem in Singapore particularly among couples who are minors and those who had been divorced previously, the government will require these couples to attend marriage preparation courses before issuing a marriage licence or a special marriage licence.

Edgar - I recently read in the paper about this newly-wed couple sleeping in separate rooms for reason that one can't sleep with air-con and the other can only sleep without air-con/fan. Of course, during the lovey-dovey period of courtship, you may try to live with the idiosyncrocies of partner. And as marriage is a long term contract, small irritants, gnawing at you daily, could eventually be the sparks for divorce.

3. Children

Children, being the most innocent party of any divorces, compulsory counselling and mediation to address child-related questions are also required for all divorces involving children below 21 years, in order to safeguard children's interests. [Edgar - I strongly agree.]

4. Inter-national marriages
With rising globalisation and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, new measures are proposed to facilitate marriages of overseas Singaporeans and Singapore PR couples ie. waiving a 15-day residence requirement for these couples who wish to marry in Singapore. But that requirement will continue to apply to couples where at least one party isn't a Singaporean or Singapore PR.

Concluding remark - In this modern age where women ask to be treated equally and that modern women have actually achieved a matching standing with men, should there be a set of laws to protect a particular sex?

There is also an increasing phenomenon of men being house-husbands. These group of men actually accept the idea that the best person should do the respective job of either of being a bread-winner or home-minder. So if a man is good at minding the home and children while the woman excels in her career, shouldn't the law protects these men too.

It should not just be called Woman's Charter but Human's Charter!!

Teo Nie Ching

In today's ST, I read about this Malaysian non-Muslim MP who spoke in mosque with her head uncovered.

My gut feel is that it is a case of misunderstanding as something similar happened to me recently.

I was recently invited to a Sikh temple to attend to an assignment. My contact, a Sikh, was showing me and my colleague around the temple. When we were in the prayer hall, a few of devotees were pointing to their head. Sensing that we may have done something wrong or that we may not be allowed to be in there, we swiftly made our exit.

A few minutes later, the priest brought some headscarves for us. Apparently all ie. male and female, who enter a Sikh temple must cover their head. My contact missed that.

We apologised immediately of course. I learned something new that day. Moral of story - We really need to get to know other races.

Albert Wong, Senior Marketing Director, ERA Realty Network

our home

Dear Mr Albert Wong,

I wish to respond to your letter in the Forum, Straits Times dated Aug 7, 2010 (Sat) on Ms Nadia Abdul Muttalib's concerns with junk mails ie. litter being strewn and asked that those businesses be targetted for action.

My basic position is that any business should be allowed to exercise their marketing creativity in promoting their products and services as long as it does not impede into personal space and property without permission.

You said you got no choice but to deliver to our doorsteps as you have been shut out of our mailboxes. And that we should pity you for making you and your fellow "Professionals" to incur higher marketing expenses as a result. You said we should not hit your livelihoods (and others in related industries of producing/delivering those "litter") as you need to publicise the products that you are selling.

Excuse me, if every business think like you and assuming it is justified to do so, we would have mayhem in every part of Singapore when businesses promote their respective products and services in any which way possible.

To mitigate the problem of fliers being strewn all over, you suggested that home owners like us, attached a tray or box to our gates to collect these fliers. But should you not be asking us whether we want those "litter" in the first place. You are asking us to incur costs to facilitate your marketing practices. Perhaps you would want those who do not want any fliers, to place a big signboard at our doors. You have made our fault for not thinking of ways to make it convenient for you to do your business.

You have implicitly warned those staying near MRT stations and good schools that this "problem" will continue unabated (and possibly intensify) as demand is there and that those units command higher value (ie. more commission for him and his "professionals").

You said you have been using fliers all these years and (defiantly, in my opinion) stated that you will continue to do so with a bit of consolation to us ie. you will tell your contractors to place those fliers carefully at the gate or under the door where possible.

You have signed off the letter to the Forum as Senior Marketing Director of ERA Realty Network ie. this is the position of one of the largest property agency in Singapore.

I am really disappointed by you and your organisation position on this matter.

P/S - Please have a word with your corporate lawyer on whether you and your company have violated any law.

F1 sham?

When Felipe Massa let his Ferrari team mate, Fernando Alonso passed and subsequently win the German Grand Prix, do you still want to classify F1 racing as a sport or a travelling circus?

A travelling circus where drivers, team managers, sponsors etc are all putting up a multi-billion dollars show which create entertainment where millions of fan pay money to watch.

I saw the title of an article a moment ago.. "How real is the reality show?" Actually whoever gets to stay or whoever get booted at the end of show depends on the rating each participant receives during the show? As ratings mean advertising dollars, the person who ultimately wins the $1million prize monies is actually being rewarded for keeping the show watchable by millions.

Wouldn't you wonder why an Idol would always end to be someone good looking who can somehow sing? Or the idealists would really think the best person did actually win the race?

UOB PRVI - 10X the rewards - Is it real?

Dear friends,

My UOB credit card statements for the respective months are as follow:-

• May 2010 - I have spent $3,237.27. I "earned" 1,082 UNI$ and was credited with 3,426 UNI$. 
• June 2010 - I have spent $1,550.12. I "earned" 504 UNI$ and was credited with 3,824 UNI$ and deducted 2,344 UNI$.
• July 2010 - I have spent $1,550.12. I "earned" 777 UNI$ and was credited with 2,313 UNI$.

When I saw the deduction in June's statement, I immediately called for a written and detailed explanation for the deduction. About two weeks after my call, a general letter to all affected cardmembers to apologise for the deduction was received. [Can a bank deduct someone's account before informing the account holder first?]

As that was not the letter I had been waiting for, I called its call centre again. On 16 July 2010, I finally received the letter with detailed computation of UNI$ transaction by transaction.

Here are my confusions:-
a) What is the formula to compute the UNI$ I earned against the amount spent? Based on the letter dated 16 July, it is very apparent that my various transactions earned different UNI$. Example - $930 expenditure earned 372 UNI$ whereas a $174 expenditure earned 68 UNI$.
b) Why the number of UNI$ credited is about 3 times the UNI$ you said I earned based on the 3 statements above? Why is the amount earned and amount credited be different?
c) UOB said (in small print) in its promotional material that only FIRST 5 transactions totalling $1,250 would earned 10X rewards of 2,500 UNI$. So if my first 5 transactions is less than $1,250, then what do I earn?

UNI$ or loyalty points are treated like liabilities and governed by respective Financial Reporting Standards. As a cardmember here, I am having trouble understanding UOB Credit Card's UNI$ rewards system. I wonder whether its auditors and Monetary Authority of Singapore are able to make sense out of all these.

The above is presented as factually as possible for the respective authorities to review and also for fellow credit cardmembers to be more vigilant and aware of issues I am facing.

Paul is talking to Credit Sussie?

July 9 (Bloombirg) -- Top investment bank Credit Sussie is said to be offering US$4m per year for the oracle octopus Paul to head its proprietary trading operations. Credit Sussie says its will convert part of its trading floor into a fish tank for Paul and put boxes of different markets, stocks, indices, equities and bonds for Paul to chose from. They expect this will translate into a more profitable business for them. Paul will also work closely with Head of Global Strategy and formulate recommendations on asset allocation and strategy.

However, rumours are circulating that rival Merrell Lunch is also bidding to sign Paul on in order to replace its entire research team. Paul's agent states "Paul is considering his options carefully" and will allegedly decide after making a call on the general direction of the US Dollar (See attached photo). The decision involving clam filled boxes labeled Credit Sussie and Merrell Lunch will be broadcast live from the NYSE trading floor later today.

P/S - This is written by someone else. I copied and pasted.

Public Transport Woes

if only taking public transport is as peaceful as this...

In the recent days, a lot of monies were spent telling us that we are moving into distance-based fares. There were advertisements in various newspapers, radio and tv; on site promotions and thousands of posters.

So what is distance-based fare? Who actually benefit from this change?

The message from the media seems to be telling me that commuters will benefit given the change. But the opposite side of the coin also tells me that millions of commuters have been paying the non-distance-based fares for years.

Two persons shared their experience about their bus fares today. Both told me that they seem to be paying more. A student told me that her fares to school and back have gone up by about 15cents. 15cents is not peanut money hor!

Another transport woe that has been well documented in recent days arose from a careless comment made by its CEO about MRT rides. Should we be thankful that the company's response to overcrowded trains is to remove seats from the MRT cabins so as to accommodate more commuters. We can now pack more commuters into the same cabin. Wonderful?

More commuters paying the same fares would translate to more profit for company?

I am always hesitant to say I know how you feel. Most often we don't. So please don't make comment that you know how it feels to ride in public transport during peak hours.

Don't do it for one day in a year for show. You go take public transport everyday!!!

NTUC Income taking a punt on Orchard Road flood

On page A11 of Straits Times on June 17, 2010, NTUC Income took out a full page advertisement with this punch line above a picture of a few stranded vehicles trapped by flooded Orchard Road ...
"YOU CAN BE SURE OF ONE THING WITH US - SOMEONE WILL PAY FOR THIS."

Who will pay for those damages I wonder? As you read further, "That's why we've always got you covered..." would means NTUC Income will pay for the damages? A very comforting and reassuring thing indeed for the owners of S350, Lamboghini and 30 other vehicles to hear.

But if NTUC Income pay, who will be ultimately foot the bills? Just a day before the advert, my friend made this remark "Given the flood, we the motorists die la.."

I was puzzled by his remark. He duly explained, " insurance costs go up, insurance premium will go up lor"

A double edge sword played by NTUC Income. A few vehicle owners assured while thousands wonder.

Regeneration/Culling in Singtel?

June 16, Singtel announced that the chief executive of NCS, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications, will retire. Lim Eng, who is 54 and has worked in Singtel for 30 years, will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer NCS Chia Wee Boon.

June 10, Singtel announced that its CEO for international operations Lim Chuan Poh is also set to retire at the end of this year. He has been with Singtel for 12 years. I don't know his age but he should over 50 too.

Or is Singtel doing a a-la-Chelsea recently when Chelsea released three players (over 30s) including a current German international, Michael Ballack under the pretext of making way for youth?

What possible learning points can we get from Singtel's?
1. Don't fret. They are just 2 personnels out of thousands of people working in Singtel. It is just coincidental that they are senior personnels.

2. Anyone over 50 for corporates should look left and right as the axe is coming.

3. Loyalty has very little weightage.

4. Or having a new man with new perspective/new pair of eyes, critical to the respective business?

5. Or is it purely a corporate governance exercise of rotating OUT its key personnels?

6. Any other unmentionables?

Bali Airport at Denpasar

Dear friends,

Firstly, I wish to share with you something I have never done before in my life.

I slept on 2 chairs placed in a row at the Bali airport between 1230am and 2am. I placed on head on a bottle of water and my legs on the stained table.

What happened? Jetstar/Valuejet flight was inadvertently delayed with an unknown reason since 945pm schedule. We were efficiently notified by sms at about 5pm in the evening. My well travelled friend assured me that since Jetstar can notified us so early, he was pretty sure they should be able to fly another plane to Bali from Singapore to pick us up.

We were first promised that we can board the plane at 1230am. Imagine the cursings, swearing and sighings from tired fellow passengers after one whole of fun and laughter at the beaches when we were handed water and some finger food while being told that the flight will be delayed by another hour to 2am.

Second observation - The airport is really crowded for incoming and outgoing. Is Bali benefitting from Thailand's misfortune? See picture above. Very very little air conditioning with so many bodies from Japan, Korea and Australia. Please go to airport EARLY if you are planning your departure.

Thirdly, the immigration officer actually ask me for a "tip" openly when I arrived. It was so loud that his fellow officer was stunned by his request. When we were checking out, we saw a woman trying to pay... Sadly.. this type of thing is still going on..

Competition Commission of Singapore CCS is working hard!

First high profile case as per my memory was CCS who went after the pest control entities rigging the tender process.

Then CCS went after the long distance bus operators operating out Beach Road.

Then CCS has been reported to be dressing down a very big boy in SISTIC.

Then CCS went after a group of electricians who again rigged the tender process. The one company who came forward and "betrayed" the whole group was specifically mentioned.

To encourage more entities ie. including individuals, to come forward to "whistle blow", should CCS consider some anonymity protection for that entity?

Keep up the good work!

Congrats to ladies in table tennis

Whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever your nationality may be and if you can beat the Chinese National Team, you deserved my applause too.

Well done indeed. This only proved the point that we are only human / everyone and everything has its day off and with a bit of luck (the sun,, moon and all the other planets are in alignment), an undefeated champion can be defeated. 100% consistency in performance is for machines at its best. As machines too are known to fail ie. my car has to be towed to Mitsubishi Centre recently for a leaking radiator. $400 later, problem solved. Pain.

The Jap PM announced its resignation recently. A political suicide/political bravado? from day one when he announced and possibly without checking the facts and the political terrain first, he promised to move a foreign military base. Goodbye to u anyway.

Studio M @ Nanson Road

As we wonder why we are not able to get cab when we need to, they are all queuing up at Studio M for a FREE goody bag filled 2 bottles of water and a packet of peanuts.

Now I know how else it takes to get a cab in Singapore (instead of calling its hotline) - Dangle some peanuts!

Poly Carpark Fee - Ms Glenda Koh

from where I stand yesterday

She is a third year student of Ngee Ann Polytechnic complaining in an open letter in Straits Times page A39 today that she cannot afford to pay $160 a YEAR to park her CAR within the campus.

She pinned the blame on the lecturers whom she SUSPECTS were grouching over the lack of car park space.

One hour journey to school with 2 bus changes each way is too much for her.

As she is in the third year now, the society is ready to WELCOME her into the harsh working with open arms.

Sigh..

What I heard yesterday...

helen in town

Remember the book "In Search of Excellence". The authors profiled 32 companies. And the rest of the world is supposed to learn from these elite 32. Today, 16 of 32 have already disappeared for various reasons.

Illusion of control - is the point of yesterday's lunch. In simple English, we think we know and that we are in control. The truth is that we don't know what we don't know.

The speaker cited another example. The increase in life expectancy of many developed countries is not due to improvement in medication, science nor annual medical check up. The fact is that the improvement is due to simple improvement in hygiene.

Keep it simple is the solution.