by Julius Yan
There’s something I hear from guests returning from our Japan tours that bothers me. “We were so lucky to have such a wonderful guide!” Or, “We really lucked out with our tour leader!” I know these comments are meant as compliments, and I’m always pleased to hear that our guides have done an excellent job. But I take issue with the suggestion that luck has much to do with the quality of their work. At Laurus Travel, we don’t rely on luck to deliver excellent service. We work hard to make it happen.
Since founding Laurus Travel in 1998, I’ve believed that the success of a tour is determined largely by the work done long before the first guest arrives. As the owners of a boutique tour company, we take a hands-on approach to virtually every aspect of our operations. We personally design our itineraries, drawing on decades of experience in the travel industry. We inspect the hotels and restaurants we use, carefully evaluate transportation providers and work directly with local bus companies rather than through middlemen. These are responsibilities that many tour operators delegate to their overseas partners, but we prefer to maintain direct control over the quality of our tours.
Our approach to recruiting and training Japanese tour guides is particularly demanding. We personally select and train them, looking beyond English proficiency and knowledge of Japanese history and culture. Personality, sound judgment, professionalism and a genuine commitment to looking after guests are equally important. I’ve personally trained many Japanese guides on location, walking them through itineraries and explaining why certain routes, sightseeing sequences and logistical arrangements work better than others. Why visit one attraction before another? Why approach a historic site from a particular direction? Why choose one restaurant over another? These decisions may seem insignificant, but collectively they can make the difference between an ordinary tour and an outstanding one. Our guides deserve enormous credit for their excellent work, but their success is also the result of careful recruitment, training and ongoing support.
The results speak for themselves. Most of our guests complete our post-tour satisfaction surveys, and more than 95% give us a perfect score of 5 out of 5. Interestingly, relatively few take the additional step of posting reviews on Google or TripAdvisor. Perhaps when everything goes smoothly, it’s easy to assume that good service comes naturally or that one simply got lucky. I can understand that, although public reviews are particularly valuable to a boutique independent tour operator like ours.
Of course, no amount of preparation can eliminate every uncertainty in travel. Weather, traffic and unexpected disruptions are part of the business. But having experienced people and sound systems in place makes all the difference in how those situations are handled. After more than four decades in the travel industry, I’m more convinced than ever that consistently outstanding service is not a matter of luck. It comes from high standards, hard work, experience and an unwillingness to settle for mediocrity.
Our guests may not see all the work that goes into making their trips successful, and that’s perfectly fine. What matters is that they enjoy the results. But make no mistake: the excellence they experience is by design, not by chance.
