Tourism Terminology

All-inclusive tour: a tour package that provides the guest with transportation, food and beverage service, entertainment, and lodging for one price. Service charges may also be included. Back of the house: operative employees who do not come into direct contact with guests. Guests: another term for tourists: Hostel: a lodge with communal washrooms and bedrooms designed for four to twenty people. Hotel: accommodation that provides access to guest rooms from a central lobby. Tourism: the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business, and other purposes. 1. Brochure: a printed folder unfolding a tour or a package and specifying the conditions of the offering. 2. Carrier: Any association that deals in transporting passengers or goods. 3. Blackout Period: Specifies dates that a cut-rate or promotional airfare is not existing. 4. Commission: the amount paid by the supplier (carrier, hotel, tour operator, etc) to the travel agent for selling transportation, accommodations or other services. 5. Net Rate: The rate provided to wholesalers and tour operators that can be marked up to sell to the customer. 6. Confirmed Reservation: An oral or written confirmation by a supplier that it has received and will honor a reservation. 7. No Show: A passenger or guest who fails to use or cancel his or her reservation. 8. Travel visa: A stamp in the passport, other official document, giving traveler the right to entry to a particular country. 9. Escort: A person who accompanies a tour from departure to return, as guide, troubleshooter, etc, a person who performs such functions only at the destination. (Also know as a host, tour leader or tour director). 10. Escorted Tour: Prearranged travel program, usually for a group, with escort service or a sightseeing program conducted by a guide. 11. Fly-cruise: A holiday arrangement combining a charter or schedule flight to and from a port with a sea cruise. 12. Fly-drive: A holiday arrangement combining a charter or schedule flight with car hire. 13. Extension: A fully arranged sub-tour offered optionally at an extra cost to buyers of a tour or cruise. Extensions may occur before, during or after the basic travel program. 14. Foreign Independent Tour (FIT): An international prepaid tour, usually unescorted, although guide service is often on some segments. An FIT is designed to the specifications of an individual client or clients. 15. Group Inclusive Tour (GIT): A pre-paid tour of specified minimum group size, components and values. 16. Overbooking: The practice by a supplier of confirming reservations beyond capacity in expectations of cancellations or no shows; or, the same result due to error. Many carriers have admitted they internationally overbook their flights because of a high number of passengers who are no shows. 17. Double Booking/ Duplicate Booking: two reservations for the same traveler on the same day or no overlapping dates. Airlines will cancel both reservations if they discover a duplicate booking. 18. Package or Package Tour: Any advertised tour. Often a tour to a single destination which includes prepaid transportation, accommodation and some combination of other tour features- meals, transfers, sightseeing, car rental, etc.

19. Incentive travel: travel offered as a reward for top performance and the business that develops markets and operates these programs. 20. Vouchers: Forms or coupons provided to a traveler who purchases a tour that indicate that certain tour components have been prepaid. Vouchers are then exchanged for tour components like accommodation, meals, sightseeing, theater tickets, etc, during the actual trip. 21. Fam Tour (Familiarization tour): Destination inspection tour designed to increase product knowledge, develop new products and build future sales. They are complimentary or reduced rate group programs available to key travel agents, tour operators and wholesalers. 22. Tour Operator: Develops, markets and operates group travel programs that provide a completer travel experience for one price and include transportation (airline, rail, motor coach and/or ship), accommodation, sightseeing, selected meals and an escort. They market directly to the consumer through travel agents and are beginning to be listed on computerized reservation systems. 23. Wholesalers: Develops and markets inclusive tours and individual travel programs to the consumer through travel agents. They do not sell to the public. 24. Direct Flight: Air transportation on which the passenger does not have to change planes. Not necessarily non-stop. 25. Non-stop Flight: Air transport between two points with no scheduled traffic stops en-rooted. 26. OW: one-way airfare. 27. RT: Round trip airfare. 28. Connecting flights: Flights necessitating a change of aircraft at some intermediate point before arriving at the final destination 29. Stopover: An international intermediate stopping-point on a journey. 30. Hub and spoke: Air Carrier's use selected major cities as "hubs" or connecting points for service on their systems to regional destinations. 31. Boarding Pass: A document attached to a ticket, which permits the passenger to board the aircraft and claim a specific seat. 32. Open-ticket: A ticket valid for a travel between specified points without a reservation or a specific flight number. 33. Non-Endorsable: A ticket, which is not valid for travel on another carrier. 34. Non-refundable: A ticket, which cannot be returned for cash or credit if unused, but may be changed for a fee. 35. Non-transferable: A ticket issued in a particular name that cannot be used by another passenger. 36. Promotional Fare: An airfare introduced to increase an airlines market share or to promote services to a particular destination. 37. Reissue: A rewriting of an existing ticket due to a change in fare, class of service, or routing. 38. Bumping: The practice of denying boarding to a confirmed passenger on an overbooked flight. 39. City code: A three-letter designation given to airport cities. 40. City pair: Departure and arrival cities.