Questions You Should Ask Every Travel Company
Experience
1. How long have you been in the business and how many travelers do you take care of each year?
Adventure South has operated since 1992. Currently we carry approx 900 – 1000 pax per
annum.
2. Who will be my key contact person in your organization? How long have they been in the
travel industry and what is their background?
Geoff Gabites. Founder / Owner since 1992. Extensive background in the outdoor sector,
equipment manaufacture and retail.
3. Who are the principals of the company and what is their background?
Geoff Gabites Founder / Director
Shelley Gabites Director, Financial
Nick Costos CEO World Expeditions Partner. World Ex are Australian based Adventure
Tourism company operating since 1975 and hold a 50.1% shareholding in the company.
4. Can you provide past client references? Check out the company’s references. Travel companies
are no different from any other business. So if you’re unfamiliar with the prospective company,
check out their references. Check to see if they’re a reputable business, pay their bills on time,
and have been around long enough to trust.
Happy to provide trade and Travel Association referees. Pls advise how many contacts you
require
Financial Strength
1. What assurances do you provide to protect the traveler’s investment?
Have attached our Insurance form showing $2,000,000 Liability cover which is also a
requirement of the Department of Conservation.
a. Can you supply business and banking references? Bank references from Westpac
Andy Higgenson, our ocal manager andy_higginson@westpac.co.nz. Ph 0064 3 353
0606
b. Can you provide a list of your company’s travel industry memberships and affiliations?
New Zealand Tourism Industry Association – 8 years as a Board member. Member 20
yrs
Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism
Cycle Tour Operators NZ – Foundation member
Offical partner of 5-7 NZ Cycle Trails.
Check out the company’s memberships and affiliations. Active memberships in
business, trade and governmental programs do not confer any assurance of a company’s
financial health (none presently perform financial audits). However, long-standing
memberships in some of the more established organizations do represent some level of
security, since the unscrupulous companies are eventually tossed out.
c. Is your company a participant in a seller of travel/consumer protection program?
No.
Operations
1. How is the educational component delivered on your tours? Via our guides interpreation /
knowledge
2. What is the typical caliber of your leaders? Can you provide leader references? Extremely
high. We have numerous client testimonials available – but we have 12-15 guides each season
so its difficult to single out any one person. Guides are on average with us for 5-8 years.
3. What type of educational materials do you provide travelers prior to departure? Would require
you to specify what is required / requested
4. Does your company subcontract for services in the field? If so, what are the credentials of your
subcontractor(s)? Not on this itinerary other than water taxi shuttles and the overnight on
Milford Sound. In these cases the operator is one we have worked with over many years and
we know their safety plan / certification.
5. What type of experience does your guides/field staff have? What type of certifications,
qualifications, training, etc. do they have? All guides engage in our annual guides training
course and are First Aid certified.
6. Do you provide in-house air ticketing services? No
7. Do you have a risk management plan? This is a core requirement of our Qualmark certification
and DoC concession holding
a. Do you have 24-hour on call operations staff? Yes
b. Does your field staff carry radios, phones, etc.? yes – as required by the terrain and
known issues around phone black spots etc
c. Do you provide 24-hour on call physician staffed medical assistance and evacuation
coverage for every trip participant? Not specifically but visitors to NZ are covered by
our Accident Compensation Commission and NZ Search & Rescue services which
provides that cover.
d. Do you have a formal medical policy concerning the screening of prospective trip
members? We request a booking form ( or work with one provided by AMC if that is
more applicable ) and would request information on any medical issues we had
concerns with.
e. Do you have a policy concerning medical care delivered during a trip and the usage of
certain types of medical equipment (e.g., Gamov hyperbaric bags fir trips going to
altitude)? What kinds of health education materials do you provide each traveler?
Given the nature of our trip this doesn’t seem particularly relevant?
8. Do you have a social and environmental business practices operating policy?
Adventure South is Qualmark Enviro Gold status which is independantly audited on a bi annual
basis. http://www.qualmark.co.nz
http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/developing-your-tourism-business/qualmark/enviroawards/
9. What materials and guidelines do you provide for your clients, either prior to departure or
during the trip, to help them minimize the environmental and cultural impact of their visit?
Part of our pre trip briefing and ongoing daily briefing if required .
10. How do you monitor the operations of your in-country operators regarding their environmental
and cultural practices? N/A
11. Does your company encourage travelers to become personally involved in the
conservation/preservation of the areas they visit? If so how? We include certain environmental
programmes / visits in various itineraries – eg Black Stilt Recovery programme based at
Twizel. In this case however we do not visit any of these sites.
12. What are the main obstacles that you find in minimizing the environmental impact of your
business? The acceptance of clients to understand their personal responsibility and not to
require others to minimise their impacts / or pay for Carbon Offsets, for them
13. What environmental issues do you currently face with your tours, or in the areas that you visit?
Litter
Marketing Support
1. Can you offer assistance in the development of marketing and advertising materials
(copywriting, design, artwork/photography, production and printing)? We can make material /
images available as requested
2. Are you available to make presentations for constituent events/seminars? Given an airfare, I’d
be happy to participate! 
Insurance/Legal
1. Do you have a pro-forma letter of agreement or memorandum of understanding? No, we work
on individual MOU agreements
2. What are your terms and conditions? What are your terms in the event of a Department of State
advisory/warning? In general we work with a non refundable deposit and then a reducing
refund against time. No refund within 30 days for example. However we value all our partners
relationships and where your organisation has a policy that is fair and reasonable, we would
work within that policy. Would be happy to review the AMC policy to determine our degree of
comfort and if this works we would simply extend that to cover this trip.
3. What are the upper limits of your liability insurance coverage? $2,000,000
4. Can you add our organization as an additional insured to your policy? Unsure how that would
work but I can ask.
5. How detailed is your Limitation of Liability and Assumption of Risk statement? Can you add
our organization to this form?
As for #4 above, I will contact our insurers to discuss this matter and respond.