Inside today
Josh Martin All-inclusive package ... yeah, right!
Happy New Year! Mine has started with a headache, a backpack full of entrance tickets and a niggly cashflow issue: The latter is never too dignified for a man beyond 30, and downright embarrassing for a supposed travel journalist.
There’s a New Year’s resolution in there somewhere. I say niggly because it is far from a holiday deal-breaker, but was made worse by poor travel planning, lazy holiday decisions, and Egypt’s deficient wi-fi capabilities, rather than the typical Christmas spending hangover commonly suffered across the Western World.
It was completely avoidable.
In my defence, I was lulled into a false sense of security by booking a tour, which is billed as budget friendly and nearly all-inclusive. A packed itinerary of the best of Egypt, with little time free to fritter away money even if you wanted to. So, where then, has it all gone?
I can’t be the only person who develops a holiday habit of rifling through the foreign notes in my wallet, trying to account for the wads of cash that has been reduced to a few notes – their head of states or pioneering heroes stare back at me blankly: ‘‘Don’t ask us’’. Tips, taxis, toilet stops, tat, and tour guides ... those sub-$20 spends slowly but surely eat my cash in such a way I barely notice. What’s more significant in my case is all of the noninclusives in a supposed all-inclusive.
If you’ve stepped on to a cruise ship or tour coach, you’ll know what I mean: The half-day trip that will be a tour highlight – but is extra – or the welcome party cocktails that were not part of your prepaid drinks package.
In my case, it was also fine-print charges about daily entrance fees that really should have been included in a (larger) base tour price, given they were central to the itinerary and unavoidable. Things like that will damage any budget.
And it’s no secret that this is where coach tours, intrepid travel companies – and especially cruise – liners make their money.
Take a captive audience who want things to be easy, fun, fulfilling and social, and they will more likely say ‘‘yes’’ to these add-ons for fear of missing out (fomo, the traveller’s arch-enemy).
What stings in particular is that group tours are often marketed as a cheaper or better value way to travel. The rules of economics, competition and bulk-buying, right?
In reality, they require you to bring a higher amount of back-up money than independent travelling because your ability to say ‘‘no’’ to things is diminished.
If you’re going solo or making your own itinerary, you’re not likely to spend more time in a perfume or papyrus factory than at the Great Pyramid or Sphinx.
But organised bus and cruise trips are full of these ‘‘tourist tat tours’’ to milk your wallet and help out the local tour guide’s mate – I hope he gets a commission at least.
On a tour group, are you really going to lurk outside the Louvre alone or flag the market tour that everybody else is doing? Probably not. It’s easier to go with the crowd if you don’t want the dreaded fomo feeling to return.
I can’t be the only person who develops a holiday habit of rifling through the foreign notes in my wallet, trying to account for the wads of cash that has been reduced to a few notes.