FIT and GIT: independent travellers and tour groups, and how to price each
FIT stands for free independent traveller, or fully independent traveller: a guest, a couple or a family travelling on their own dates and route, even when an agent books it for them. GIT stands for group inclusive tour, or group inclusive traveller: a group travelling together on a tour bought as a package, with the same hotels, meals and transport. Hotels and tour operators use the two to tell individual bookings from tour groups, because each gets its own rates, terms and contract.
Also called: FIT, GIT, free independent traveller, fully independent traveller, group inclusive tour, group inclusive traveller, FIT rates, GIT rates.
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What FIT means
VisitEngland's glossary for the travel trade defines fully independent travellers as those who plan their own travel arrangements, including people visiting friends and relatives and those on partly packaged trips.
In hotel sales the word is used more widely. An FIT booking is one room or a few for one party on its own dates, whether the guest books direct, on a booking site, or through an agent who builds a trip around them. A tour operator abroad that sells tailor-made trips to India sells FITs: each client has their own itinerary, and each hotel on it is booked for them alone.
What agents booking FITs usually need from you:
- A rate sheet for the season, net or with a commission, by room type and meal plan.
- A quick answer: an agent building a trip waits on every hotel in it.
- Clear cancellation and no-show terms for individuals.
- Often an allotment of rooms they can book into without asking each time.
What GIT means
VisitEngland's glossary defines group inclusive travellers as those who buy most of their holiday arrangements before leaving home, also called package travellers. In a hotel, a GIT is a tour group on a set itinerary: a coach of travellers from abroad on a circuit, or a group from another Indian city on a pilgrimage or a hill-station tour, all arriving and leaving together and eating the same meals.
What a GIT usually needs:
- A group rate for the season, often per person on twin sharing, with meals.
- A room for the tour leader, and a rate or a room for the driver and the guide: the model group contract that comes with the IH&RA and UFTAA code of practice has a line for their rooms.
- Fixed meal times and menus, and early breakfasts for early departures.
- A quick check-in for many guests arriving off one coach: the rooming list sent ahead, and keys ready.
How FIT and GIT rates and terms differ
- Rates: FIT rates are per room, by room type and meal plan. GIT rates are often per person with meals, and lower per room, because the rooms come together.
- Booking: FITs come one at a time, each confirmed by name. A GIT is confirmed as one block, with its rooming list later.
- Holding rooms: FITs are often booked into an allotment. A GIT is a block on fixed dates.
- Cancelling: an individual cancels by a set time before arrival. A group cancels in stages, with part of it allowed to drop at each date.
- Free rooms: a GIT usually earns a free room for its tour leader; an FIT doesn't.
- Payment: a GIT is paid on one bill, usually by the operator. An FIT's bill is paid by the agent, against a voucher, or by the guest, as agreed.
The notice an agent gives to cancel an individual's booking at a tourist hotel without charge, under the IH&RA and UFTAA code of practice when the contract says nothing else: 14 days before arrival in the low season and 30 days in the high season. Later, the hotel may charge one night, or three nights for a stay of three nights or more in the high season. At other hotels the notice is the same as for the hotel's own guests, and before 6 pm on the day before arrival.
The same code draws the line between the two: a group is at least 15 people arriving and leaving together, and an individual is anyone who can't have the group's terms. Under it, a party of 12 booked by an agent is a set of individuals.
What to put in writing with a tour operator
- Separate rate sheets for FIT and GIT for each season, saying which nights each applies to and which it doesn't.
- Whether the rates are net or carry a commission, and the commission if they do.
- For FIT: how a booking is sent and confirmed, the release period of any allotment, and the cancellation and no-show terms for individuals.
- For GIT: the smallest group that gets the group rate, the free room for the tour leader, the rooms for the driver and guide, the meal plan, when the rooming list is due, and the stages for cancelling part of the group.
- Payment: a deposit for groups, credit terms for regular operators, or vouchers, and when invoices are paid.
- That neither rate is shown to the public below your own website's price.
A worked example: the same rooms as FIT and as GIT
A hotel in Rishikesh agrees two rates with a tour operator for the winter. FIT: ₹5,500 a night for a deluxe room with breakfast, net. GIT: ₹2,300 a person a night on twin sharing with breakfast and dinner, for groups of 16 or more, with the tour leader's room free and a driver's room at ₹1,200. A group of 30 for two nights takes 15 twin rooms: 30 × 2 × ₹2,300 = ₹1,38,000, or ₹4,600 a room a night with dinner in it, plus ₹2,400 for the driver. Fifteen FIT couples on the same two nights would bring 15 × 2 × ₹5,500 = ₹1,65,000, but they would arrive one by one over months, and might not come at all in a quiet week. The group's rate is lower; its worth is that the rooms fill together, on dates known ahead.
Using FIT and GIT to fill the year
- Look at your months: tour groups travel on set circuits and in set seasons, planned well ahead, so a group contract can fill months your own guests don't.
- Keep groups off your busiest nights, or price them for those nights, since independent guests pay more then.
- Give FIT rates to the agents who sell tailor-made trips, and check that rooms held for them are booked before the release date.
- Count room nights and money from FIT, GIT and your own direct guests apart each month: they behave differently and need different prices.
