Starting a Niche Tour Operator/Travel Agency

[mzp]

Hi All,

Would really appreciate any advice.

I am thinking about starting a business selling holidays targeting a particular geographic area and demographic.

However, I am not sure if it's best to do it as a Tour Operator or Travel Agent (reseller). I would like to go down the operator route but it seems like a huge amount of work just getting one holiday set up. Ideally I would need around 20 or so packages as a minimum before it makes sense to start marketing. If I need to travel to all these destinations, check the hotels, vet the drivers I'll be hiring, go to remote destinations and check the homestays and activities surely this will take a huge amount of time and money?

Can someone with experience in this field tell me whether it's really this difficult to set up package holidays? Or for instance, are there people in the destination country that you can speak to that will arrange most of this for you that you can trust? Or is it better to 'buy' existing package holidays (if they are mostly generic per destination) and re-sell them using your own marketing (I guess this is more the travel agent route) ?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[colour24]

Hi, I am interested to learn what part of the world you are looking at operating in, and what experience do you have? Also, how do you intend to market the business? There can't be many corners left on our small planet where you won't be squaring up to some established competition.

 

[mzp]

I plan on using very specific channels to market to a particular demographic. The destination itself is being covered widely in the mainstream holiday industry

 

[Garytravels]

Hi mzp

I know this thread is outdated but I wanted to see how you got on. I am thinking of doing something very similar and would really like to hear of your progress if you decided to carry on with your new business. Best wishes Gary