When prices are too low, you know there something is wrong… What to expect from a seemingly “very cheap” booking (be it an excursion, tour, boat trip or any touristic activity) is a no-brainer: misinformation, mistreatment and a bad taste in your mouth, not to mention the precious day wasted off of your summer holiday.
As in every business there is a heated competition among holiday providers, especially local travel agencies in Fethiye. Different travel agencies offer different prices for the same tours (of course, only the names of the tours are the same. Busses, foods, boats etc. and even routes differ from agency to agency). Some offer ridicilously lower and seemingly consumer-friendly prices, while some a bit higher and even refuse to lower their prices (for good reason – read below). So, what determines the prices?
First of all, from the point of travel agencies, the prices they ask for their services have to be on a par with the quality of the facilities they hire and/or employ (busses, boats, captains, restaurants, tour guides, drivers etc.). It is not saying that the higher the price the higher the quality, but if they want to offer quality services, the prices they ask have to be at a reasonable level (not too high – not too low either) and has to cover their expenses and leaves them with some profit. So, how can some still make profit when they offer ridicilously low prices? Yes, it is (sadly) what you think.
Although all travel agencies use the same tour names on their boards (i.e. Mud Bath) they differ greatly from one agency to another. When successful travel agencies offer good services at reasonable prices and their competitors cannot, their competitors do the only thing they can do to try to attract costumers: lowering prices at the expense of quality. As a tourist you may think competition is good, but most of the time it is not.
To be able to lower their prices and get better sales than their competitors, every travel agency has to look for means to cut out on their expenses, which can only come in the form of using cheaper and lower-standard providers when they cannot attract the customers with high-quality and desirable services. In doing so they take the “dishonest” path to lowering their standards. Just because it means less expenses, they opt for cheap, low-quality (even unhealthy) food, unexperienced staff and incompetent tour guides. Most travel agencies who take this dishonest path tend to consider their customers as “one-time guests” they will not probably see again anyway, which is one of the reasons why they do not feel guilty about the bad service they provide. They do not either take your complaints seriously, or offer any kind of compensation. Completely against business ethics, but it is true. Due to the dramatical decrease in the quality of service in Fethiye in recent years there has also been a remarkable decrease in guest satisfaction, showing its effects in 2015 in the form of lower numbers, affecting also the travel agencies operating in Fethiye that has stood against compromising high-quality standards on which they found their business, for the sake of earning more. You may have heard numerous holiday horror stories about tourists getting seriously sick and getting their holiday ruined, or far more unfortunate events like tourists falling to their deaths when paragliding or even falling into the sea from their boats and dying; like so many others which has recently given Fethiye a bad name.
At Trip to Fethiye we care to follow the highest standarts in all of our services. All our prices are fine-tuned accordingly to offer you the safest and most enjoyable holiday activities at the most reasonable prices in Fethiye.
To sum up; when you book a tour for £7 at a travel agency (which you can probably get for £5 if you bargain – and probably costs much cheaper to the agency that sells it to you) instead of for £10 at another that does not offer discounts you blindfoldedly accept going for unhealthy food, unexperienced staff and incompetent / unknowledgable tour guides, which most of the time results in wasting a precious day off of your summer holiday, leaving a bad taste in your mouth.
Word of wisdom: always shop smart, but never go for the “cheapest”. It may (and most probably will) ruin your day! After all, you only go on a summer holiday once (or twice) a year, don’t you?
