Would the costs of visiting a destination impact on your decision to visit?

[Foreigner]

For my business travel, the costs do not make any difference but for leisure trips costs do matter (more).




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[anat0l]

Indeed it does. Not sure what to add to that.

Business travel is almost naturally dictated by necessity anyway, so if somewhere we have to visit will be "expensive", then we just have to accommodate that accordingly in the travel budget (or, if you control the project, make a judgement from the project account and other funding).

For leisure travel, certainly the costs of going somewhere and even getting around / touristing make a big difference on the call to go or not. More specifically, it likely shapes:

• How long to go to a place,
• What will one do when you go there,
• What accommodation one will book there,
• How one gets around (i.e. transport), and
• Whether and how much points may be used to help reduce cash costs.

The none-to-surprising present reality is - more often than not - that the costs of visiting / going around in a place is a lot less a trivial process to assess compared to the cost of getting there.

 

[cove]

There are a couple of places that tend to be on the high side even though our Australian dollar is remarkably high.
Pretty much all of Switzerland and of course Bora Bora are really expensive but of course wonderful to visit.
With Bora Bora think of a price then treble it and you will be warm to the room over the water pricing.

 

[Mattg]

Absolutely. I would rather spend one week in somewhere not too expensive than spend one or two days in, say, Switzerland or Norway for the same price.

 

[deejo77]

Sometimes a bit of both, we are doing Switzerland for a few nights this trip and accommodation is expensive but very very nice (yes will be doing trip report)........but am also doing Budapest which is extremely cheap....we only live once so I try to do the places I like as often as possible.

 

[cove]

New York City can be quite expensive so we tend to be there for 3 to 7 nights at a time rather than go there for a month. We still get the shows and site visits but in shorter doses and we leave with thoughts of what we will do next time.
Actually Las Vegas can be really inexpensive as it is powered by gamblers losing. If you do shows ad tourist haunts rather than gamble it works out very reasonably.
Parts of Australia can be very expensive compared with many major cities in the world.

 

[Foreigner]

New York City can be quite expensive so we tend to be there for 3 to 7 nights at a time rather than go there for a month. We still get the shows and site visits but in shorter doses and we leave with thoughts of what we will do next time.
Actually Las Vegas can be really inexpensive as it is powered by gamblers losing. If you do shows ad tourist haunts rather than gamble it works out very reasonably.
Parts of Australia can be very expensive compared with many major cities in the world.

I've been using SPG points for NYC accommodation. I feel it's better than paying in hundreds of dollars.


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[Deleted member 29185]

For my business travel, the costs do not make any difference

Not sure I agree with that.

Although the destination may not change dramatically, costs certainly do. With my business travel (the vast majority of my travel), I'm always looking for ways to be more competitive. For my holiday travel, I'm far more likely to splurge, yet the destinations may change........

horses for courses!

 

[Foreigner]

Not sure I agree with that.

Although the destination may not change dramatically, costs certainly do. With my business travel (the vast majority of my travel), I'm always looking for ways to be more competitive. For my holiday travel, I'm far more likely to splurge, yet the destinations may change........

horses for courses!

Horses for courses, of course. Maybe I should explain better. My trips for business take place notwithstanding expensive destination but, we save costs by, for example, staying in 3* hotels rather than luxury properties.


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[Warks]

I find temperature a bigger influence!

 

[JohnK]

Cost makes a huge difference to me.

Stay away from resorts and cities with ridiculous hotel prices.

 

[harvyk]

Yes and no...

Just because a place is expensive is hardly a reason not to visit it. It might affect how long you stay and the choice of activities whilest there, but not the decision to visit.

If I was going to limit my travel to just cheap places I'd be going camping on a beach for a week, and never even think of getting on a plane.

 

[OATEK]

Most of our international leisure travel in recent years has involved somewhere between 3-6 cities each time. So the overall cost often is as much a determinant as the individual cities. I set a budget per day/night for accommodation (in each city), living expenses, entry fees, car hire if necessary etc when we start our planning, then as we go along and firm up the proposed actuals compare them to the planned. Sometimes an individual stay will have to change to keep the budget under control, but often its swings and roundabouts. For example we know one or two decent hotels in London that are more budget priced, and will use what we save there to offset a more expensive stay, say in Paris or Berlin.

For business travel (all domestic) I generally have a preferred place that I know the clients won't baulk at. And for domestic leisure travel I also have a preferred place in most of the cities I visit regularly.

 

[RooFlyer]

The visiting costs don't determine my decision to visit for holidays (cost being one way or the other), but it does dictate a bit the nature of the visit. Shorter or longer stay, up-market or mid market hotels etc. I knew both Vienna and London would be eye-wateringly expensive in the middle of summer, but I had to make them both this time , so contented myself with a modest comfort visit. Many places in central Africa very cheap, but .. well, lets say the opportunity is still ahead of me

For business travel, I still follow the sound advice given to me by my manager when I was a young, very green geologist who travelled interstate frequently and I asked him about the type of hotels I could stay at. He said that if I would stay there and pay for it for my personal travel, then it was OK. Now I'm 'of an age' where I fly business class for personal international travel and stay at 'comfortable' hotels, I have no compunction in requiring my clients to match this (although, seriously, I have saved clients thousands of dollas over the years by declining offers of overly-grand hotels and business class for short haul domestic flights. One doesn't want the 'contractor overheads' to get too much attention by their bean counters!

 

[Mattg]

Yes and no...

Just because a place is expensive is hardly a reason not to visit it. It might affect how long you stay and the choice of activities whilest there, but not the decision to visit.

If I was going to limit my travel to just cheap places I'd be going camping on a beach for a week, and never even think of getting on a plane.

I agree with you there. I wouldn't advocate only going to really cheap places, rather just avoiding the really expensive ones. I'm pretty much just talking about Switzerland and Norway. And even then, visiting can be nice if you don't stay too long and choose what to do selectively.

I was once talking to someone who happened to be quite wealthy about my experiences with Zurich and they said "Even if you can afford to pay $35 for a bowl of soup, it's really annoying to have to."

I just think that generally speaking, with all things being equal, you're betting off going to the cheaper place and being able to spend more time there, enjoy a nicer hotel and be able to do more for the same price.

 

[Happy Dude]

Depends how bad you want see some destinations. Tibet is a good example. It's in a cheap part of the world but regulations and red tape make it quite expensive to visit. Suck it up or go elsewhere.

 

[Dr Ralph]

If I'm paying it definitely impacts my decision.

 

[footy99]

Same. It has a huge influence. I did stacks of international travel in 2010-13 when the dollar was high and can't justify it almost anywhere anymore (except SE Asia). Even then, at the top of my bucket list were Greenland and Antarctica but decided costs were too prohibitive.

Everything is measured in AUD terms for me so massive currency movements like we've seen recently factor in heavily.

In saying that, I probably focus too much on it with hindsight. I refused to pay ~$10K for a month trip to Greenland which has been a life dream because it was unjustifiably expensive but lose ~$50K in shares and dismiss it as normal market flucs. There is probably something amiss with that thought process.

 

[amaroo]

No. We've made a late change to our Xmas holidays (Italy) and decided to fly to Norway for a week in January. Sure it's an expensive side trip (family of four) but we've never been and it's cheaper doing it from Milan rather than Melbourne.

We've booked a bunch of outdoor activities so that only adds to the cost and experience.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

No. We've made a late change to our Xmas holidays (Italy) and decided to fly to Norway for a week in January. Sure it's an expensive side trip (family of four) but we've never been and it's cheaper doing it from Milan rather than Melbourne.

We've booked a bunch of outdoor activities so that only adds to the cost and experience.

Outdoor activities! Norway! X'mas! :shock: