Cum MATTA fair season, we always see or hear about a big gush of people rushing to the 3-day event just to grab the best travel deals that they can
One common question that I get asked by my customers is this – are MATTA fair packages, or any packages that I book during travel fair really cheaper than what I can normally get? In short, the answer is yes. But as with all things that sounds too good to be true, there’s a caveat to this, you’ve got to be smart with how you book your travel packages
Allow me to explain why by using a hypersimplified example of a tour group. Let’s say you are interested to travel to Eastern Europe to experience autumn, which is in November. Let’s also assume there’s only a total of 100 available flight seats to Eastern Europe
In order to make their tour packages attractive, what do travel agents do? They run a promotion of course! And what goes into a good travel fair promotion? Low prices! Typically, an Eastern Europe tour that is normally priced at RM8888 will have a discounted price of RM500 – RM800, and in some cases, even RM1,000
Do travel agencies really earn so much that they can offer such steep discounts? The answer is no.
But how can they offer so low prices, you ask? Are they losing money offering these prices? The answer is yes, and yes. However, nobody will be silly enough to intentionally lose money in the long run. The RM500 – RM800 discounts are usually only applicable to a (really) small group of early bird customers, and travel agents make up the lost profit with a bigger group (more overall profit) and customers who join nearer to the tour date. In other words, customers who don’t mind paying the normal price
Now, back to the Eastern Europe tour in November, if out of the 100 available seats, 40 were booked during the first travel fair of the year (typically during March), cum the next travel fair (typically in July or Sept), there are only 60 seats left to be sold, and chances are slim that these 60 seats are offered at steeply discounted prices.
So now you’ve managed to get a RM500 – RM800 discount off your tour package and you feel really good about it. But wait, there’s more things to sweeten up the deal, like additional free gifts during travel fairs to incentivise people to book a tour package. Depending on your tour package and individual companies, these gifts can range anywhere from RM30 – RM300. That’s not all, there are usually lucky draws and other prizes to be won during travel fairs
So in total, you can easily manage to save between RM500 – RM800 (per person), plus a free gifts, plus additional freebies and lucky draw items if it’s really your day. If that isn’t a sweet enough saving I don’t know what is!
So the trick here is simple, book early (or even better, contact your travel agent to pre-book for you), and book 6 months ahead, during any travel fair, for the best value for money for your travel package! If you’re at the first travel fair of the year, book tours for the end of the same year. If you’re at the last travel fair of the year, book tours for mid next year.
Are you convinced now that there are really worthy deals in travel fairs? If you are, you’re in luck! My company is participating in a travel fair today @ Empire Subang Mall. There are awesome deals, additional discounts, lucky draws, and freebies to be given away! Check out tour packages that are on sale here. If you really do want to pop by, drop me a message!
(Update: Sale finish d ok?)
What are your thoughts? Have you ever booked a tour package at a lower than market price? If you have, I’d love to hear from you!
