Atp Travel

A client recently asked me about Atp Travel and who we were and after I had finished giving all of the information it seemed a good idea to include in a post.

Atp travel are a small family run tour operator, travel agent and wholesaler who started life selling mainly bespoke Nile Cruises, Nile Cruise holidays, Classic Tours and Nile Cruise and Stay holidays to Egypt. Our goal is to offer a very personal service using all of the experience we have of Egypt so that our clients holiday is the best it can possibly be. This includes offering as much information and options required before the clients travel as well as ensuring that the service level, hospitality and overall arrangements exceed their expectations.

All of 0ur Nile Cruises have personally been inspected and each is the best in its class, be it value for money, or standard. We have boats like the very popular RA II which is also sold by companies like Longwood Holidays and Thomas Cook Signature but our prices are nearly always much lower than these guys.

We also have two of the newest most luxurious Nile Cruise boats, the Ms Farah and the Ms Mayfair, both launched in October 2010. Each offers superior levels of accommodation and facilities and will ensure a true luxury Nile Cruise experience but at a price lower than most of the competition selling these boat such as Mosaic Holidays and Nile Cruises Direct.

Our classic tours are all bespoke and private for clients and tailored to individual requirements but again at very competitive prices.

We have also now branched out into the Turkey and Jordan classical market working with 2 very experienced local operators and this shows great promise for 2012.

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone.

Andrew

Is Egypt safe?

Egypt again finds itself in the worlds eyes with the return of demonstrators to Tahrir Square and the very unfortunate death of some of these people during clashes with the authority's.  Of course this only has a negative impact on tourism in what should be a very busy time and we have certainly seen a reduction in enquiries along with negative comments from some people who had been looking to travel there.

But is it safe? We actually had clients in the Egyptian museum on the first sunday of the unrest and they certainly said that they were not worried by the demonstrations and enjoyed their time there. Further of all the recent posts on sites such as trip advisor from tourists who are in Egypt or who have spoken to people who are there, none have said it is not safe or not to go. The FCO travel advice has of course been updated but there are no travel restrictions in place.

So the reality is that whilst things look bad from what we see on the TV in Tahrir square, Egypt's tourist areas carry on working as normal. Its unfortunately a shame that the same cameras that are stationed in Tahrir Square could not travel around Egypt for a couple of days to Luxor and some of the Nile Cruises as well as some of the Red Sea resorts just to show that life there carries on as normal.

World Travel Market

Next week is the main trade show for the travel industry - WTM - and it promises to be an interesting if tiring week. As well as our Egypt FIT business we will be talking to agents about our new partnership with Joyetour for inbound FIT and group business to Turkey.

Turkey has experienced phenomenal growth over the last few years and especially this year partly due to troubles elsewhere in the Middle East. In the first 7 months of this year over 11 million tourists visited, an increase of over 10% on the same period last year.

Supported by one of the biggest tour operators there we believe our new partnership will develop strong business relationships which will add to Turkeys tourism growth.

Copthorne Hotel Wedding Fayre

We exhibited at a wedding fayre for the first time yesterday mainly to promote our luxury Nile Cruise boats, Ms Farah, Ms Mayfair and our Dahabeyas as honeymoon holidays but also to see how they were viewed by the public in terms of value for money and as a luxury holiday idea.

The results were very good in that virtually all the people we talked to felt that the boats represented very good value for money - lead in summer 12 prices are from £899.00 including flights, full board, transfers and sightseeing - and were also very impressed with the decor and finish of all boats.

As expected we also received a number of enquiries from the mums and dads accompanying their daughters at the event so all in all a good day.

Copthorne Hotel Wedding Fayre

We exhibited at a wedding fayre for the first time yesterday mainly to promote our luxury Nile Cruise boats, Ms Farah, Ms Mayfair and our Dahabeyas as honeymoon holidays but also to see how they were viewed by the public in terms of value for money and as a luxury holiday idea.

The results were very good in that virtually all the people we talked to felt that the boats represented very good value for money - lead in summer 12 prices are from £899.00 including flights, full board, transfers and sightseeing - and were also very impressed with the decor and finish of all boats.

As expected we also received a number of enquiries from the mums and dads accompanying their daughters at the event so all in all a good day.

Nile Cruise Deals

The current low level of tourists to Upper Egypt has had a massive effect on the Nile Cruise trade and as mentioned previously on the number of boats sailing, at most maybe 15% and more than likely much less. Some of the companies Atp Travel work with have not had sailings on their boats since the start of the revolution in January.

It is therefore very surprising to see so many companies advertising Nile Cruise holidays on boats which are not sailing and have no planned start date. On two recent trips to Luxor I met tourists who were allocated a different Nile Cruise boat on arrival from the one they booked and some who where the total number of guests were 7 on the whole boat.

At Atp Travel we are concentrating on selling the RA II over the next couple of months as we have secured seats at a great price on one of the charter airlines. Although an older boat it still enjoys great unbiased reviews and with its private mooring, walk on balcony and extra sailing excursion to Dendera is probably the best value boat on the Nile.

Lead in prices start from £619.00 pp

Luxor News

Just returned from a 2 week holiday to Luxor and tourist business there is very quiet. Although there has been quite alot of discounting on packages it has not really generated much business and all hotels are running at very low occupancy levels.

If anything the situation is even worse on the Nile Cruise boats with probably less than 10% sailing and most lying empty and mothballed at their moorings. Of the owners and managers that I talked to none could give me confirmed dates when they planned t0 restart.

One small upside to this is that the tourist sites are very quiet and so you can have as much time as you like at each one and infact at one temple we visited, Medinet Habu (temple of Ramses III) our family were the only tourists there!