Photo by Konstantin KLYAGIN.
In early winter 2004, Irina Mamai was going to visit her mother, who lives in Cyprus. Searching for the most economical tours, Irina started scouring travel company websites. There were so many inexpensive options that she couldn’t resist and decided to share valuable information with other travelers. Thus Cheaptrip, "Cheap Tour," was born – an online community where members share information about fresh last-minute tours. The Cheaptrip example is telling: many people now want to learn how to catch good special offers and travel the world almost for free. Of course, to find a last-minute tour at a ridiculous price, you'll have to work hard.
Many might find it more comfortable to go to the nearest travel agency, choose a tour from the manager's proposals and pay "according to the price list." But you'll agree: it would be annoying to find out at the resort hotel that your neighbor paid half as much for the same trip. True, we should not forget the main disadvantages of last-minute vouchers: hunters for perishable tour products must be ready to drop everything at any moment and go not always where they want. Moreover, there are quite a lot of fakes on the last-minute tour market.
Internal combustion tours
In stores, such goods are called stale and they get rid of them simply: they hold a sale, slashing the price several times. Travel companies find themselves in a similar situation from time to time. They are forced to gradually lower prices for vouchers with an expiring "shelf life." The closer the departure date, the lower the price; a couple of days before the final "burning" of the voucher (including flight, transfer, and hotel accommodation) they cost very little.
At the same time, you should not think that "sale" tours are inherently bad. Worthy resorts and hotels can easily end up in last-minute offers. It's just that specialists misjudged future demand: tour packages are formed in advance, when no one yet knows exactly how popular a particular destination will be.
For example, the current summer season did not start very well for travel companies, which accordingly allowed the most enterprising citizens to vacation for pennies. In May and June, Turkey was "on fire" (five days in a three-star hotel was even given away for $63), in mid-June Egypt (seven-day tour to a three-star hotel in Hurghada cost $100) and Cyprus (seven days in a two-star hotel sold for €240) joined it. In early July, Bulgaria unexpectedly "caught fire."
Now you can vacation at the resorts of Golden Sands, Albena, Varna, Burgas for $200. This price is several times lower than usual. The main reason for the "fire," according to experts, is not the recent floods, but that the tourism market overestimated Bulgaria. Companies expected that the flow of tourists to this country would increase compared to last summer, and bought up a fairly large number of airline tickets in advance. Demand, however, remained at the same level.
In mid-July, seven days in a three-star hotel in Egypt, Turkey, and Tunisia could be had for less than $200, in Cyprus for less than €250, in Spain and on the Ligurian coast of Italy for €300. A regular voucher to the same hotels would cost at least one and a half times more. There are two reasons for the appearance of last-minute vouchers. The most common is this: the tour operator ends up with too many pre-purchased airline tickets, often on charter flights, bought before the season. To avoid losses, they need to get rid of them, even at half price.
PR director of Tez Tour, Roman Rybakov, explains this state of affairs as short-sightedness and excessive ambition of colleagues in the industry: "Some have learned to respond to fluctuations in demand by replacing a larger aircraft with a smaller one, while others continue to rely on luck and put huge Il-86 planes for the entire season, no matter what."
The second reason for "ignition" of tours is the emergence of a new player in an established destination. "Say, a tour operator decides to invade a new market from this season and sell tours to Turkey," says Tatiana Varga, marketing manager of a travel company. "Old players have already formed strong ties with partners on the Turkish side; they get discounts in hotels and other benefits. The newcomer has no connections, and hotels quote higher prices. Consequently, his vouchers will be more expensive than others on the market, they won't be bought, he will inevitably start to 'burn' and, in the end, sell his tours at a reduced price."
Overheated Bulgaria, cold Cuba
To buy a last-minute tour, first of all you need to know when to start hunting for it. Judging by the numerous advertisements in the press and on the Internet, last-minute tours are always available, and in large quantities. How else could travel agencies with names like "Hot Tours" or "Shop of Last-Minute Vouchers" exist?
However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that such companies do not sell only or even mostly last-minute tours. In fact, the phrase "last-minute tour" is often just an advertising gimmick aimed at inexperienced customers. For example, the network of travel agencies "Shop of Last-Minute Vouchers" honestly admitted that they mostly sell tours at regular prices. "Last-minute tours are really not that common with us," says Nina Sizova, head of marketing department. "The company name in this sense is rather a successful brand." In reality, last-minute tours can appear in any company, but of course not all year round.
The least chance to find last-minute deals is during the high season (from mid-July to the end of August). The peak of special offers occurs at the beginning of the season (May and June) and the end (early September). This is because hotels in mass destinations force tour operators to buy up rooms starting in May, when our tourists have not yet fully gotten going, and ending in September-October, when their mass vacations are already over.
A good time to "catch" cheap tours is the very end of August, so that you return from your trip already in September. You can also go cheaply in February – everyone has spent money on New Year, no one is going anywhere, tourists can only be attracted by low prices. A favorable time for cheap vacations is December.
For the New Year itself (December 26 – January 2), many additional flights go abroad. To avoid flying back empty, the planes need to bring someone back from abroad. Accordingly, a week or two before these dates, very cheap tours appear for all winter mass destinations (Egypt within $100, Thailand for 12 days for $399, Pattaya for $250, Goa within $300, Singapore + Bali for $500, etc.).
Overall, for mass destinations – Turkey, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Thailand – the likelihood of last-minute tours appearing is quite high. Accordingly, the chance to buy a last-minute package to countries that are not in high tourist demand among our compatriots (for example, New Zealand, the USA, or Latin America) is small. Tours to such places are a niche product, and tour firms, even with the most serious planning miscalculations, will never have such an excess of purchased charters, say, to the Dominican Republic that prices would collapse.
Where to buy
After determining the right time, the next step is to decide where to go for the package.
It is best to contact a trustworthy, familiar agency with a large client flow. There, they will offer you several options, and you can immediately make a prepayment, securing the package for yourself. This is important for last-minute tours. When the price of a tour is half the usual, there are immediately many people wanting to go; even 15 minutes can decide everything: while one tourist is on their way to the agency with a prepayment, their tour may already be sold to a more mobile client.
Before contacting an agency, it is advisable to browse the Internet yourself and determine a price range for the destination of interest. It is not at all certain that the price at which you bought your last trip has not increased since then for objective reasons.
If you decide to look for a last-minute tour without the help of an agency, you will have to do the groundwork yourself – combing through numerous tourism websites in search of special offers. By the way, experts do not recommend that a person with no experience at all engage in independent searching for last-minute deals: the tourist must be well versed in hotels at the destination and know all the tour operators so as not to make a mistake.
"If it is a last-minute tour from a well-known tour operator that has been on the tourism market for more than 10 years, then there are no contraindications to its purchase," explains Roman Rybakov. "In this case, the low price of the tour will not affect the level of service provided to the tourist. But if the last-minute tour is sold by a tour operator that has not been on the market for long, then there are serious suspicions of possible problems during the vacation." For example, Russian tourists who bought cheap last-minute trips from the company «Luk Tour» encountered such a situation in June of this year. Arriving in Antalya, they discovered that they simply had nowhere to stay: the tour company had not paid for the hotel reservations.
Not to get burned
Despite the obvious advantages of a last-minute tour (you buy a regular tour at a reduced price), it also has disadvantages. The main pitfall is this: the tour may simply not be confirmed. The client comes to the agency, makes a prepayment, the manager "seats" them on the flight (reserves the tickets for the tourist) and sends a request to the hotel. The hotel checks availability and within a day sends either confirmation or a refusal. A free room may not be found immediately, especially for a last-minute tour when only one or two days remain before departure. Travel cancellation insurance can help compensate your expenses.
If the hotel refuses, the operator usually offers the tourist other options to choose from. They usually cost more because rooms in cheap hotels sell out faster than in expensive ones.
Overall, hunting for last-minute tours has a certain excitement. Admit it, it's very pleasant: to track down a tour yourself, besiege it with phone calls right in its lair, hit it with a prepayment, and finally stretch out on a sun lounger by the pool with the pleasant awareness that it costs you half as much as the neighbors at the hotel.
How to proceed when buying a last-minute tour
1. Decide if you are ready to drop everything at any moment and go on vacation anywhere. If not, you better choose a standard tour rather than a last-minute tour.
2. Study last-minute tour offers on one of the specialized websites or call and find out about available special offers from several travel companies.
3. As soon as you find a suitable option, without wasting time, go to the company's office to reserve the package and make a prepayment.
4. After receiving the ticket, passport with visa, and travel voucher, pack your suitcase, order a taxi to the airport. Relax!