Solar Tours sharpens focus on Latin America | Travel Research Online

Image
Image

Solar Tours sharpens focus on Latin America

Solar Tours has a long history of offering customizable Latin America tours to North America’s travel agents, dating back to its founding in 1984, when it focused exclusively on being a travel wholesaler and consolidator to Central and South America.

Much has changed since 1984 and Solar Tours has diversified its product offerings to include other regions of the world, but Latin America still holds that special place for Solar Tours.

It was no surprise then that Solar Tours decided to sharpen its focus on Latin America in the past year by hiring more travel specialists, expanding the online offerings, and adding a new country (Colombia) to the ones it already sells.

Aside from over 25 years of Latin America experience, Solar Tours is increasing the frequency of agent-driven detailed screening of hotels and destinations. While this might seem like a no-brainer, not a lot of companies can actually afford to this on a regular basis. Our office in South America allows us to inspect properties and generally the level of service provided by ground tour operators in each country. This has directly impacted the quality in our list of hotels offered to the American customer. In the words of Mariana Elejalde, our manager for Latin America, “If we don’t think an American traveler will feel comfortable in one of the properties we inspect, we will drop it,” adding that “Solar Tours is not willing to compromise on quality only to offer the cheapest hotel out there. We let some of our competitors do that.”

Selling Colombia (again)

Colombia fell out of favor with the American tourists for obvious reasons. But now it’s coming back with a vengeance. Even before the New York Times wrote several overwhelmingly positive travel stories on Colombia’s status as an up-and-coming destination, Solar Tours has been successful with its addition of several multi-city itineraries including Bogota, Medellin, Cali, and Cartagena. Demand has been steadily increasing and tourists are satisfied with their trips. “It has not yet hit mainstream, but for the American tourist starved for new, yet safe experiences, Colombia may be an excellent choice,” declared Ms. Elejalde.

Online Tools for Travel Agents

As always, Solar Tours is continuously working on making life easier for travel agents, who can now price and customize itineraries online, save them for later review and send them to their customers for review if necessary.

To make a booking with Solar Tours, visit www.solartours.com or call 1-800-388-7652.

Share your thoughts on “Solar Tours sharpens focus on Latin America”

You must be a registered user and be logged in to post a comment.