Primark or Prada?

It's why I ask my customers for a budget. I am not turning my nose up at Primark or making judgments on how much customers are spending on their high end products. All I am doing is asking the question, "what is your rough budget?" so I know which direction to turn when I start looking at their travel plans.

I often get the response "I don't have a budget" but that is not true in perhaps 99.9% of cases. If you went looking for a house, you'd have a rough budget. If you needed a new car, you would have a rough budget. If you went shopping for a new kitchen you would head to Ikea or that super expensive designer shop on the high street and you'd make the decision based on budget.

The world of travel seems to fox people. If someone said to me, "I would love to go to the Maldives and I have a budget of ￡1,000 pp for a week all inclusive" this would be perfect. I would talk them through the closest option and they could then decide whether they want to spend more money to upgrade their stay or if they want to spend ￡1,000 elsewhere - they get to decide the value of their ￡1,000. If they said "I want to go to the Maldives but don't have any idea of a budget " (but secretly they know it's ￡1,000 pp but they don't want to tell me because they think I will judge them/try and max out their budget/test me.....) then I could spend valuable time looking at options which are never going to work. Result: disappointed customer and wasted time.

If a customer doesn't have a budget but can tell me the style of hotel they like or the type of places they've stayed before and enjoyed, I have an idea of their travel style and will try and match this.

We all have our own idea of what value means. That could be the cheapest holiday possible or it could be finding an option which ticks all the boxes with the cost being a secondary consideration. I am not here to judge your budget but to work with it to find you the perfect holiday.