Tour Package Quote Builder: Price an Itinerary Without Losing the Margin

A client says five nights, two adults, one child, mid-range hotels, first week of December. The quote builder's job is to convert that into a set of costed components, apply a markup you can defend, and produce a per-person price that will still be true when the booking is confirmed.

How it is done today

The common method is a previous quote reused. A consultant finds a similar itinerary from last season, edits the dates and names, adjusts a couple of numbers, and sends it. It is fast, and it carries forward every stale rate in the original file.

The other version is mental arithmetic on a call, followed by a WhatsApp message with a round figure. Both approaches share one weakness: the price is not traceable to components, so when a supplier quotes differently at booking, there is no way to find where the gap came from without rebuilding the whole quote.

Enquiry header

• Enquiry ID, client name and mobile, plus source and consultant.
• Adults, children with age, infants — ages drive supplier policy.
• Travel dates, nights, and flexibility.
• Destinations and night split per destination.
• Hotel category, room type and room count, with configuration stated.
• Meal plan and any dietary requirement.
• Budget band and decision date.

Cost lines

• Component and supplier, with the rate validity date.
• Cost basis — per room per night, per vehicle per day, per head, per group.
• Units and rate, giving the line cost.
• Driver allowance, tolls, parking and permits as explicit lines, not assumptions.
• Markup percentage or amount per line or on the total.
• Taxes applicable to the package.
• Version number, quote date and expiry date.
• Status — draft, sent, revised, awaiting decision, confirmed, lost with reason.

An illustrative example with indexed figures rather than real rates, showing how the cost basis determines the per-pax outcome. Assume one room with an extra bed.

The fourth column is the entire discipline. Only two lines in this itinerary scale with the number of travellers. If the family adds a fourth person, entry tickets rise by one head, the hotel may need a second room, and the vehicle may need to be upgraded, while the guide and coordination charge do not move at all. A per-package price divided by four would misprice every one of those lines.

Rates stop being retyped

Supplier rates held once with validity dates mean a consultant quoting on Friday is not using a sheet another colleague updated on Tuesday.

The chase becomes systematic

Most travel enquiries do not say no; they go quiet. Quotes awaiting a decision sit in a pipeline stage with a follow-up sequence, so the second and third contact happen on schedule rather than when someone remembers.

Conversion becomes visible by destination

With source, destination and outcome recorded, it becomes obvious which enquiry types consume four revisions and rarely book, which is a marketing decision as much as an operations one.

Averaging the room cost across travellers

Hotels charge per room. Averaging quietly overcharges couples and undercharges larger families.

Leaving driver night charges and parking out

These are small, predictable, and almost always forgotten in the first version.

Quoting with no expiry

A quote without a date is a promise. Set the expiry to the earliest supplier rate validity in the package.

Losing the version history

When three itineraries have been sent, the agreed one must be identifiable by number, not by scrolling a chat.

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