Rant about packaged tours

I've always had a very low opinion of travel agents and standardized package tours. All this "Best of Europe in 19 days", "Experience America in 12 days", "Amazing Australia in 5 days" totally takes the romance out of travel. I understand that not everybody has the time or resources to actually experience a country or region as they are travelling through it, and ultimately I am part of the the minority (the ones who want "Indian vegetarian only, cram in 12 countries in 14 days with no free time, Hindi guided tours" are the absolute majority).

However, just when I thought some of these package tours couldn't slip any lower, I saw two ads last week which actually lowered my opinion of these tours further. The first one, (which I will discuss at length) had these salient features.

1. The main point of their ad was how they crammed in the same number of countries and cities in a lesser time frame as compared to their competitors. The ad went on to detail each possible package (for example, how ABC's Amazing Europe in 19 days is being covered by us in only 15 days, and XYZ's Enxhanting Europe in 21 days is being covered by us inly 16 days, or something like that). There was then a detailed table showing how they managed this wondrous feat.

2. Once they were done with country counting and city counting, they went on to the final recourse for country counters- monument counting (within a city). Which means that within their race against time to cover x countries and y cities in z days, their additional USP was that they managed to cover more "sights" within those z days. The aforementioned detailed table also went on to explain how they managed 29 more sights in 14 days. Of course, it is a different matter that they counted "souvenir from Paris" and "souvenir from Chamonix" and "lunch in Disneyland" amongst their 29 additional offerings.

3. There was the usual price comparisons and free-bies and add-ons, which is perfectly understandable.

4. (and the last one takes the cake). The ad assures would be customers that all fellow travellers, all food and even the guide in the trip would strictly be Gujarati. I wonder why the ad was in English then, and given that this was a Mumbai newspaper, I also wonder what would happen if any of the several million non-Gujaratis in Mumbai wanted to go on the same trip. Would they politely be redirected to a "Bengali only trip"? Sheesh, and I thought the most magical thing about travelling, whether abroad or in India, was to discover something new each time. Apparently, the majority doesn't share my opinion.

The other package tour ad reflects mere incompetence on part of the travel agent, rather than anything else. It was a Malaysian GP F1 package, the likes of which have been around at least for the last 5-6 years. One of those "2 nights/3 days in Kuala Lumpur, including qualifying and race tickets, sight seeing in KL, transfers blah blah" packages. No problem with that. Except that the ad was published in the paper on 23rd March, which as F1 enthusiasts would know, was the day of the race. By the time most people would have opened their sunday papers on 23rd, Felipe Massa was probably out of the race by that time, leave alone reaching KL in time to see the race.

If the travel agent is not even competent enough to take out an ad on the right date, how can I be confident that they will send me, one of their several thousand customers, on the right flight.