The All Inclusive Resorts
An all-inclusive resort is a holiday resort that includes all meals, soft drinks, and most alcoholic drinks in the price. Many also offer a selection of sports and other activities included in the price as well. These resorts are often packaged up with airfare & airport transportation from Canadian Tour Operators.
The Canadian Tour Operators: The biggest and most well known tour operators in Canada are Sunwing/Signature, Transat Holidays/Nolitours, Westjet Vacations & Air Canada Vacations. If you’ve ever researched for all inclusive packages online and there are literally hundreds of different retail sites that you can search this product on (examples Sell Off Vacations, Itravel2000, Red Tag, Flight Centre etc) but the truth is… they are all offering the exact same pricing and product. You are wasting your time by searching in between those sites. You may as well just pick the one site that you find the easiest to look at. Now I know that some of you are going to say, well that’s not the case…I looked at Sell Off Vacations last week and they were way higher than the price I just pulled up on X website. But what you really need to know here is that the Canadian tour operators change their prices often. It’s not because you’re on X website, in fact… if you went back to Sell Off Vacations at the same time you pulled up the price on X website then you’d realize they are now both the same price.
If all the retailers are offering you the same prices…then where do you get the deals? The pricing comes directly from the Canadian tour operators. So when do you book? There’s no perfect answer to this question as it can vary on several factors…but mostly it’s based on Supply & Demand.
When searching for an all-inclusive vacation from Canada, you generally should stay away from the large internet agencies such as Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz etc. They are not really in the charter market & while you can still price out all-inclusive vacations with them, they are often packaged up with scheduled airlines with multiple stops & crazy layovers. You can spend exorbitant amounts of time trying to find a good deal on these sites while maintain a reasonable flight schedule. More often than not, they are nowhere close to the Canadian tour operators in pricing and rarely offer non-stop flight options.
Now, when you’re dealing with the “All Inclusive” resorts that offer variety and best value for Canadians, then you’re often looking at Mexico, Cuba & the Dominican Republic. Other options that can sometimes offer great value are Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, Margarita Island & El Salvador. You can find All Inclusive resorts also in the Bahamas, Aruba, Antigua, Turks & Caicos, St Martin, St Lucia & Curacao although these are generally considered Premium islands in the Canadian market with less competition resulting in higher prices.
There are a few patterns that emerge when you work in this industry and are constantly watching prices. For the most part, you won’t see much change in the prices till around 4-6 weeks prior to departure. At this point, if the tour operators are sitting on empty planes, they start to get nervous and lower the prices to fill up the planes. This is not always the case and it really depends on how many seats they are needing to fill. The emptier the plane, the better the price drop. When it drops to 1-2 weeks prior to the departure and that flight is still empty, then you can find the most insane deals. In a supply and demand market, you need to know when the peak & off-peak times are.
Christmas & New Years is by far the busiest time for travel to any destination. Pretty much, anything from about the 19th December through till around the 6th January is going to be higher than any other time of year. If you need to travel within this time, then you are better off booking early, paying for the premium travel time but being able to choose from the most variety of destinations and properties. Generally, if you wait to long to book during this time…you’ll be left with slim choices and still high pricing. I can count on one hand the number of actual deals I’ve seen during this time of year and I’ve been doing this a long time.
School Holidays – Easter, Reading Week, March Break & really any long weekend for schools. Same rules apply as it does with Christmas & New Years. You can occasionally still get a good deal during these times, but they are so far and few between that it’s usually best to book early and choose exactly what you want. General rule of thumb: If school is out… you’re likely not going to get a bargain.
November/Early December- This is a great time to get good travel bargains. It’s generally the biggest window of time for multiple deals as you can find them anytime from the beginning of November through early December.
Mid January- This is almost always a good time to get a great bargain on travel. Many people have either just started or just finished paying for Christmas presents, Kids are back in school, and year after year the second to third week in January tends to be one of the best times to go. It’s generally still bitter cold no matter where you are in Canada at this time, so it’s a good time to head for that beach vacation in the sun.
April- Another great month to get good travel bargains. It’s the end of the season for many chartered sun destinations (Generally they run from November-April from many cities), it’s starting to warm up here in Canada and people are thinking and planning for Summer. The only catch that can sometimes happen in April is the Easter weekend. You have to stay away from Easter dates and that date varies in April from year to year.
Summer- Now based on the supply & demand theory… you’d think that the summer would be a good time to get travel deals south. But you need to keep in mind that there’s also far fewer flights and less destination options. You can get deals through the summer but they are pretty sporadic and usually not as cheap as the deals you can find in November, Early December, Mid January and April.
Flexibility –
Part 1. Travel Dates. -The more flexible you are in your travel dates the better. If you’ve only got one week’s vacation and it’s on a specific date then you’re odds at getting a good deal specifically on that date is considerably low. You really need about a 2-3 week window & the ability to book your travel with minimal notice from departure to take advantage of the best deals
Part 2. Destination. – Don’t get caught up in one destination. Most people are just looking for a hot getaway with a nice beach & a good resort. During the peak times November-April for Sun travel, you can often have many choices of destinations. It’s a game of odds. You are decreasing your odds substantially if you take away most of the options.
Part 3. Specific Resorts. – This can sometimes be a tough one as once you start looking through the travel brochures and website you’ll immediately be drawn to particular resorts. There’s a two-fold problem with this. One is destination, if you take away most of your options, then the odds of you getting a deal on what you want is very low. The other is that when they start dropping their prices especially when they drop to extremely low rates, it’s usually only to a couple of select resorts. You’ll see 2 or 3 hotels at truly incredible pricing, but then most of the other resorts will still be at their regular prices or close to them. If your holding out for your one resort, then it’s a big gamble. There’s more chance of that resort selling out completely.
When you’re ready to book or if you have questions before you book, then contact me.. I have no service fees at all. This is my job and this is what I do best at. There are thousands of choices and in a matter of minutes I can steer you towards the property or destination that is right for you and steer you away from the pitfalls that many people fall in when they book online.
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