Hello Imaginative Traveller I'd like to ask a question or two. I've no desire to create issues for you on your forums except those we've had no satisfaction getting an answer to.
Why don't you accept children on your tours?
Why can't you arrange a trip for my wife, myself and our son of 4?
My wife and I have been to India and the Middle East with you. Now we want to have a family holiday and you don't want us. We have loved our holidays and to this day our various tour leaders are great friends. It's too late as we have booked a trip to Turkey, but we consider we are good customers and to us you are our first choice, what's up? Should we not mature and multiply?
Jamie
Hello
Re: Hello
Hi Jamie,
The Imaginative Traveller generally does not accept bookings from minors (-18). 18 is the accepted age of responsibility and we as a company are reluctant to place ourselves "in loco parentis" for younger travellers.
We will consider older teenagers (16/17) if they are accompanied by parents or guardians.
In the past we accepted parents travelling with children as young as twelve. We decided to change our policy on age due to the complaints of other travellers in our groups. It was not that we had complaints regarding the behaviour of the children themselves it was that our other group members tended to feel inhibited in the way they could behave in front of other people's children. It isn't that the behaviour of our tour groups is particularly lairy or out of control but we found that parents would often say things like "you can't say/do that in front of my child, they're only 12".
There were also rare occasions where parents would abandon the care of their children to the Tour Leader or group while they enjoyed their holiday. As we couldn't possibly "vet" every family who wanted to book with us we felt that the only option was to create the age barrier.
It is occasionally possible for us to provide private travel for families and small groups. However, depending on the itinerary that you wanted to do it is sometimes either prohibitively expensive or beyond our facility as a group tour operator.
We really do appreciate your past custom and I fully sympathise with your position. I hope you can understand our standpoint on this issue.
[b][email]chris@imtrav.co.uk[/email][/b]