Hotel Reservation Online - Why Should You Choose a Tour Holiday Over a DIY Holiday?

Relying on guide books for advice on local attractions, people have been taking advantage of budget airlines and the ability to organise everything at the click of a mouse, as the trend has turned from package tours to independent travel. Fifty years on and our holiday choices have evolved enormously. A holiday abroad automatically meant an all-needs-catered-for sightseeing tour, back in the 60s and 70s.

So has the traditional guided tour had its day? When many of us would prefer to think of a holiday as a journey into the unknown, as tourists we often feel herded around to fit into pre-arranged schedules. There is a belief that package tours take away much of the freedom to do your own thing.

Make bookings and wait in line, plough through our options, organising excursions independently often wastes valuable time as we make phone calls. But those people who appreciate this can rely on tour guides to ensure their holiday is 100% quality time. Life is short and our holidays are precious.

There's no substitute for a local expert who specialises in local information for a living and can speak the language, proud though you may be of the knowledge imparted by your guide books, when you arrive. Which is great when you're looking for a last minute deal, simply choose what suits and make your booking, with an organised package. Decide to go it alone and you'll find yourself researching months in advance. This also applies to the time it takes to organise a trip. It's liberating to rely on a guide to take care of all the background work so that you're always ready to go. This can prove particularly stressful if time in a resort is limited before moving on to the next destination.

Which may not be covered by your insurance, organising your own independent tour could see you in situations you didn't foresee. Tour companies also treat your safety as a priority at all times and their own travel insurance is tailored to cover all eventualities. They are able to negotiate huge wholesale discounts with both airlines and hotels and a proportion of these savings is passed on to customers, due to their ability to block-book. The fact is that most travel companies are in an excellent bargaining position, whilst it may initially appear cheaper to do so. It could actually be much worse for our pocket than we think, interestingly enough. But isn't it cheaper to go it alone?

So choose the right guided tour and you're sure to agree in hindsight that you couldn't have organised it better yourself. Travel firms are realising that people still want freedom and flexibility to feature in their itineraries and are responding accordingly with wider choices and options. These days we can expect a lot less of the sales pitch and inflexible itineraries and more of an emphasis on responding to guests' individual needs. Thankfully the clipboard and travel uniform image of package tours is now largely confined to the vintage holiday brochures. With online bookings for package deals with some companies rising by almost 20% last year, but recent reports show that trends may in fact now be in reverse, the travel industry may have taken a beating from the rise in independent travel.