We are hopefully touring China later this year and can thus not travel with Insight. We are however planning to tour Egypt with Insight next year.

When booking our flights for China, my agent told me that she has not sold one Insight or Trafalgar tour this year and that people are rather going on cheaper tours offered by other touring companies. In previous years she sold many Insight tours. Insight's prices increased steeply in South Africa in 2009, partly because our currency lost a lot of ground, but in my opinion the increase was maybe too much for the average traveller. We must also accept that people are in general cutting down on touring.

Is this also the trend elsewhere, or is this unique to South Africa? If my assumptions are correct Insight might have to look closely at pricing next year which could be to our advantage as travellers, but it could also result in a reduction in the number of tours offered or the standard of tours, which could be to our disadvantage. Any opinions?

We are from Canada and we booked a tour through Insight for Egypt in November. We are planning to go on the Splendours of Egypt tour Nov. 9th. There are a lot of people travelling from Canada. Our dollar is in reasonable shape and we have not been hit as hard by the global eceonomic downturn as some of the other countries. We looked at a couple of different tour companies and felt Insight offered the best accomodations and times for what we wanted. I must admit I was quite surprised to see the prices of some of Insights other tours.

We are also from Canada and have booked an Insight Tour to Egypt (Wonders of Egypt March 10th). I like the quality that Insight offers in their tours, for me it's worth paying a little more. No doubt bookings will be down overall due to the economy, however.

According to my Travel Agent the bookings are still good for Insight Tours in Australia. On most of my tours, taken over the last five years or so, the majority of people on them have been Australian, with some Canadian's and fewer American's. I have only ever come across one South African couple on one tour I did last year. I guess it depends on the tour, mine have all been European tours.

I'm from Canada and will be going on my 4th tour with Insight in August (Britian and Ireland Explorer).
Though prices have gone up, I don't think the currency fluctuations have effected us as much as it has our American counterparts.
That being said, from what I have see, tour prices are also dependent on the country that you would like to visit - the higher the cost of living, the higher the tour price. This is the reason it's a more pricey to visit the Scandinavian countries than it is to go to Egypt or Morocco (just check the "daily" rate of the tours for comparison)
We were going to book Country Roads of Switzerland Austria and Bavaria, but could not get the date we needed, turns out some of the departures were cancelled and the people were moved to the date we wanted - hence not enough room. On the other hand,the B&I Explorer for the Thursday departure that we wanted was booked, so we ended up with the Saturday departure (for Canada).
From what I've experienced, the tours are well worth the price. From the locations of the hotels, to the tour size/bus comfort, included items and the excellent Tour Directors.
Happy Travels!