WHY TRAVEL WITH VELOSO TOURS

The Service Principles of the Veloso Tours Organisation to you the client.

We are a specialist tour company dedicated to providing high quality holidays in Latin America. Our ethos is based on personal service. We are experts at preparing and creating meticulously planned itineraries for individuals, small group tours for those who want the peace of mind provided by expertly guided travel, and we can arrange unique itineraries to fit personal interests, constraints and requirements.

What makes Veloso Tours different is the combined effect of all these advantages in one organization for the benefit of the clients who travel with us. Some of benefits listed above are unique to Veloso Tours, some are similar to the best other tour operators can offer but we strive to bring together all these advantages in one organization and continually use our creativity to improve further. We welcome your suggestions and feedback.


The visible - Our Service “Face to Face”

Main benefits visible to you:

  • Travel Consultants, expert specialist consultants to prepare travel arrangements and tailor-made, bespoke itinerary planning. We have all travelled extensively throughout Latin America and in some cases have lived there (Lizzy in Mexico, Andrea in Venezuela, Kirsty in Belize) so that we can use out first hand knowledge, our deep understanding of the culture (Lizzy is a Graduate in Latin American Studies) and boundless enthusiasm for “Life in Latin America”. You will find an honest approach to planning an itinerary, advising you of “pros and cons”, suggesting sights and selecting accommodation. We continue to travel regularly to keep abreast of new developments and meticulously inspect hotels. We believe this approach ensures you have the best possible service.

  • Focus on your Individual Interests through our Client Questionnaire, we analyze your main aims so that these can be applied to the planning of your holiday and enhance your experience.

  • Guides – They will look after you face to face. Our local tour guides are experts in their own field with a wealth of information to enhance your visit. They also have excellent communication skills to ensure that you are provided with the information in a way that holds your attention.
  • Integration & Complementary Links between:


    1. Information in our brochure
    2. Information on our website VELOSO.COM where you see the sign WEB-LINK
    3. Information on your itinerary
  • Choice of Tours available to suit each person:


    1. Small Group Escorted Tours led by our Guides
    2. Individual Private Tours on suggested itineraries in our brochure and our website, available in a range of options Tourist Class, First Class and DeLuxe to suit each person.
    3. Tailor-made Private Tour Journeys prepared by our Expert Travel Consultants.

  • Private Travel Arrangements with a private guide who can respond to your particular interests, provide you with information and “undivided” attention, make stops and adapt the timing of some services when feasible possible.

  • On Call 24 Hours a Day. We provide you with contact details of the agents we work with in your chosen destination, your hotels and also a 24-hour Veloso Tours number in the United Kingdom. We want your visit to be perfect and so if an element appears wrong we want to put it right; our local representative is your first “port of call” to help but we are also available anytime. If you are travelling with a Veloso Tours Group, you will have the same information but also, your Tour Leader will of course be on hand to assist you.

  • Quality Control Report is sent to all client, upon their return, to encourage your feedback.


The invisible – “We provide behind the scenes benefits that you do not see”


The Veloso Tours approach has special touches at every opportunity which make all of the difference when you are on holiday:

  • The invisible benefits behind the scenes
  Staff Travel & First Hand Knowledge
Our staff and management have an intimate knowledge of the region and its infrastructure of hotels, transport, natural history and cultures. We travel regularly to keep up to date with developments, look for new opportunities and highlight recent discoveries. We can assess the training required for our staff and assess local people who look after your travel arrangements. Veloso Tours encourage and organize visits every year for our staff to visit the places that you will also visit; to be there ahead of you, trying the services so that we can tell you the truth and our honest opinion.

Operations Department
- Dedicated Duty manager on call 24-hours a day
- Monitor the progress day-by-day , step-by-step of all clients away on tour
- We have personal mobile phone numbers and emergency numbers for all our local agents
- Spanish and Portuguese speaking staff can get in contact with everyone in Latin America
- We try to get particular rooms at the hotels
- We reconfirm all flights for our clients
- Arrange special locations for picnics, lunches or dinners
- Gain private access to different locations
- Source truly remarkable individuals as guides as much as possible.

Partnership with local representatives – “It’s who you know”
We develop strong, business relations with our partners in Latin America: hotels, lodges, local agents and tour operators; as well as all the main airlines. We work together with them to convey our clients' needs, and to maintain and improve the quality of their service. Our representatives and partners in Latin America are one of our main strengths as a result of their dedication to service, understanding of our requests, organisational efficiency and quality of staff.

Contracting, Value & Contacts
With more than 20 years experience arranging holidays in Latin America, Veloso Tours staff select excellent local agents as representatives with the local contacts, knowledge and English speaking experienced staff who will look after clients very well. We have the contact details of the most important local people to make sure that whatever needs to be done to look after our clients, is done.

  • Confirmations can be obtained very often, when hotels, lodges or cruises may appear to be full at first sight. Our excellent contacts and those of our local agents enable as well as our experience help us a great deal on behalf of our clients, in situations that may appear to be insurmountable.
  • Exclusive access to special people, special locations, special guides or private houses, albeit at a price, is an important ability of Veloso Tours and of great benefit to our clients.
  • Added Value for Money is important to obtain the best prices for the services provided for our clients. We strive to provide our clients with good value for money by minimizing intermediaries, our knowledge of local economy and market conditions, and our negotiating skills but also by being in the forefront of efficiency, knowledge of our destination and products, creativity and quality of service.
  • We are completely objective in the choice of hotels and lodges which we plan into each itinerary with the independence and versatility to do what is right for each individual’s preferences. As opposed to the big companies we are not tied to any particular local representative or accommodation. We do not own the lodges or hotels or pre-buy rooms; We recommend and execute every itinerary based upon our current knowledge and driven entirely by what is right for each client.

Financial Security
Veloso Tours is well capitalised to the level required by the UK Government through the Civil Aviation Authority and the Association of British Travel Agents, and our financial performance is regularly monitored so that clients can be certain that their money is safe with us. In order to maintain our Air Travel Organisers License, we have to keep a strong balance sheet and publish Annual Certified Accounts, available for public inspection at the UK Companies House, Crown way, Cardiff, CF4 3UZ, Telephone 01222 380801.

Training & People
Our Human Resources is responsible for arranging training where required for our staff and guides and the assessment of the performance levels of all our people, throughout the Veloso Tours organization including those in Latin America. Our management reports and your feedback are important to us and make sure that the information available is acted upon.

Management
It is the responsibility of the management to spread the Ethos of Veloso Tours throughout the organization, the alignment of our service approach so that everyone is speaking the same language with one voice, providing excellent service for the benefit of our customers.

Technology
Our own Software Engineer and Network Engineer have the developed a system to distribute the information in our London Server, through remote connections and our website to all our suppliers and guides. Your Final Itinerary is sent to all our suppliers so that everyone is aware of all the steps of your tour, who the suppliers are and who is responsible for each service.

Private Business based on Reputation & Customer Care
Our reputation matters to us immensely. We strive to always get everything right from the moment we receive each enquiry to the return of each client as a happy client and we receive the client Quality Control Reports
Veloso Tours is a private company striving to build its reputation on providing top quality service and personal attention. We are a customer-focused company. We expect that you will notice that we care about each and every client and we know that you deserve to be provided with the best personal service. Our Managing Director is available on his Direct Line 020 8746 4250 or email paulo@veloso.com.

Our Customers are Important to us
We maintain regular communications with our passengers and potential passengers in order to monitor their views, preferences and opinions. Our Managing Director heads our Customer Relations Department, reading and replying to all correspondence so that he can best monitor and improve the level of our service.

Veloso Tours Uniqueness:
  • The Guides who will look after you face to face, convey their enthusiasm and information, above all, bring the places to life. The Veloso Tours Human Resources function selects and trains the local guides at the main destinations. We provide you with the name of the guide and a brief CV

  • The Client Interests Questionnaire. In addition we provide the Guides with your interests and profile so that they can look after you better.

  • The Technology we use is in the forefront with remote links for our suppliers to keep up to date with itinerary details, fast communications, extensive databases of products, services, suppliers, prices and descriptions constantly updated. AXUM Systems software make it possible to be totally integrated through our website with the new .NET technology.

  • Integration & Complementary Links between:
  - Information in our brochure
- Information on our website VELOSO.COM where you see the sign WEB-LINK
- Information on your itinerary

  • The Travel Consultants who plan your itinerary.


  • The Range of Tour options that we offer to suit each person.

What can go Wrong – Our honest opinion
Flights – our statistics show that in 3% of the holidays we arrange, something goes wrong to the extent that clients have to write to us. Of these the vast majority are related to the flights, schedules, delays, long duration, strikes, air-traffic control, the knock on effect of missed connections, lost luggage, overbookings, cancellations, poor service, poor food and technical problems, immigration and security controls. We sincerely regret any inconvenience but we have no control over airlines; It is a fact of life today that every traveling passengers must accept; noone can do anything about it, no matter what the legislative environment is. All airlines have excellent ratings and abysmal ratings at different times, some are a little better than others but on most routes, there is not much choice.

The remainder concerns the allocation of rooms at the hotels. We are working to improve our ability to influence hotel reservation and reception staff in order to obtain the best room within the category that has been confirmed. When anyone makes a reservation at a hotel, the hotel does not know which specific rooms will be available, the hotel is looking at the overall number of rooms versus the overall number of reservations in order to provide a confirmation. The specific room is only allocated on arrival and, although the features in the room may be identical, these are many other items that may make a given the room, be perceived as better, or worse than another: location, layout, size, decoration, colours, functional utilities, the specific bedding arrangements and quality, and so on. Our Operations Department is working to find ways to be able to deliver the bedrooms our clients wish.