New Zealand Tour Map Travel Blog

Before the advent of the internet, travel agents were the only way one could book and plan a overseas holiday. There are two methods that travel agents book accommodation in New Zealand for inbound guests-

1. Direct booking with the New Zealand accommodation providers. The agencies in return ask a commission of 30% from the property

2. Many agencies negotiate monthly minimum guaranteed room bookings. It works like this, the travel agent books X amount of rooms per month at a heavily discounted rate and agree to pay the accommodation provider for those room regardless of whether the agents filling these rooms.

Now in both methods the guest, in this case an Australian traveller, pays the travel agent for the full price or slightly discounted advertised room rate. The guest thinks that they are getting a fair deal, however in most cases the hotel, lodge or motel etc is offering the travel agents their lowest class of rooms. The rooms offered are those that the accommodation provider normally would sell last and at a discount. For example a lake front hotel in Queenstown has many non lake view rooms. The travel agent is aware of this but will highlight the “lake front 5 star nature at this wonderful price”

Now back to our Australian guests experience. The guest in question booked a 14 day tour via the travel agent and was immediately pushed for a $500 non refundable deposit to get the wheels in motion. Our guest paid the deposit and asked for the luxury accommodation option advertised in the brochure. The agent informed the guest that this luxury option required a quote from the wholesaler as it involved 5 star hotels. The luxury option price came back at a extra 40% which the client accepted was fair based on his experiences of 5 star accommodation prices.

Here comes the hook or you could almost call it a con. When the client inquired about what hotels he would be staying at in New Zealand, the travel agent became vague and elusive. Naturally the guest became alarmed at this lack of information and continued in his quest for the hotel information.

The travel agent finally provided two of the seven properties that he would be accommodated in NZ. These properties were well known international brands that would normally elleviate any fear that an unsuspecting traveller may have. However, due to the battle he had to get this limited information, the guests suspicions where aroused enough to do a little internet research.

Armed with the hotels rake rate list of room types and prices, our guest enquired again with the agent as to what type of room will be provided. The classic travel agent answer was “superior”. Mmm our guest thought as he recounted the advertised room types as “lake view ground floor” “lake view 2^nd – 4th floor”, “ Garden view” etc.

More questions later and the response from the travel agent was the wholesaler can offer a “deluxe” level room at a supplement price. Well the guest was totally unclear as to what type of room would be provided as the agents room types did not match the room types specified by the hotels website.

Utilising his new found internet detective skills, he found that the additional supplement offered for the room type upgrade matched the difference between a “garden view” and a “ground floor lake view” on the website. From this he deduced that the luxury tour option included 5 star, but basic rooms through out his stay in New Zealand.

One would think that things couldn’t get any worse, however the guest spent the day on the internet researching the cost of accommodation in all the towns mentioned in the tour. To his alarm many of the small towns that the tour “overnighted” in, only offered a handful of 3 star hotels. The agents ability to only provide the names of only two hotels now became clear.

The alarm bells were ringing louder than ever now, so our guest decided to cancel the tour and walk away from his deposit. He subsequently decided to use the internet and book the same tour route directly with the hotels. The room types were up scaled to include in one case, a lakefront junior suite. A “full size” rental car replaced the tour bus and the resultant price was over 20% less than the luxury tour quoted by the travel agent.

Not only was the price considerably cheaper, but the level of accommodation was markedly better than that offered by the wholesaler and agent. Is there any need now for the use of travel agents other than for very specialised tours?

My experiences mirror those of the Australian guests and those experienced with real estate agents and car sales people. Although in the case of real estate and car sales, you have the opportunity to see what you are purchasing before you pay the price