Supera Tours is committed to upholding the standard of travel with these eight quality travel corner stones. Here’s our recipe for a better way to tour:
- Respect the Toll of Long Travel Time
- Location is Essential
- Embrace Slow Travel
- Passionate Travelers Are The Best Tour Guides
- Tourist Traps? Don’t want them, don’t need them
- Commit To Good Group Size
- No Hidden Fees
- Travel Safe. Travel Worry-Free.
To learn more about what we do at Supera Tours, call us at 877-388-1777 to speak directly with our team, no robots here.
No matter if you should choose to embark on your next adventure with Supera Tours or another tour company, it’s our hope that you’ll approach each option to ponder “do they truly care about the travel experience or are they prioritizing their own profits?“.
1. Respect the Toll of Long Travel Time
This detail goes a long way in setting the quality of your experience. Travel time is precious and nobody likes wasting it. However, the desire to create the most feature-packed itinerary often leads to planning a pace so fast, you find yourself running in and out of major sights or frantically rushing to catch your next activity. The right pace is different for each person/family, but balance should be the priority. Be on the lookout for things like overly long commute times or too many activities crammed in one day. Long, busy days lead to over-exhaustion. At the end of the day, you shouldn’t be so tired, you’ve forgotten your entire trip!
2. Location is Essential
Hotel star ratings are great as a familiar and easy indicator. However, they only show a small part of the picture. Location is the most important factor of all; the right setting gives travelers more freedom and the ability to walk straight into local neighborhoods and save time. The worst thing you can do while traveling is wasting time commuting back and forth from your distant hotel when you could be using it to enjoy more of the local area. Here’s how you can Make the Most Out of Your Stays.
3. Embrace Slow Travel
This applies whether you’re designing a tour or your own an independent trip in a new destination. Staying in a different hotel every night is generally an indicator that the itinerary is too rushed. This can really depend on the destination, but a good general rule of thumb is to seek balance in your itinerary. This is will not only ensure a more well paced (and actually relaxing) vacation but is also one essential climate conscious decision every traveler and travel designer should consider.
4. Passionate Travelers Are The Best Tour Guides
Guides make all the difference. We often say you can have the best hotels, meals, activities included in an itinerary, but without a great guide, it all falls apart! Passionate guides love to share the best of each local area and give you memories for a lifetime. Many years back, on a trip to New York, I joined Scotts Pizza tours. It was early on when he was just getting his business started, so Scott himself was our guide – his incredible passion for sharing the city and food he loved left a lasting impression which I will never forget.
5. Tourist Traps? Don’t want them, don’t need them
Avoid itineraries which treat travel as a checklist. Designing a great itinerary should be about including worthwhile sights, but just as importantly, it is also about knowing which sights to avoid. Hostage-style shopping stops are an obvious one to avoid, but there are also many less obvious things to consider as well. Oftentimes, overcrowding of well-known places can ruin the experience.
The Great Wall of China or the Eiffel Tower are great examples of this. Unless you’re up to date on local conditions and plan your trip properly, you may be shocked by the massive numbers of people you will see. If you go and you’re so focused on fighting the crowds, it takes away from the spirit and enjoyment of exploring these great landmarks. A well-designed itinerary will know details such as which areas of the Great Wall are worth exploring or what time of day is the best for visiting the Eiffel Tower. This is one of the many reasons why a travel agent could be just what you need.
6. Commit To Good Group Size
Tours offer the benefit of private transportation, and buses are the most common method in many destinations. The standard around the world for a modern tour bus averages about 55 passengers. Many budget tours try to cram as many people into one bus as possible in order to lower the operational costs since the scale makes a huge difference in price. With some exceptions, a group size over 30 is indicative of a tour too big to manage well.
Group size also impacts quality in a variety of unseen ways. For instance, many of the best local restaurants cannot comfortably seat 35-40 people, and some of the smaller local hotels cannot accommodate that many people at once. It’s also in those large groups that budget tours will default to loudspeakers because in a race to the bottom philosophy there’s no budget to provide wireless devices for everyone. Resulting in mediocre experience for their travelers but also disrupting local communities.
As such destinations have also become wary of large tour group sizes. As of January 2024, Venice is in motion to ban large tourist groups of more than 25 people and loud speakers.
7. No Hidden Fees
We are here to SHARE a great experience, not SELL you one (“Don’t be optioned to death”) All-inclusive Pricing
The low upfront price of itineraries with optional activities can be used mislead travelers. Make sure to pay attention to the options on any package. If the options are cultural highlights that any traveler would consider “must see” activities, that’s usually a warning sign. An itinerary which nickel and dimes travelers is often an indicator that corners are being cut in many areas.
8. Travel Safe. Travel Worry-Free.
Make sure your tour operator has a solid support system in place in case of emergencies. There are endless questions on possible things that can happen while traveling: What happens in case someone gets sick or injured? extreme weather? logistical delay? It’s important to be prepared. We always want our guests to travel worry-free, so not only do we have a professional support system in place for our guests, we also include complimentary travel protection.
Many tour companies in the US are marketing companies who resell packages created and operated by a local travel company. This is an efficient way of operating, but it may not always result in the best experience and service. With so many details involved in travel, things can fall through the cracks, especially when other languages, time zones, and cultures are involved. The best organized companies can answer your questions correctly and directly.
If you’d like to learn more about how Supera Tours can elevate your next vacation, give us a call at 877-388-1777.
