Tour Operators and Travel Agents

iExplore offers thousands of family, adventure, hiking, biking, cruises, diving, wildlife and culture tours to over 100 countries worldwide. Come back different! Tours Search | Hiking Trips | Family Holidays | Special Offers

Travel Directory | Tour Operators and Travel Agents. See also Tours for operators offering Tours by Destination.

To exchange listings with bugbog go to our resources page.
If you have been delinked from any page because we couldn't find bugbog on your site, please email us, tell us where we are [!] and we will re-instate you immediately.

Click a letter to find a tour operator's or travel agent's website:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Tour Operators and Travel Agents - Consumer Protection

Once you've paid your tour operator or travel agent, you may have no financial protection if they go bust before you travel. You may also find your dream holiday turning into a nightmare, with no recourse. So what can you do to protect your investment?

To protect yourself as much as possible, here are three simple tips:

Credit card: buy a flight/trip/package by credit card. This doesn't always help but depending on what you buy, from which tour operator and with which card, it may. If, for example, you buy an airline ticket directly with a credit card and the company does a belly flop, the card provider will repay the flight cost, if it was over £100.

Travel insurance: get full travel insurance from a reputable company. Cheapest is not necessarily best, and read the fine print. Some policies will cover you fully if your travel service provider goes under. You pays your money, you takes your choice...

Traveller protection associations and bonds: check that your tour operator or travel agent is a member of one of these associations, or that they have paid for a bond for your protection. Check with the association if you have any concerns, and tell the association if you have any complaints.

UK - ATOL Air Travel Organiser's Licensing [www.atol.org.uk/]

ABTA Association of British Travel Agents [www.abta.com/]

AITO Association of Independent Tour Operators [www.aito.co.uk/]

PSA Passenger Shipping Association Retail Agent Scheme [www.psa-psara.org/]

TTA Travel Trust Association [www.traveltrust.co.uk/]

USA - NTA National Tour Association [www.ntaonline.com/]

USTOA United States Tour Operators Association [www.ustoa.com/]

ASTA American Society Of Travel Agents [www.astanet.com]

Canada - ACTA Association of Canadian Travel Agents [www.acta.net/]

New Zealand - TAANZ Travel Agents Association of New Zealand [www.taanz.org.nz/]

And finally, if the worst comes to the worst and you do lose money or have a holiday disaster - and find you have no protection - write to your newspaper's travel section and have a good whinge. The threat of bad publicity will often spur a tour operator to offer some compensation.