ABSTRACT
Tour operators, like department stores, place similar, competing products and brands together. In department stores are to be found types of merchandise grouped in areas: luggage in one; photographic equipment in another. Different categories of groceries and pharmaceuticals are to be found in separate areas of supermarkets. Tour operators often group similar offerings within a single brochure, as do specialist tour operators (winter sports, ecotourism). This may be verified by an examination of such brochures in the travel agent shops in most Western countries. The brochure of a US travel wholesaler, Maupintour, picked at random, helps to illustrate the point. Its Europe 1999 programme offers a 15 day Alps rail tour from Vienna to Zurich and a 14 day rail tour from Berlin to Budapest at similar round trip prices from a number of US cities.
