Here's another example - We were booked on Regent's PANDA Japan pre-cruise tour: Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka. We were fortunate to get Delta reward flights (business class!) to Narita-Tokyo and home from China. To insure we made the tour, we booked our flight to arrive the day before the tour started. Regent wanted $360. per person for the extra night in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, where the 'rack' rate - the one anyone can get, even a walk-in if they have rooms - was $365 per room for 2 persons. At other sites (Asiarooms, for one) available rates were under $300, including breakfast. We planned to make our own hotel arrangements and asked to be transferred from Narita Airport to the hotel the day we arrived. That transfer is already included in the cost of the Regent pre-cruise tour.
Regent’s answer (twice): NO, not unless we booked the extra night in the hotel through them at their outrageous rates. So guess what - we've made our own arrangements for a private tour - just the two of us and a bi-lingual guide, or from Kyoto to Osaka on Sep 26, embarkation day, a car with driver plus the guide. We're spending the "extra night" at the Fujiya Hotel, an old traditional Japanese hotel in Hokido, the national park at the foot of Mt. Fuji, from where we will take the bullet train to Kyoto the next morning. The total cost, including the extra day, 4-5 star hotels with breakfast, dinner the first night and in Hikone, and the private tour guides in Tokyo, to and in Hikone, in Kyoto, and to Osaka by car with driver for both of us, is less than the per person cost for the Regent tour we had originally booked. Less than half Regent's cost for a longer, more tailored-to-our-preferences tour!
One critical element of being successful is in differentiating your enterprise from others offering similar goods or services. These days, their approach forces one to wonder just what type of different impression Regent wants to make.
Anyone interested in the details and my contacts in Japan can e-mail me - address in my LCT profile elsewhere on this site.
