Researching Your Chosen Holiday Destination
By Darren Cronian on Friday, December 29th, 2006

A week or two back, I wrote a travel article to help you find the perfect holiday destination, so today, I want to write and help you research your chosen holiday destination. Personally, I think it’s important that you educate yourself on a few of the local laws and customs, and learn the very basics of the local language.

Researching Your Chosen Holiday Destination

Find out the location of the nearest chemists hospital and doctors – I know it sounds drastic, and a little over the top, but if your in a strange, new country, it’ll help being prepared before you go.

Visit travel forums and ask questions – forums are very useful places to go and ask for help from people who have already visited the holiday destination. Find out which areas of the country, city or town you should avoid – the last thing you want to happen is to find yourself in the worst neighbourhood you could imagine.

Your first port of call should be the Foreign, Commonwealth Office (FCO) website and search for the latest information on your destination. It’ll give you crime information, road safety, entry requirements, and contact details for the local British embassy, which is worth writing down.

Researching Your Chosen Holiday Destination

Make sure you seek medical advice before travelling and ensure that all appropriate vaccinations are up to date. The Department of Health’s website will provide you with up-to-date information on vaccinations, and it’s worth having a word with your doctor if you have any queries.

I know I’m a geek, but I love reading up on cities and countries, and before I think about booking any accommodation or flights, I visit sites like Lonely Planet, World Travel Guide and WikiPedia, which have a ton of content on destinations across the World.

Researching Your Choosen Holiday Destination

A friend recently booked a skiing holiday in Norway, and only found out that the drive from the airport to the resort was 6 hours, when I sent her a Google Map directions print-out, so she’s now had to re-think her holiday. I drive my family and friends mad, because I am so organised, but being prepared will mean that your holiday is enjoyable and stress free.


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12 responses to “Researching Your Chosen Holiday Destination”

Kevin May | 29 December, 2006 at 8:30 am

i post this comment before an army of angry travel professionals do [ :-) ]: visit your local travel agent…!!

Darren Cronian | 29 December, 2006 at 1:00 pm

The article is about researching your destination - not booking.

Would travel agents like consumers to visit them in droves, get tons of useful information from them, and then book a holiday elsewhere? Wasn’t it mentioned not long ago that travel agents were going to charge £20 for providing information to consumers in their shop, so that they don’t loose our on revenue from people who then go else where.

Sorry, but as a consumer, I’m not going to travel to a local travel agent, and queue in a shop, or call a travel agent for a quote and not get a response back for 2-3 days.

The net’s where I’ll be doing my researching - ;)

Kevin May | 29 December, 2006 at 1:08 pm

i would suspect high street travel agents would be grateful for any visitors these days. :-)

not sure about the £20-per-booking rumour. source?? thomson is actively promoting the idea that people can use their shops for research and then book online. however not every agent has the multiple capabilities of the Big Four.

i would suspect bricks and mortar travel agents would argue that once a customer is in the shop they can provide advice about destinations and then, using usual sales skills, attempt to sell them a holiday.

i’m with you on this though, Rants - the process of research, generally, is better on the web. i was just pre-empting any comments from your faithful travel agent readers… :-)

Darren Cronian | 29 December, 2006 at 1:16 pm

Kev,

Daily Mirror mentioned this in April 2005 (surprised I could find the source)

I’m sure I ranted about it at the time.

Kevin May | 29 December, 2006 at 1:20 pm

pat on the back for finding the story, Rants.

but, humm. yes, 20 months ago. and it never happened. commercial suicide for the high street agents, methinks.

Darren Cronian | 29 December, 2006 at 1:25 pm

… but the fact is that they thought about doing such a thing.

To be fair though, I suppose travel agents have moved on alot since 2005, and they have started to use the internet as a tool to market their business, and not see it as a competitor that they can slag off.

Kevin May | 29 December, 2006 at 1:28 pm

this might demonstrate how much the traditional travel agency community has moved on in recent years - an “ad campaign” by ABTA from 2002:

http://travolution.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-was-dot-conned-in-end.html

:-)

Darren Cronian | 29 December, 2006 at 1:36 pm

I can’t believe I didn’t comment on that blog entry Kev!!

I agree they have moved on, which is great for the consumer, I still feel though that ABTA can be anti-internet sometimes, and maybe they had grounds to be, after the fake internet companies that were found to be selling fake holidays earlier in the year.

Kevin May | 29 December, 2006 at 1:44 pm

yes, your absence from the comments box was noted at the time. :-)

Lee Harrison(owner Select World Travel Malvern) | 29 December, 2006 at 4:41 pm

KEV SAYS”i would suspect high street travel agents would be grateful for any visitors these days. ”

Lee Says. Don’t believe it Kev, December is usually a very quite Month for us and last year sales were pretyy much as usual, this December we are over 400% up on last year, and yesterday and today have been manic.

KEV SAYS”not sure about the £20-per-booking rumour. source?? thomson is actively promoting the idea that people can use their shops for research and then book online. however not every agent has the multiple capabilities of the Big Four.”

Lee Says “I Don’t blame agents for charging, Why should I go to all of the trouble of trainining staff, sending them on educationals, providing them with Digital Cameras and them gaining Expert Knowledge and passing it onto Clients and spending so much time giving the client the best Value Holiday, only for them to go away and book direct or on-line.
When did your Solicitor last give you any free advice?”

By the way we don’t charge !!!

Kev says”i would suspect bricks and mortar travel agents would argue that once a customer is in the shop they can provide advice about destinations and then, using usual sales skills, attempt to sell them a holiday.”

Lee Says” You bet Kev and we go through all of the Small Print and finer details making sure that the booking conditions are understood, not forgetting that as a Travel Trust Association member the Client has 100% Protection for their booking, unlike ABTA whose rules changed recently, or booking on-line without the security

i’m with you on this though, Rants - the process of research, generally, is better on the web. i was just pre-empting any comments from your faithful travel agent readers…

:-) :-) :-)

Graham | 30 December, 2006 at 12:24 pm

Lee Says “I Don’t blame agents for charging, Why should I go to all of the trouble of trainining staff, sending them on educationals, providing them with Digital Cameras and them gaining Expert Knowledge and passing it onto Clients and spending so much time giving the client the best Value Holiday, only for them to go away and book direct or on-line.
When did your Solicitor last give you any free advice?”

By the way we don’t charge !!!

I say, if travel operators were to go this way, then we would be out of business very quickly. Whilst Darren is right that we are starting to use the internet to market our travel companies, we still have to realise that it’s also a competitor, and charging consumers will make consumers move to the internet and away from us.

Rohan | 7 January, 2007 at 4:55 pm

Nice article Dazza. Looking forward to part 3

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