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I woke up this morning thinking about the high prices of the Hotels on Capri – see how devoted I am to my work!! Strange the things that play on your mind… so I guess this topic deserves a blog seeing it must have bouncing around all night!!  The world of travel is a changing one and I have seen great changes happening in the last two years in the travel industry all around the world.  The internet has opened up a whole new world for this sector.

Humans don’t like change but embrace change we must as it is a given every day – nothing stays the same. Finances and jobs change,  A storm floods your house, friends move away, loved ones pass over and leave us and we have to continually adjust to a slippery slope where we go up and down. If travel agents are finding it challenging to stay abreast of the changes in the travel industry,  I really don’t know how the public can keep up with it all to be able to book it yourself.

Why we love Italy is that it rarely changes – I have been travelling to Rome for 30 years and nothing changes – the same waiter is still in the same restaurant and he remembers how I like my coffee!!. How wonderful! Where can you beat that? In Australia I have been going to the same supermarket for 30 years and they don’t even know my name!!

But change in the hotel industry is finally happening in Italy too alack alas.  I can only say – come to us as we do know what is happening in Italy. e.g. Venice and Capri hotels are more expensive on Friday and Saturday and now Rome is jumping on the bandwagon too. I am always disappointed when I see this as I think the prices in these cities are high enough.

I am of course are against people booking their own trips in Italy, not because I want more clients, but because I know just how difficult it is to do this in Italy and arrive at an all round good result without a disaster happening. e.g. I know a dentist who booked the trains himself in Italy. His dates were out by one day for the whole trip nonrefundable fares and he had to pay for the whole lot again to rebook. I said to him. You are a dentist – not a travel agent – why would you waste all that time doing that when we can book them for you for the same price.?

I have a lot of clients who come to me when they find themselves in a travel mess. They have tried to book it themselves but have failed miserably with a hotch potch of jumping all over the country.  Sometimes I look at their itinerary and go “what the hell!!” or a group that writes and says that they want to ‘Drive the whole of Italy in seven days with a day in each city”!!.

When  I write back and say that it is impossible – I don’t hear from them again!! Funny that! – I would like to know how they feel about their 7 day ride  on the autostrada from Milano to Amalfi, in heavy traffic when they return home.  (Their trip could be called – “The autostrada walls of Italy- what cement looks like!!)”

The hotels now have booking systems with prices that change every day. It is not just internet sites that do this, now the hotels are doing it themselves. This makes life hell for travel agents like us who try to match the price of the hotel. It is now a bit like the share market up and down like a yo yo – supply and demand.

Do you ever yearn for a return to simple. Simple life, a set price – where the eggs came straight from the farmer to the shop and the price did not change for a couple of years. That is now for the history books.