Travel Agency and Tour Operations
What this domain tests
Travel Agency and Tour Operations tests the functions of retail and wholesale agencies, itinerary design, costing, documentation and client handling. Numerical costing questions and itinerary critique are frequent.
Core rules and concepts
- A retail agency sells principals' products; a tour operator assembles transport, accommodation, guides and activities into a package and carries principal risk.
- A good itinerary is geographically logical, time-realistic, costed, and includes buffer time, check-in/check-out, meals and contingency.
- A costing sheet lists per-group costs (transport, guide, permits), per-person costs (meals, entry, insurance) and per-room costs (hotel). Add markup and taxes only after the net cost is complete.
- Documents: confirmed itinerary, vouchers, rooming list, passenger manifest, ID and permit copies, emergency contacts.
Worked example
A 20-pax one-day Puri–Konark tour: bus ₹25,000; hotel lunch ₹300 per person; guide ₹3,000; monument entry ₹100 per person. Net cost = 25,000 + (20 × 300) + 3,000 + (20 × 100) = ₹36,000. Per-person net = 36,000 ÷ 20 = ₹1,800. With 15% markup, selling price = 1,800 × 1.15 = ₹2,070. Reasoning: group costs are divided by pax, per-person costs are multiplied by pax, and markup is applied to the complete net cost, not to the bus alone.
Traps
Charging one room per person instead of twin-sharing; forgetting guide, parking, entry and GST; applying markup before adding all costs; designing an itinerary with no buffer; promising a monument opening time on a closed day.