The travel websites such as Make My Trip, Yatra, GoIbibo, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline and others charge between 22 and 25%. Margins from the hotels and service providers to promote them on their online portals,
The direct consumer or the traveler doesn't get that much of a bargain. A contract between a hotel and an online travel agency provides for 'rate parity': each Travel Portal wants an assurance from the hotel or a resort that the rate / package provided to it is the lowest publicly available rate, and the contract between the portals and the hotels has a clause of stiff penalties to the hotel if a lower rate is found elsewhere.
The online travel portals offer some version of a 'Best Internet Rate Guarantee', and hold their hotels' to it. . Since the 'lowest publicly available rate' or "Best Internet Rate' can only be one number, and that number can't be any lower and still be either the 'lowest publicly available rate' or Best Internet Rate'; what the traveler pays on any of these websites is going to be very close to the hotel's 'Best Available Rate', or the hotels' rack rate.
Moving along there are more aggressive travel portals, the deep discount, 'opaque' sites, such as Hotwire.com and the Priceline with 'name your own price' gimmicks. You 'name your price' on Priceline, or pick one of several lowball prices posted on Hotwire, and they pick the hotel for you: they make a reservation for you at the hotel whose rooms they are selling at that price. You don't know which hotel which you'll be staying at until your reservation is confirmed, which is really not an acceptable condition to any traveler.
We at Swan Tours believe, that because of our relationship with the hotels over the last 25 years, we enjoy the lowest rates and also provide the following value add ones to our guests in the same prices:
- Time, one 10 minute call will generally be all that's required to book a holiday. We do all the research; provide opinion based on experience and present clients with easy choices.
- One experienced travel counselor is assigned as a point of contact for before during and after a trip.
- Accountability, in case of any issues, immediate solutions are provided.
Considering the above, we can proudly boast that Swan Tours offers world class services at the lowest prices.