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All over he world tourist venues are rarely at 100% occupancy, there is usually one high season per year, and the rest of the time there are empty rooms in hotels, empty seats at shows, empty spaces on ski lifts, spare snorkels, etc. From Florida to Felixtowe, there are vacancies.

What often happens is that the surplus from hotels, cruises, theme-parks (etc.) can be bought in bulk by tour operators: this guarantees the hotels trade through these quieter periods. It’s the job of the tour operator to package the vacation pieces together into something the public will buy.

The last word in the previous paragraph is critical: “buy“. I’ll return to it later, but before we go on, also make a note of the last word in the popular phrase “Tourist Industry“. This is business, so caveat emptor.

Vouchers

In Florida, there is a travel voucher scheme, that enables tour operators to sell “the entitlement to a holiday” rather than selling an actual holiday. The vouchers are valid for a pre-determined period of time, which gives the tour operator the opportunity to negotiate the purchase of hotel space after they’ve already got bookings confirmed.

So, with this amazing buying power they should be able to offer some really good deals, yes? Well, not quite as good as they’d like you to believe.

The very best venues, the really, honestly, mind-alteringly fabulous “dream vacation” venues, cost so much that either being “partially full” is part of their operating norm or their waiting list is so long they can charge whatever they want. They’re priced in such a way that they only have to accept people who will pay handsomely for the exclusivity. That’s why you don’t often bump into A-list celebrities by the swimming pool when you’re on holiday; and importantly, it’s why the package these tour operators can offer is not “the vacation of your dreams”.

So what’s left? Normal hotels.

Normal hotels can offer the tour operator favourable bulk rates, but the really shrewd tour operator wants to maximise their profit, so they’ll look for a better deal; and what better angle could there be than hooking up with companies that sell time-share properties; i.e. companies that are willing to subsidise the holidays (on the condition that the holidaymaker swings by their luxury development for a look around) providing a better profit margin for the tour operator.

The tour operator thus provides the time-share sales teams with people who agree to sit through a 90 minute presentation as part of their holiday. This is a dream come true for the time-share sales guys, I’ll explain why by going though a typical scenario:

The Sales Call

1. The victim is somehow contacted, by internet popup advert, or by cold-calling their phone number.
2. The victim is told that they have won a holiday, the holiday of their dreams, to Florida, Orlando, Cancun, the Bahamas, Mexico, etc…
3. …and if the victim confirms today, they’ll even get a cruise too!
4. The caller checks that the victim has a credit card (because they’ll need one when holidaying in the USA).
5. The caller gets some ID and starts to tell them all about what a wonderful break they have won, going through each venue in turn using lots of encouraging superlatives and adverbs
6. Once there is real buy-in and excitement from the victim, and once the full value and spectacle of what they have “won” has been explained, they are, told that they have to pay a small amount, to get the holiday.
7. The size of this amount varies, but £598 is common at the moment.
8. When the victim recoils, the caller points out that they’ve “won” a holiday for four people, so the cost, when divided by four, is really not that much.
9. At this point the caller avoids (or belittles when mentioned) the additional cost of flights, airport taxes, seaport taxes, hotel taxes, cost of travel between venues on multi-site holidays, and of course, spending money.
10. As the victim begins to acquiesce, the caller hands them over to a “finisher”, sometimes called a “closer”, this part of the call is recorded so that if necessary, it can be proved that the victim agreed to the sale; the preceding badgering is not, of course, on the recording.
11. At this point, either
    1. The victim, for some reason, provides credit card details, often with a lot of reassurance that the amount will not be taken until x happens in the future. The money is immediately “reserved” with the credit card company, and often taken within minutes of the call
    2. The finisher realises they’re not going to make a sale and tries to make the caller feel stupid for not accepting this “gift”. If they can’t close the deal, they’ll usually hang up.

The Contract

The tour operator is now in a strong situation, they have the victim’s money, and a recording of the victim authorising the transaction.

After coming off the phone the victim begins to realise the full cost of what they’ve agreed to, and decides that they should cancel. Of course, not being from Florida, the victim’s knowledge of their legal protection and cancellation rights is limited or non-existent.

Often they try calling the sales number again, only to be lost in the system. “Thunderstorms” are often cited as a reason for transatlantic calls being “unfortunately” dropped.

Financial Incentive

So after a little futile scrambling, the victim is resigned to the loss, and rather than canceling the holiday, which is their legal right, they do nothing. In which case, because the victim does not use their voucher, the wily Tour Operator pockets the full £598 - it’s pure profit.

If the victim takes the holiday, then the time-share sales guys think all their birthdays have come at once, because they have a captive audience of people who they know have already fallen for a high-pressure sales technique to get them there in the first place.

Florida Regulation

Tourism in Florida is regulated by the Florida State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DOACS) who are currently taking legal action against Discount Holidays LLC for deceptive sales techniques such as those described here. Legal proceedings are, sadly, only a reactive way to combat the problem; the pro-active way is to educate the victims before they get hit.

With that in mind, please realise that this doesn’t just happen in Florida, it happens all over the world. The result of the DOACS regulation is that the overwhelming majority of the Florida tourist industry is comprised of businesses that work to make it one of the top vacation venues anywhere in the world.

The bottom line is, don’t fall into the trap of believing that an unsolicited sales call is anything but a sales call. So, here comes that word again, if you want to buy a holiday, make sure you select the tour operator, don’t let them select you.