The ads offer you the world for a few thousand rupees. But when
you finally open your wallet, you stand to lose a lot more. A peek into hidden
costs
Manisha Singhal, Megha Chaturvedi
Have
you been lured by ‘never before’ packages that promise to take you
to exotic locales, mysterious caves, island tours and night safaris at never before
prices this holiday season? Think again. You might just end up feeling miserable
after signing up for a ‘too good to be true’ package. Moreover, you’ll
cough up much more money than you hoped to, say Nilesh and Monica Garg, a young
couple who recently went on a dream European group tour.
What you pay for and are not to?:
- • Visa Fee and airport taxes.
- • Any meals and
services unless specified in the itinerary
- • Change in rates
at hotels, transport rates, government taxes or entrance fees. If the mentioned
hotels are not available at that moment, than the charges will go up by 5 to 10
per cent or in some cases by 50 per cent and one has no option but to bear it.
- • Surcharge may be applicable during New Years and Christmas
|
“After the payments were made we thought that we would
have a holiday that won’t need us to dip into our wallets again. But for
every experience and visit to landmarks, we were asked to pay up. Obviously after
travelling so far you do not want to go back without seeing the places and having
the experiences that are representative of those places. We ended up paying much
more than what we had planned for. In the end, we had to economise on meals too,”
recalls Monica.
There are many more couples and holidayers who are
planning unforgettable vacations. According to travel experts, there has been
an increase of 15 per cent in the number of outbound tourists going to South East
Asia, Australia and New Zealand this holiday season. The three regions in particular
have been identified as preferred destinations. And the travel market is abuzz
with packages on offer like Disney Land Magic (Hong Kong) - Christmas and New
Year specials for Rs22, 608 per person, or an invitation to explore Australia
for 10 days for Rs64,999 per person or even an Asian Combo Delight package that
would take you to Bangkok, Pattaya and Singapore for just Rs19,872 per person.
The above prices definitely seem to be within reach for most but the fine
print that usually goes unnoticed is what the exclusions are about. According
to travel expert Rajeev Nangia of TRAC Representations, who specialises in outbound
tours, “We as Indians will go in for anything that is priced lower because
service cost is not factored in. The fact is that whatever maybe the cost of the
basic travel package tour, in the end it has to go up by 20 per cent. This rise
will include the visa and ticketing costs and fuel surcharge that would easily
be an increase of anything between Rs4,000 and Rs8,000.”
For
instance, during a trip to Europe, if you opt for a bus tour what you pay for
is just the transportation cost. So it is important to not take the travel agent
or operator’s word for granted. “One has to check out the star ratings
of the hotels and every other detail of the number of meals and add-ons,”
said Nangia.
The reason for this ‘hidden costs’ is that
there is fierce competition among the operators who are trying to undercut prices
to sell. For first timers, destinations are South East Asia and they graduate
to Europe and then to other continents. This is why outbound tourism has seen
an increase of 18 to 20 per cent per year and 6.8 million is the number of the
outbound tourists, projected to go up by 7.5 million next year end.
According to Sushila Shinde, business head, Travelport, “The cost you see
in an advertisement is the cost sans the ticket tax which would come up to a minimum
of Rs3000 per city. By the same logic the basic ticketing cost mentioned of Rs39,000
will work out to be Rs55,000 to Rs60,000.” According to her, these cannot
be termed as hidden costs. “It becomes difficult to explain the same to
the holidayer. Group departures are a little insulated and individual packages
do face problems.”
Even when it comes to flying on the domestic
circuit, the story is pretty much the same. For that Rs999 from Mumbai to Goa,
there’s often a four digit numbers that you will have to pay. This includes
a congestion, passenger handling, passenger service fees and airport handling
tax. This varies between Rs1,175 and Rs1,225.
Says Anil Dasmunshi,
a school teacher, St Lawrence High School, “When I planned my vacation,
I saw that the air fares were cheaper than train fares. But I was taken aback
on being told the actual sum, it was much more than the ads. I know I have to
pay the additional tax, but the airlines should at least tell us how much we are
supposed to pay in the beginning.” |
