Avanti Destinations, founded in 1981 and one of the first wholesalers to offer travel retailers the capacity to custom-build their own packages online, has introduced a new series of pre-formed packages it calls “fixed price” packages. Avanti is offering 58 of the non-customizable packages for travel in 18 countries in Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific.
It’s the opposite of Avanti’s original model of offering easily-assembled packages built to order. But it is complementary to it, and it fills out the wholesaler’s service profile nicely.
The fixed price packages are available for Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Paul Barry, CEO of Avanti, explained in a statement how the new series of packages fits in with and complements Avanti’s historical services.
“With the introduction of fixed price, non-customizable packages, Avanti now offers three ways that advisors can book our FIT vacations. In addition to the fixed-price, non-customizable packages, advisors can select one of our customizable recommended itineraries or they can create a unique vacation from scratch, starting with destinations, travel dates, type of accommodation, and our wide range of sightseeing tours and unique experiences, such as cooking classes, wine tastings, Japanese tea ceremony, or aboriginal painting class.”
The fixed price packages offer some distinct advantages. Designing a custom-built package can take some time and require some decision making. And pricing is not certain, as they are priced “dynamically,” which means the price can fluctuate from time to time with changes in supply and demand.
A fixed price package can be pulled right off the shelf and offered immediately for consideration. It’s already been carefully curated and assembled by people who know the destination intimately and are familiar with its fluctuating elements. It can be relied upon to be a good default position. Within a few seconds, a client can see a strong package and either accept it as is, or use it as a starting point from which to move forward to something more in keeping with the client’s wishes.
“We decided to offer these packages for several reasons,” said Barry. “First, there are many new advisors, most of whom know North America and Europe best, but are not that familiar with booking FIT in Asia, Latin America, and the South Pacific. The fixed-price, non-customizable packages make it quick and easy to browse, make a recommendation to their clients, and book without the back-and-forth involved with customized vacations.”
Streamlining the Selling Process
Another reason for the new kind of package is that having the price so readily available streamlines the selling process, taking the conversation quickly to the bottom-line concerns of clients.
“For advisors with clients who have firm budgetary constraints, showing the options for different travel dates – the rate seasons – streamlines the decision-making process. With our customizable packages, on the other hand, which are quoted using dynamic pricing, it can be time-consuming to go nail down the details and build a final price.”
“Streamlin[ing] the decision-making process” is the key phrase. The new series of packages is an additional option and does not in any way preclude doing business in the way agencies have previously been doing it. It’s an additional option for ways to do business with the company. It’s a major development in the history of this company, but it’s not a trade-off, it’s an addition. Nothing has been taken away. It doesn’t change anything for people who don’t want to use them.
Avanti continues its core business of offering component-based individually built packages, but now expands the service with pre-formed packages available quickly and simply off the shelf.
As part of streamlining the sales process, the packages can be easily sent digitally to clients, making it a very efficient transaction for people who are busy and are not easily able to dedicate a lot of time to decisions over many possible options and alternatives.
Another interesting point that Paul Barry made was that the fixed price packages offer better ways to get to a lower priced package than what a retailer might initially turn to.
As he explains: “Advisors new to FIT often try to reduce the price of custom FIT vacations by cutting the number of days, downgrading hotels, or eliminating some sightseeing tours and experiences – which are often the highlights of an FIT vacation. The fixed-price packages use recommended hotels and rate seasons that can lower the price without compromising the quality of the vacation.”
The insiders assembling the packages at Avanti know better ways to get to a lower bottom line than might be immediately evident to someone coming from outside. It’s another good way to establish complementarity between wholesaler and retailer, a good merging of skills and areas of expertise. The wholesaler concentrates on the destination, the retailer knows its market.
Three Regional Microsites
Along with the rollout of the fixed-price packages, the company has also launched three new websites, one for each of three main regions, to enable travel retailers to access and book these packages easily and quickly.
The three microsites are:
https://asia.avantidestinations.com , https://latinamerica.avantidestinations.com and https://southpacific.avantidestinations.com
Both the new fixed-price packages and the customizable recommended packages enable agents to make use of the expertise of Avanti’s destination experts to come up with a package that can be relied upon to be a good one. But there are important distinctions.
The customizable recommended packages can be changed. They are still customizable, but you are given a default package to start with, so you don’t have to build from scratch. But prices are not set up front and don’t appear on the sites because they are dynamically priced, which means that the price varies and is not set until the sale is completed.
With the customizable packages it takes a little more time, and interaction with the hotels and other suppliers to complete the process and get to a conclusion. With the fixed price, it’s a done deal up front. Pull the lever and its done. The client can add things at the destination, if convenient, but there is usually an advantage in price and availability to booking components in advance. And of course, booked in advance they are commissionable.
Barry also makes the point that although these packages are carefully curated to provide value for money, they are “not bare-bones packages. The tours and experiences in the new packages are of the same high-quality that we offer in our customizable vacations. The big difference with the packages is that they make transparent the ‘rate season’ impact on pricing.”
With the fixed-price packages, you can see clearly how the rate changes from season to season. According to Barry, suppliers at some destinations have only one rate season for the year. Others have more than a dozen.
Back to Paper
In other Avanti news, the company is returning to the publication of hard copies of its brochures, or more accurately “advisor reference guides.” Avanti stopped publishing paper brochures in 2019, but has now changed course. According to surveys, Avanti’s advisor partners prefer paper to e-brochures.
According to Barry: “The advisors love the old brochures. When I see them at shows, some are carrying brochures from five or six years ago, covered with Post-it notes and notes they have written on the pages. They are very useful for a lot of advisors. We figure they have a shelf life of about two years.”
As described by Avanti: “These guides include maps, information on in-country transportation and seasonality, descriptions of packages, customizable itineraries, sightseeing tours and experiences, and many hotels.”
They will be published sequentially, starting with the one for the South Pacific. They can be ordered at the site http://avantidestinations.com. For booking, see https://book.avantidestinations.com.
Advantages of the Wholesale Model
Another way that the company streamlines its business, and has from the beginning, is that it does not field inquiries from the vast public. The company is strictly wholesale, selling only through travel advisors, not directly to the public.
In that sense, it pays the agents for their knowledge, which cuts through the mountains of ignorance that are likely to come in a landslide from opening up to the general public. It cuts its operational expenses by choosing to pay retailers commissions for their expertise. Selling to the public is a whole other line of business, and Avanti has never found it attractive.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.