Friday, December 24, 2010

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.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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?

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

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. :)