Are you a "buffet traveler?"
If so, get ready for a feast.

 Editorial by Patrick Totty

Are you a “buffet traveler” or a “sit-down dinner traveler?”

Buffet travelers like to go to a destination with a broad idea of what they’d like to do, then explore their options once they get there.

Sit-down dinner travelers know what they’ll be doing before they even leave, and will accept what their (tour) host has set up for them.

The two styles of travel are just that, styles of travel, and neither type is better than the other. But until now, “sit-down dinners” were pretty much all that tour operators offered. Buffet travelers couldn’t expect operators to offer partial packages. There was no way they could ask to see Siena on Tuesday as part of one operator’s package, then see Pisa on Wednesday as part of another’s.

So, buffet people became used to making their own arrangements, but could never be totally assured that their decisions were good ones.

All of that is about to change. Tour operators are rethinking how they package tours, and travel agents are poised to make a comeback (the airlines have been trying to kill them off) as classic middlemen.

Here’s how it works: Tour operators are improvising in the wake of Sept. 11 by combining resources. Operators that have complimentary topics and itineraries are learning to “mix and match” their clients.

For example, if one operator offers culinary tours of Morocco and another offers visits to Moroccan marketplaces and bathhouses, they can create combined packages that offer elements from both. Or they’ll allow a client to pick and choose how he wants to divvy up his travels: two days’ worth of culinary tours here; two days of site visits there; and maybe a finale that involves services from a third operator.

Obviously operators have to be nimble and flexible to accommodate buffet travelers, and it will be a long time before travelers can saunter off a plane and create on-the-spot hosted itineraries. But the point is that operators are beginning to see the advantages of joint marketing, parallel niches and accommodating the tastes of people who see the feast of travel from a different perspective.

This is also where travel agents come in. Agents will be the go-betweens as tour operators and buffet travelers reach out to one another. Travelers will depend on agents to tell them the truth about tour operators, and operators will depend on agents to deal with buffet travelers’ complex wish lists, then book their business.

Ironically, even as the Internet was supposed to wipe out travel agents, it’s bolstered their reputation instead. One of Cultural Travels’ agent friends told us recently about a letter of thanks she’d received from a client whom she’d refused to book at a particular hotel despite his insistence she do so. He’d found a hotel on the Internet that seemed to be perfect match for his needs. The agent, after asking around among other agents, risked losing his business by booking him at another hotel, which he reluctantly agreed to. When he wrote, he told her that she had been right – the hotel he’d originally wanted would have been a disaster for him.

Word gets around about service like that.

The synergy here is a great one: Travelers ask operators to broaden their offerings; small operators band together to do so (and in the process strengthen their businesses); travel agents, who always seem to know what’s going on, act as the trusted mediators.

Niche travel agents, tour operators, airlines and travelers will be the wave of the future. 

Patrick Totty is editorial director of The Cultured Traveler.