Trip #14 to Ireland - Staying in Doolin

Flying to Ireland is a mere 5.5 hours from Philadelphia when the tail-winds are good – short flights are great but when it’s overnight, you really feel the effects of jet-lag. No sooner do you get settled into your seat, watch a movie and then drift off to sleep … and you’re being waken with coffee, tea and a transfat-laden donut. My adrenaline kicks in and I’m ready to hit the ground running from that point on. In fact, our luggage was waiting for us as we went through Customs, a mere minutes in line and one or two quick questions, grab the luggage and on we were.

Dan Dooley had a larger car for us than expected, a Ford Mondeo which is the size of a Volkswagon Passat back at home – much larger than my MINI Cooper that I’m accustomed to driving. I adjust to the left too quickly and we were exiting the airport within minutes.

I brought the GPS just to see how it works and make recommendations for clients. It has its good and bad points so it’s still going to be individual decision on whether or not to rent one but on future trips, I’ll leave mine at home and stick with the car rental map. It helped us navigate out of Shannon Airport without a problem but it did not tell us to take our usual exit for Doolin by way of Ennistimon. Instead we went another 4 miles before exiting the highway and backtracking through Ennis from the north – slightly out of the way but staying on the N85 would have made more sense. At that point I turned off the GPS and navigated by towns again. I suppose it’s a good feature for clients who have no clue that they’re a bit out of their way.

Within the hour we were in the centre of Doolin, checking in to Tir Gan Ean, our favorite hotel within walking distance to everything in the village including O’Connor’s pub near the docks and McGann’s in the village. With gorgeous weather (sunny and not a cloud in the sky!) we decided to head toward the dock but only made it just past O’Connor’s Pub and decided to call it quits, grabbing a small bite to eat and sit outside in the sun before heading back to Tir Gan Ean.

We napped from noon until 5pm to try and get rid of the jet-lag but not sure if it hurt or helped. I typically stay up the entire first day to help with the jet-lag so this is new for me. We went to McDermott’s for dinner, pub grub being the most economical meal when dining out. Afterward we sat outside just as the sun was setting, chatting with two married Canadian women who were staying in Lisdoonvarna during the Matchmaking Festival, a location they advised against due to the non-stop partying from 11:00am to the wee hours of the morning.

Back to the hotel we had a cup of tea, Banoffie Pie and went right to bed afterward.

Is Tripology Really A Viable Business Model?

With travel slowing down I decided to look for new efforts to market my business and being internet-only is a bit difficult. I’ve tried online advertising, newspapers, magazines and more … all with very little results. This brought me to Tripology.com, the website touted as matching travelers with agents specialized in their area of travel. A match made in Heaven!

I load up my account with $50, not knowing how much it would cost me to purchase each lead and surprisingly Tripology doubled my credit to $100 – always good to get something for free, right?

The leads started coming in via email and I would look them over quickly, quickly skipping those that didn’t fit my area of expertise… after all, this site is to be specialists who know where you want to travel and include special planning. Dozens of requests went by and finally Ireland popped up here and there.

These requests were studied in detail before accepting and although the cost was only $5 each, I would be competing against other travel agents for one person’s business – this had to count. A total of four requests were accepted for Ireland and I started noticing a pattern… each person wanted the absolute cheapest vacation available and they their budget was pretty unreasonable. As I started looking into each one as they came over I realized that those requesting prices are delusional when it comes to pricing… $600 for airfare to Europe during the summer? Seriously now.

The minimum information is listed including airfare, hotels, trains, cars, approximate dates and length of stay. It’s quite generic so interaction with the actual requester is essential.

I accepted my requests within minutes, paying my $5.00 for each and utilizing the online email application to introduce myself and obtain more information on the vacation due to the lack of detail collected by Tripology. My emails went out within minutes and I waited… and waited… and waited. I emailed again and finally one person responded, indicating they had already purchased a vacation within two days of entering their request. Did the purchase from a Tripology agent? I don’t know but I doubt it from the minimal response that I received back. Goodbye $5.00 – that wasn’t a qualified lead and there was no potential for selling a vacation there.

I still didn’t hear from the others so I decided to call them to ensure they did receive my email. One guy did answer and we went over the specifics of his vacation, at my insistence … again, I paid for the lead and I expect to be able to price it out. The second was an answering machine so I left a message and followed up with email. The follow-up email indicated that they didn’t really have specifics on their vacation just yet but that they would contact me if they need me. Yes, I paid $5.00 for someone to say they never really wanted my services but perhaps they’ll be in touch. I couldn’t let that go so I emailed back to advise that we are charged for each lead and that we simply want to help them and the response back was that Tripology simply puts them in contact with three agents who specialize in their destination of choice.

What have I gotten myself into? Who are these people requesting trips through Tripology and what qualifies them as leads?

Looking at Tripology’s home page you’ll see a very simplistic approach for those looking to travel… enter a bit of information and instantly Tripology will connect you with three qualified travel agents. Simple enough… but what about the agents on the other end?

We receive those requests without identifying information, the basic travel details, and approximate budget and if we want to accept the lead we must pay $5.00 each, regardless if the person is serious about purchasing a trip or just seeing how the system works. I have to admit, I’ve done the later in some situations and honestly believe many of those requests coming through are people playing to see if they can get a vacation for a ridiculously low price. $500 - $1000 for 3-5 nights in Puerto Rico including airfare and 4-star hotel… total, not per person. I’m serious, this was a request just a few minutes ago which makes me think someone is just seeing if they’ll get a response for that.

Another type of request I surmise is the person who already has their plans with an agent but they want to try one last avenue to see if they can get it cheaper. They enter their Tripology request with notes detailing their plans and hope that someone will swoop in and take the wind out of their travel agent’s sail – and it will happen. Unfortunately you have three agents each paying $5.00 for the lead and two, possible three, out of the three will lose their money again.

Needless to say I think the concept is a good idea but without full disclosure to both the traveler and the agent, the business model isn’t fair and I hope other agents band together and refuse to use their services.

Ireland Rates for Fall 2008 Falling - Time to Plan!

With fewer Americans able to afford travel this year, due to our economy, Ireland's
tourism has dealt a blow and I'm hearing the effects -- from last-minute availability to hotels trying to renegotiate my group rates. The time is ripe for travel to Ireland again...

The U.S. Has Sneezed!

My friends have often told me, "When the U.S. sneezes, Europe catches a cold" but I have always been a humble American, not realizing just how important our economy is to the rest of the World. Sure, we hear about our imports exceeding our exports and how pretty much all of the World is unhappy with our current President, as opposed to Americans in general... but through it all, despite our lows -- our country is quite influential on the World economies.

The U.S. has more than a cold, perhaps the flu, and the rest of the world is slowly
catching on. I've talked to friends both on the phone and via email to tell me that the unemployment rate has risen for the fifth straight month and that tourist are far and few between to visit another friend's art gallery. It's distressing to hear this, knowing that the hardest part has yet to come and we're not even sure if we've seen the worst here at home.

Cancelling one of my October tours due to lack of interst, I was met with more than one hotel that wanted to give me lower rates! This is new to me as rates have always gone UP in the past. Unfortunately I didn't have enough registered on this particular trip to ensure it would break even that I had to cancel anyway.

Fall Is Perfect Travel Time

Seeing the indicators that prices are falling in Ireland, the fall will be a prime time to travel as the shoulder and off season begin to take hold.