The Planning Process - Group Travel Consultants

A successful trip starts as an idea and finishes as an ‘experience’ your group will never forget!

Step 1: Destination & Goals

Clearly knowing where you want the group to go will be of great importance. If you are unsure of the best place to take your group, let one of our GTC specialists discuss the overall experience you want for your group and its specific goals. We can help guide you in the right direction and to the best destination.

Step 2: Budget

Trip costs are always a key factor and must be considered from the start. You know your group members better than most and are aware of what could help or hurt trip participation. Set a realistic budget and we let you know what is possible. In addition, the dates of travel are very important in that certain dates are in higher demand versus others. We will always advise you in an honest and open manner letting you know what is possible.

Step 3: Proposal & Itinerary

After we discuss the trip destination, goals and budget with you we go to work for you. We custom design a travel package and a sample itinerary that closely matches your goals and budget. In order to do this, we reach out to numerous vendors confirming their rates and availability.

Once the information is gathered and assembled we send you a written proposal and sample itinerary for your review. These items are the starting point and we can easily modify as much or as little as you would like at this point. We want to make sure that we get it right so if you see something you want changed, let us know and we will handle it.

Step 4: Approval

Once you and the group are satified with the proposal and itineraries, it is very likely that you will need to obtain approval from 'the higher-ups'. During this process, if there is anything we can do to help we are glad to oblige...just ask.

Step 5: Contract, Payment Plan and Deadlines

Once the group has been given approval to travel, we will send you a trip agreement or contract. The contract looks very similar to the proposal in that it specifically spells out all that is included in the travel package plus it contains the payment plan and dates each payment is due.

With exceptions to trips that involve Disney (with stricter final payment and cancellation policies) most payment plans are set as follows:

The initial deposit is non-refundable however is typically transferable to another traveler.
Following the initial deposit, we set up equal monthly payments which are refundable until the final payment cancellation date.
Both the Room List Due Date and Cancellation Dates are 60 days prior to travel. The Final Payment Date is based on the destination and individual vendor policies.