Tours businesses in Zambia

Zambia tour operators can design your holiday and short tour packages. Zambia vacations and tours can be bought ‘off the shelf. Alternatively the tour operator can design a Zambia holiday specifically for you, incorporating all your individual Zambia travel requirements. To give you a bespoke holiday they will recommend where you go and who you stay with and then they will organise everything for you. Tour operators do not handle airline ticketing directly but travel agents do. Tour operators can also arrange short tours, visits to Zambia attractions and corporate travel services. The distances between Zambia's safari areas and national parks are huge and the roads are often poor, so flying between the parks in light aircraft is often the only way to see these remote areas.

Tour operators in Zambia

The tourism industry is a major and growing industry in Zambia. Zambia has more than 2500 lions along with several national parks, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, and historic monuments. Tour operators typically combine the tour and travel components to create a package holiday. They advertise and produce brochures to promote their products, holidays and itineraries. A tour operator is responsible for operating and providing your vacation through the contracting, booking and packaging together of the various components of your tour such as your hotel, transportation, meals, guides, optional tours and sometimes flight. Many tour operators are considered land only operators and focus on the aspects of your package once you have arrived at your destination.

The most common example of a tour operator's product would be a flight on a charter airline plus a transfer from the airport to a hotel and the services of a local representative, all for one price. Niche tour operators may specialise in destinations, e.g. Italy, activities and experiences, e.g. kayaking, or a combination thereof.

In Zambia tour operators devise, arrange, and promote holidays and travel options, working with hotels, airlines and other transport companies for ground travel, in order to execute the arrangements. This promotion is either done through travel agencies or directly to the customer by means of brochures or websites. They provide customers with advice about where to travel as well as the best means of reaching such destinations. If customers already know where they want to travel to, tour operators may suggest an escorted tour or can help to devise a complex tailor-made itinerary, which will allow the separate elements of their trip to fit together.

Types of tour operators

Tour operators who deal and handle directly inbound foreign tourists, provide them various services on their arrival and departure such as transfer, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, entertainment, currency, insurance services etc. are known as inbound tour operators.

Outbound tour operator:

These categories of operators are specialized in promoting and designing multi-national tours, especially in foreign countries. The outbound tour operator sells a package tour to an individual or a group of people of his own country to another country or a number of countries for a specific pre-decided period.

Domestic tour operator:

Today, the domestic market has witnessed attractive growth rates as large players in the travel industry are aggressively entering and promoting this market. Leading tour operators usually focus on the international market where margins are higher but now, in addition, they are floating new packages to create a niche in this segment to tap the vast potential in the domestic market.