[Resolved]  SOTC — SOTC – Worst Experience …Never tour with them

In Apr this year I booked Turkey and Greece tour through SOTC. I have toured with many tour operators (local and international both) in the past, but this was the worst experience for me on an organized tour! The kind of experience I went through dealing with SOTC, right from booking stage to post tour interaction was simply worst.

My personal recommendation is to avoid SOTC at any cost. If they cannot provide you promised good accommodation, good food, comfortable travel and good coverage of the destination – in short meet basic expectations – then they are not the tour company you would want to tour with. SOTC as concluded by all the tour members (customers) on this tour is a mis-managed, un-professional tour company providing worst possible service for the premium amount they charge you.

*********How SOTC cheated on this tour:**************

~Misleading Itinerary~:
SOTC purposely kept the itinerary vague with just 1-2 liners describing each day’s schedule. Even on our insistence, they never shared the detailed itinerary and kept on offering some excuse or other for not sharing it. The reason; they did not want their itinerary to serve us as means of comparison with other tour operators (their competitors). Had they shared it with us, we would not have toured with them since they were skipping most of the famous attractions (in spite of their premium charge for the tour) in the destination cities.

~Tour itinerary was changed at 11th hour~:
The USP (unique selling point) of this tour was visit to Santorini Island in Greece. While SOTC decided to remove its main selling point from the itinerary, they didn’t even bother to inform the customers who primarily booked the tour to visit Santorini. Tour group was only informed about this change on Day 1 of the tour while SOTC knew about this change more than 2-3 weeks ahead of the departure. The basic purpose of touring with SOTC was lost for most o[censored]s with this unexpected change in itinerary.

~4 days free on 9 days tour!~:
The total tour was of 9 days, of which 3 days were on cruise and 6 days for site seeing in Turkey and Greece. Of these 6 days, 4 days were offered free days by SOTC, leaving only 2 days (one day each) to cover these 2 historic countries where there are abundant tourist attractions to visit! The pretext offered by SOTC for free days was, it is required for relaxation. It left the group to wonder who among them really wanted 45% of tour time to relax after paying such a hefty amount. The answer however appeared simple. By offering more free days, SOTC was saving on the local site seeing cost including travel, local guide, entry tickets for attractions etc.

~Cheap Hotel Selection~:
All the while during the booking process SOTC boasted itself for its hotel selection which usually is a 3 to 4 star property. The Athens (Greece) hotel however was not even 1 star and the group wondered if it was even a rated hotel. It was 4-5 staffer hotel with virtually no service provided for any kind of work, which usually is available in any 3-4 starrer hotel. Customers had to manage everything on their own including carrying their luggage to the rooms, fetching drinking water, arranging cups for tea etc!

~Food~:
One of the reasons for most of customers to select SOTC was the promise to provide Indian veg food on all days of the tour. While SOTC doesn’t provide lunches on their tours (for the reason best known to them), they could not even provide good dinners. The food that was served on most of the days was either inadequate or poor quality, with absolutely no choice available. E.g. we were served with boiled rice and boiled potatoes for dinner on one of the days. More often than not, we were required to buy food to supplement what was provided by SOTC, incurring additional cost!

~Worst Tour Guide/Manager~:
To the group’s surprise it was also the first tour on this sector for the tour manager/guide (Diana)! And she appeared just another tourist alike other tour members with her prime objective being visit a new country, enjoy the tour like other tourist, do duty-free shopping wherever possible, gather new information etc. Most of the passengers on this tour had more information about the 2 countries than her but she was unfazed by this fact. She stayed aloof from the group as if she has been burdened to tour with them and never executed any of her duties as a guide like co-ordination, keeping group together, smile while talking, helping the passengers etc. Some of her remarks on Maharashtra’s history as compared to Turkish history also indicated her insensitive nature, so much so that some of the tour members felt offended.

~Hidden Charges~:
When I booked the tour, I specifically asked if there were hidden chargers to which I received a big NO as answer. On the first day of the tour however, the tour guide asked to deposit with her 2 EUR per day per person as ‘TIP’ and called it a mandatory affair. It was probably first of its kind experience for the group where the touring company was making additional money in this form, or was it the tour guide??

Also, on this comprehensive tour, it came as surprise that the some of the attractions requiring entry ticket where not included in the itinerary leaving customers to buy the ticket and visit on their own. Can such a trip be called ‘All Inclusive’ as claimed by SOTC?

As a result of all the above, everyone ended up spending additional amount to the tune of 50% of total tour cost on top of the amount they already paid to SOTC for this ‘all cost covered’ tour.

There are so many other points to share on the mis-management and poor service of SOTC, but let’s now jump to the complaint part!!

For the heavy price that the group on this tour had to pay in terms of time, money, mental peace and above all ruining their family vacation, all the tour members jointly lodged a complaint with SOTC’s GM Customer Service (Carol Hiller) in Mumbai on their return and demanded that SOTC return 50% of tour cost for the miseries they had to go through. But it all went on deaf ears. Like any other irresponsible entity, SOTC didn’t waste any time to shrug of the accountability (passing the blame to the vendors to whom they have outsources the activities like food, accommodation etc). Even for things that were under their direct control (like the poor tour design, poor selection of tour guide, hidden charges, misleading information etc), they didn’t show any remorse or bother to investigate further, in spite of all the evidences provided to them. Probably they were aware of it but didn’t want to officially acknowledge it. Had they accepted it, it would have tarnished their image of being best in the industry (that’s the illusion they are still living in!).

The entire episode has left us with most traumatic experience of being cheated for their hard earned money. For some of the members in the group, this was second similar bad experience with SOTC and they have pledged not to tour with them again. So is the case with first timers too.

We are also contemplating to write to the organizers of the tourism awards. If their basis to award Best Tour operator is based on customer feedback, then let them hear these views too!