Calculate the total cost of your customers trip
We have already talked about Creating a travel itinerary for your clients. From this (written) itinerary, you can deduct the total cost of your customers trip.
Each hotel, activity, driver, guide or entrance has not only to be defined in words, but also with a cost. This seems easy, but there are a few things to know about.
The goal is to come up with a rate per person that you can then send either to your partner agency (PHIMA) or directly to your client.
Hotel accommodation / Lodging
There are two different cases to think about.
- If you work with hotels, they are used to work with travel agents on a commission base. You will have to get in touch with each of the hotels you are planning to sell and ask for their confidential rates for the current year. Some hotels (especially bigger hotel chains) will only give confidential rates to legally registered travel agencies, thus the interest to be legal. Usually a confidential rate is between 10 and 20% below the public rates. You will then quote the confidential rate in your cost calculation.
- If you work with homestays or hostals, they might only have one rate, the same for direct bookings and for travel agencies. In this case, you take the direct rate and calculate with it. This means that your final rate for the customer will be slightly higher than if he books directly, but you give him a supplementary service.
You will get the rates for double rooms, twin-bedded rooms, single or triple rooms, usually the rates include breakfast (otherwise we recommend adding breakfast directly to the room rate).
In order to quote with a per person rate, you will have to divide the double room rate by two.
Guide
The guide you will hire will give you a per-day rate that might depend on the language he speaks and on how many people he will guide.
Make sure to check with your guide if his quote includes as well his viaticos (meals and overnight if necessary). Otherwise this has to be added. Some agencies also pay the real viaticos, on the base of the bills that the guide brings them back (and on a maximum amount base).
E.g. A guide takes 60 US$ per day to guide in English, this includes his lunch. In your tour he will accompany the clients for an 2 day / 1 night stay far away from home. The viaticos for his dinner and hotel room with breakfast could be an additional 20 US$. Obviously the viaticos should correspond to a decent hotel and dinner. On the next day he will guide the clients and be back home for the night. So it is another 60 US$ for guiding. The total rate for his services should be 140 US$.
Driver
As for the guide, the driver will give you a quote regarding the time of his services (half-day or full day), but also in terms of kilometers and several days. Usually the driver’s quote includes already his viaticos, but you might want to double check each time.
Activities
Under activities we understand all kind of traditionnal, artisanal or agricultural activities. This could be weaving, or trapiche functioning, or ceramics or cheese making or music, you name it !
An activity can be quoted per person, e.g. a 2-hour weaving activity would cost 8 US$ per person, or for activities that need more preparation, can be quoted at a fixed rate, no matter how many people attend. E.g. the trapiche functioning needs an oxen and 2 people to set up, which takes a certain time, so the rate for this activity could be 30 US$. If you hav 2 people attending, the rate per person would be 15 US$, if there are 4 customers, it would only be 7,50 US$ per person.
Entrance fees
Entrance fees are usually per person. There might be a difference in regards to the age of your clients. Maybe children under 12 years have a special rate.