I have a suggestion for the people at Just You/Travelsphere. I know that quite a lot of people have been disappointed over the last year or so that a large number of long haul tours have been dropped from the JY programme due to lack of numbers - such as Mexico, Costa Rica (disappearing next year), Tunisia, Morocco, Malaysia, Japan, Kerala etc. and I've been wondering about a way around this. I am sure that most JY folk know that the sister company Travelsphere has a much wider range of holidays, but that many of us would prefer not to go with them as they don't want to be the only single traveller (or one out of three or four single travellers). This is something I will probably have to contemplate a couple of years down the road when I have exhausted the JY tours I want to take! But - and here is my suggestion - would it be possible to either increase the number of single traveller places on a number of Travelsphere hols (i.e. the ones not offered by JY e.g. Nepal, Equador etc.), to say eight or ten places or more on selected dates as being "single friendly" so that those who went would be part of a larger group of single travellers - or else to designate a couple of departures on some tours as predominantly for singles and advertise them on both the JY and Travelsphere websites/brochures?? This would increase the choice for single travellers without JY taking the financial risk of running additional or new tours. What do you and other Forum users think? This is only a broad suggestion and it could be tweaked in all sorts of ways to make it workable, but does it have potential? Could you run it past the bosses and see what they think?

Best wishes,

Bob

Thanks very much for your time spent on writing this up, we really do like suggestions being brought to us.

I have forwarded this forum link onto one of our product managers Will, he is very pro active in responding to forum members regarding product suggestions so watch this space!

Kindest,

Ben

Good morning Bob,

Thanks very much for your time spent on writing this up, we really do like suggestions being brought to us.

I have forwarded this forum link onto one of our product managers Will, he is very pro active in responding to forum members regarding product suggestions so watch this space!

Kindest,

Ben

Hi Bob,

thanks for the suggestion - it certainly seems like a good idea - I will be taking that away to discuss with a few of my colleagues.

regarding JY Long Haul holidays, I am confident that over the next couple of years there will be some new and exciting destinations going into the Just You brochure!

I agree with Bob as regards to long haul holidays disappearing, I too have almost exhausted my list of JY holidays I want to do or can afford (thinking of Australia and New Zealand), I've done 12 so far and I have been thinking my time as a JY customer has almost run out. I have seen Borneo, Mexico, Kerala to name just a few disappear before I could get around to them and there was one I would love to have gone on and that was to China called Shangri La, I just managed to get Nepal in before that disappeared and now I'm hanging on to whether there will be enough numbers to go to Costa Rica later this year. None of the USA holidays appeal (I've done Parks, Canyons and LBH) and I want to save Europe for when I no longer want to travel long haul. Come on Will put your thinking cap on I'm sure you can come up with some good ideas, we cant be the only JY customers with the same thoughts.

Kind regards

Many thanks for your thoughtful replies - Will, thanks for your encouraging comments: I look forward to some new tours being added over the next few years! I have only done 4 JY tours (with two more booked), but I do hope to be travelling with you for many years to come and I was just concerned that I'd be running out of long haul destinations in a couple of years time! It has given me a lot of pleasure to plan my holidays over the last couple of years, flicking through the brochure and contemplating various options. Health and finances permitting, I hope to travel the world with JY (and Travelsphere for those hols not offered by JY) for many years to come!

Best wishes,

Bob

Say a particular Travelsphere holiday was allocated as a "single friendly" trip, with 8 places kept for single people. If 8 single travellers take up these places, all well and good, but assume that 6/8 weeks beforehand the couples part of the holiday was fully booked, but only 2 of the single places had been taken up. Now would the singles have the right to cancel with a full refund, as clearly Travelsphere would want to fill the remaining places with couples rather than turn business away, leaving a holiday with only a couple of single people.

I personally would not be willing to book such a holiday until I knew that there were at least 5/6 other single people, and would also be concerned that they were real "singles" and not a group of 4/5 people holidaying together who all knew one another beforehand.

It will be interesting to see what Just You come up with.

Stuart

Jaya

Cheers,

Bob

It is a good point that Stuart makes about 'Singles' on a Travelsphere holiday. It is not a charity company and they would almost certainly fill spaces with couples if there were not enough singles.

I personally would not want to travel as a solo single. Couples go because they want to be with one another and not part of a threesome.

Peter

I think this is a good suggestion, but I'm a bit unsure exactly how it would work in reality.

Say a particular Travelsphere holiday was allocated as a "single friendly" trip, with 8 places kept for single people. If 8 single travellers take up these places, all well and good, but assume that 6/8 weeks beforehand the couples part of the holiday was fully booked, but only 2 of the single places had been taken up. Now would the singles have the right to cancel with a full refund, as clearly Travelsphere would want to fill the remaining places with couples rather than turn business away, leaving a holiday with only a couple of single people.

I personally would not be willing to book such a holiday until I knew that there were at least 5/6 other single people, and would also be concerned that they were real "singles" and not a group of 4/5 people holidaying together who all knew one another beforehand.

It will be interesting to see what Just You come up with.

Stuart

RM.

Best wishes,

Bob

Peter, I disagree - I went on a holiday a couple of years ago to Italy as a single traveller with a general tour operator and spent the week with a couple and another single traveller. They were very friendly, happily married for decades and actively sought out me and the other solo traveller and included us in meals, after dinner drinks etc. Many couples link up with other couples on holiday, strangers before they met. Some couples I'm sure would want to just keep to themselves but many are open to socialising with new friends on holiday, both other couples and singles. As far as I know Travelsphere already have a number of single spaces on most if not all of their tours (the only ones on their website that do not specify this option are cruises) and it seems that they currently reserve around 4-6 spaces per tour for single travellers. Granted some of them may be taken up by a single person travelling with a couple or group, but likewise many would also be people travelling singly. I think it is highly unlikely that if you went on a holiday as a single traveller with Travelsphere you would be the only one. There was a guy on my last JY hol who had gone many times with Travelsphere and he said he usually hung around with the other single travellers on their holidays and sometimes with a couple or two, depending on who he hit it off with. My suggestion to JY/Travelsphere is that they look into offering more single places on Travelsphere hols, to encourage more singles to go on those tours that are not currently being offered as part of the JY programme. It's really an extension of their current policy, not something new that I'm suggesting.

Best wishes,

Bob