Travel Agency and Tour Operation II: Types of Itinerary and Itinerary Planning, Tour Costing for FIT and GIT with Fixed and Variable Costs, Mark-Up and FOC, Confirmation, the Docket, Tour Vouchers and Reconfirmation, Operational Itineraries, Pick-Up and Drop Procedures, Guest Feedback and Its Analysis, Guides and Escorts, WATA, Suppliers, Agency Appointments and International Regulations

The resources for planning an itinerary are maps and atlases; airline, rail and bus timetables and the GDS; the Travel Information Manual for entry requirements; hotel directories and supplier tariffs; guidebooks, destination websites and tourism board material; the agency's own files from earlier tours; and staff knowledge from familiarisation trips. The steps are: understand the client (purpose, dates, budget, number and ages of travellers, interests, fitness, special needs); research destinations and their seasons; plan a logical route that avoids backtracking; allocate time realistically, allowing for travel time, time-zone changes, rest and a buffer for delays; choose transport, accommodation, sightseeing and meals; cost and price the itinerary; send the draft; revise it with the client; and confirm.

Tour costing starts from suppliers' tariffs, the rates quoted by hotels, transporters, guides, restaurants and attractions, often as special net rates for the trade. The key distinction is between fixed and variable costs. A fixed cost is incurred for the tour as a whole and does not change with the number of passengers: coach or car hire, the guide's and escort's fees, permits and group activities. A variable cost is incurred per passenger: the hotel bed on a twin-sharing basis, meals, entrance fees and insurance. For an FIT (free independent traveller) all costs, including the private car, fall on one or two people, so the per-person price is high. For a GIT (group inclusive tour) the fixed costs are divided among the paying passengers, which is why group prices are lower. Suppliers usually give a group one free place, an FOC (free of charge), for every fifteen or so paying passengers, often used for the tour leader; if the leader's costs are not free they are spread across the paying members. A single supplement is charged to a traveller who wants a room alone, the difference between the single-room rate and the per-person twin rate.

The same tour for an FIT couple shows why individual travel costs more. The car at ₹3,000 a day for 5 days, ₹15,000, is shared by two, ₹7,500 each; the hotel, meals and entrance fees are the same ₹18,500 per person; there is no guide. The cost is ₹26,000 per person and, with a 20 per cent mark-up, the price ₹31,200, against ₹26,310 in the group. Mark-up and margin must not be confused: a 20 per cent mark-up on cost is a margin of 20 ÷ 120, about 16.7 per cent, of the selling price. A single supplement is worked the same way: if a twin room costs ₹6,000 a night (₹3,000 per person) and a single room ₹5,000, the supplement is ₹2,000 a night, or ₹8,000 for four nights.

A tour is confirmed when the client accepts the itinerary and price and pays the deposit, and the agency confirms each service with its supplier, obtaining a confirmation number. A docket (file) is then opened for the booking. It holds the client's details and passport copies, the enquiry and correspondence, the final itinerary, supplier confirmations, copies of tickets and vouchers, the costing sheet, invoices and receipts, special requests, and later the feedback. Vouchers are issued to the client or sent to suppliers: a hotel voucher, transfer voucher or sightseeing voucher (sometimes called an exchange order) states the services to be provided, the dates, the number of guests and the billing instructions, so that the supplier provides the service and bills the agency rather than the client. Before the tour the agency reconfirms flights, hotel rooms and ground services, checking times and names and any changes since booking.

The customised operational itinerary is distributed to everyone who delivers the tour: the tour leader or escort, the local guides, the drivers and the transport company. It gives the exact schedule, flight and train numbers, pick-up points and times, hotel names and addresses, the rooming list, meal arrangements, special needs (dietary, medical, mobility) and a list of emergency contacts. The standard procedure for pick-up and drop is written down so that it does not depend on memory: check the flight or train status before leaving; the vehicle reaches the airport well before arrival; the representative meets the guests with a name placard, welcomes them, checks the number of passengers and bags, and escorts them to the vehicle; the driver has the hotel address and the route; for the drop, the pick-up time allows for traffic and for reaching the airport about three hours before an international departure, and the representative assists with check-in. Every failure point, a missed pick-up above all, is covered by a contact and a back-up.

A feedback or guest comment sheet is given at the end of a tour to learn what worked. It asks the guest to rate each service separately, usually on a five-point scale (excellent to poor): the booking experience, flights, each hotel, transport and drivers, guides, meals, sightseeing, value for money and the overall experience, with space for open comments and a question on whether the guest would recommend the agency. Analysis turns the sheets into decisions: tabulate the ratings, compute the average score and the share of poor ratings for each service and supplier, read the comments for recurring complaints and praise, compare against earlier tours and against targets, and act, by reviewing or replacing suppliers, retraining staff, changing the itinerary and replying to each dissatisfied guest (service recovery). Worked example: if 18 of 20 guests rate a hotel "good" or "excellent", 90 per cent are satisfied; if 6 of 20 rate a guide "poor", that 30 per cent calls for action.

The World Association of Travel Agencies (WATA), founded in Geneva in 1949, is a network of independent travel agencies in many countries that book services through one another, and its guidelines set the standards members observe in dealing with each other: prompt handling of requests, honouring confirmed bookings, clear terms of payment, protection of clients' interests and fair dealing, so that an agency can entrust its client to a member abroad. Relations with service suppliers, hotels, transporters, guides, airlines and attractions, are the operator's real asset. They rest on written contracts that set rates, allotments and release dates (after which unsold rooms return to the hotel), cancellation terms, payment and credit periods, quality standards and responsibilities; on paying on time; on sharing feedback; and on long-term partnership rather than squeezing each rate. An agency appointment is the authorisation of an agency by a principal to sell its product: accreditation by IATA to issue airline tickets, authorisation by the railways as an agent, and appointments by cruise lines, car rental firms, insurers and hotel chains, each with its own conditions.

The international regulations of the trade come from several sources: IATA's resolutions on agency accreditation and the conduct of ticket sales; the standards of UFTAA and the national associations; the International Convention on Travel Contracts adopted at Brussels in 1970, an early attempt to set the rights and duties of organisers and intermediaries; regional consumer law, above all the European Union's Package Travel Directive (in its 2015 form), which makes the organiser of a package liable for its performance and requires insolvency protection; data protection law such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (2018) for client records; and the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (1999). An Indian operator selling to European clients must meet the obligations its European partner carries under such law.