O
Well-known member
The no refund policy is critical in order for a tour guide operation to survive, far to many people are tempted to cancel or change to do something better or different.
Organised Photo Tours - has the market peaked?
- Thread starter pomkiwi
- Start date
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Yup - and it's not just that - often the operator is paying a LOT of non-refundable funds up front in order to do the tour. The VAST majority of the money I collect for my workshops goes right to the places I work with to cover hotels, transportation, etc. and is all non-refundable to them (and so is to me).
So much risk ! I don’t know if you keep a waiting list in case of cancellation.
Just the way of the world works. Mitigating the risks of loosing a significant deposit, somewhat, is cancellation insurance. Such contracts cover legitimate cancellations such as the death of a family member, sickness and commercial travel delays. Easy to purchase but like all insurance policies, require hoot-jumping and supporting documentation. The devil being in thevdetails of small print interpretation, designed to minimize claim payouts.
O
Well-known member
For my commercial transactions,
Part of the terms and conditions are "Choose your items carefully as we do not operate a change of mind or refund policy"
Also i insist on Bank deposits over cards, surprisingly 98% of people are happy to do so, i have since disposed of my card processing machines.
I also insist on a minimum non refundable payments of 50% on ordering, 25% within 3 months from execution date, balance of 25% 30 days prior the execution date.
I have a friend that does photographic tours to Japan China and parts of Asia and expanding to India in 2025, its not wild life.
She is 40 years of age and looks 20, and is Chinese, speaks 7 different languages fluently including Hindi, and has a officially diagnosed photographic memory all being her greatest assets, she is booked out till late 2025, her groups are in most cases 8-10, in some cases she can go to 15. Her camera is a late 6000 series Sony and an I Phone 13 LOL.
She has adopted the no cards bank deposit only method, she trips every 6 weeks or so.
Certain tours have fallen off while others have grown, its got a lot to do with the type of trip, age group, detestation, time of year and cost and market saturation.
Only an opinion
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We do keep a list, but we also have a fairly restrictive refund policy, especially for Africa. If one person cancels and we gave a full refund, we would be losing money on the trip.
Let's face it: there are a few leaders out there who can fill a vacated spot easily, but most will at the very least have to do some work and go through some anxiety. I think the cancellation policies attached to (most?) trips are reasonable. If one ends up having to cancel for reasons of health or emergency, that's what trip insurance is for.
Changing one's mind is not reasonable in any tours I have taken. Everything else can be mitigated by purchasing cancellation insurance, just like medical + repatriation emergency insurance. The most expensive travel is via air ambulance, and you pay both ways, in and out, to get to a 1st World Hospital. A suitable runway also comes into play, depending on how remote you are. The smaller ship polar tours require medical evidence of health and fitness from your doctor before embarkation and medical insurance coverage. These tours always have a certified Doctor aboard and a small treatment area. Canadians are used to buying this type of insurance as visiting the USA does bankrupt many families.
TurtleCat
Well-known member
My observation, knowing I haven’t seen been on as many workshops as many, is a problem of communication. For example, I’ve been waiting for Santa Clara Ranch to send me the invoice and stuff for the final payment which they said would be due on March 1 but they haven’t returned emails on when that will come. Maybe I’m just anxious but at the cost of that place and how popular it is I was hoping the process would be very streamlined. Is that fairly typical of other workshops that people have seen?
I would suspect all is fine. Communication with a destination-specific location often involves small staff or a family operation with professionally designed websites. If they said you would have to pay by a specific time, you will get notified to pay up or lose the deposit. Cash flow management is critical. Asking for money earlier than agreed would tend to indicate such a problem. From a quick look around the Web, if you are going to TX, they have been around long enough to have a good following on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/santaclararanchphoto/
TurtleCat
Well-known member
Yeah, I paid the deposit last December so waiting to pay the final amount. It’s the most expensive trip I’ve had so I’m a bit more anxious than I normally am and communication always helps me.
I can't generalize about photo tours but I have been happy with two different types of tours. Fall 2023 I traveled to Grand Teton and Yellowstone for 10 days with my wife.. For the first two days we booked one 12 hour tour and one half day tour, both van based. I got a few nice images of black bears and moose but the real value was getting a quick introduction to a lot of the park spaces. We spend the next seven days on our own returning to the spots we wanted to hike to and photograph. Cost was moderate and was a good value for the price.
During the summer, I went on a ten day photo tour in Canada led by Brad Hill. There were only six photographers. It was expensive. (Ten days in a wilderness area will cause you to redifine "clean clothes") Accomodations and planning were excellent. Was it worth it? I spent almost an hour watching a coastal wolf family play and scanvenge on a wide mudflat. Another day, 30 minutes with a sea otter napping and lazily swimming around the Zodiac at 20 to 50 yards. Every day was a peak experience with bears, salmon, eagles, gulls, harbor seals, humpback whales, sea lions and ducks. The morning fog, landscape images were just as awesome. Priceless is another way of to say the value was more than equal to the cost.
Now I'm back visiiting the Wildlife Refuges that I can drive to easily and hiking in the many Pacific Northwest national and state forests. Certainly fewer subjects than the photo tour. The photographer is not as exciting but the only expense is gas money and sometimes a meal on the way home. Very different but all good.
During the summer, I went on a ten day photo tour in Canada led by Brad Hill. There were only six photographers. It was expensive. (Ten days in a wilderness area will cause you to redifine "clean clothes") Accomodations and planning were excellent. Was it worth it? I spent almost an hour watching a coastal wolf family play and scanvenge on a wide mudflat. Another day, 30 minutes with a sea otter napping and lazily swimming around the Zodiac at 20 to 50 yards. Every day was a peak experience with bears, salmon, eagles, gulls, harbor seals, humpback whales, sea lions and ducks. The morning fog, landscape images were just as awesome. Priceless is another way of to say the value was more than equal to the cost.
Now I'm back visiiting the Wildlife Refuges that I can drive to easily and hiking in the many Pacific Northwest national and state forests. Certainly fewer subjects than the photo tour. The photographer is not as exciting but the only expense is gas money and sometimes a meal on the way home. Very different but all good.
Can't you just send the money in on your own? Seems a matter of arithmetic. That would at least alleviate the anxiety of waiting for them to communicate first.
TurtleCat
Well-known member
Nope because it needs to be a PayPal invoice. There’s not a place to send it otherwise.
I've been there. You will probably get the PP invoice in the next week. Have you tried calling them?
TurtleCat
Well-known member
I left a voicemail message for Hector today. Emailed him several weeks ago.
Don't worry. THEY will want your money soon enough.....
Thanks for the recommendation for Canada. Almost all Canadians live along a long, thin ribbon of land on this side of our shared, undefended border. This leaves the vast majority of Canada with little population density. The further north, the fewer people, the more wilderness and wildlife. Anyone reading this, please accept my personal invitation to come up for a visit. We consider ourselves your best neighbours; hopefully (Russia being no friend to either of us!), you see us the same way. Beer is better as well.
I would bet money he's got a list and could easily fill a last minute opening.
I totally agree with you! Steve fill his workshop in less than two hours after announcement! He deserve a lot. I can’t believe how much tutorial he offered us for free!
I briefly looked into his trips but his 'ethical photography' policy turned me off. I don't want to start a whole debate about ethical photography and it's pros and cons…so let's not go there…but his rule is that if *he* decides the animal is stressed (and his definition of stressed is pretty broad IMO) by either his group's presence or the presence of another photographer or group…then he will leave the area. That's all well and good and I'm happy if he wants to run his tours that way…but at the price he's charging…leaving because he decides the animal is stressed essentially wastes the money paid to go there with him. The real point is that you need to know and trust your tour leader and to choose one whose personality, way of teaching, ethos or whatever one wants to call it matches yours and your expectations. Connie and I have considered doing the 'get a guide for one day and then roll your own the rest of the trip' idea…but to be honest at our age and financial situation level were more than willing to pay somebody else to do a lot of the heavy lifting for us with lodging/meal research and reservations, arranging the jeep or off road vehicle or whatever, getting permits and all that jazz. I am doing a trip with Hudson Henry in the summer to Glacier NP…we've been there 4 or 5 times in the 8 years we lived full time in the RV and traveled…and tried going to Going to the Sun Road every time…and we never made it for snow or road construction or fire or smoke or whatever…and now there's a permit system there for that part of the drive. In the great scheme of things we didn't really miss much because glaciers in Glacier NP are few and far between and are much more common and able to be reached in Jasper and Banff NPs across the border in Canada anyway…but I still want to go anyway so off I'm going…even through it's just a week after the Steve sponsored tour (for lack of a better word) to Costa Rica with Dennis.
To each their own, path.
I loved the landscape photography opportuinities in Glacier NP. Avalanche Lake was well worth the hike. We drove to the top of the pass via Going to the Sun Road. Hiking in a ways we found the trail blocked by rangers due to grizzly activity further on. About that time we were surrounded by moutain goats as close as 30 feet. Ranger told us that when the park was new, you couldn't get within a hundred yards of them. Now they seem to gravitate toward groups of humans when brown bears are in the area. Don't know if that is just being habituated to people or if they are smarter than I expected. Your point on matching your tour guide to your standards and expectations is well taken. When my photo tour ended, Brad Hill asked us not to tip him but if we wanted to say thank you to donate to a selected Wildlife Conservation group. A touch of class in my book. Yes we left animals when we felt we were intruding but I never felt the slightest lack of opportunities to get images of truly wild, unhabituated animals. There is a place for everything from roadside zoos to Game Farms to true wilderness, just choose wisely.
Yep.