When you just decide to up and visit a foreign country, hiring a tour operator is not really at the top of your to do list. You can find your way around, you know how hotels and restaurants work, and you can generally perceive oncoming traffic, so there really is no need to have someone paid to tag along with you, even if they know when every building in the city was built and by whom.
Going on a stag do, is quite different. Shooting guns, driving tanks, and playing five-a-side football with half-naked women is not what you can “standard procedure”. You’re going to need to someone to book, guide, and sort everything out. You will need that tour operator, and believe me, when I say, you need to go local.
Let’s start at the beginning though.
When you book a Stag Do with a company that is not based in the country you are selecting the events for, how close do you think the relationship is between the website and the actual retailers of the events? If you’re thinking probably very little, you are on the right track. You see it takes frequent and detailed arrangements between an event organizing company and whatever providers they are working with. A local company has the advantage of being able to maintain just such a relationship.
This is not due to incompetence or bad faith, it is just how these things work. As for you, the customer, the time-frame of any interaction if also important. You may want to ask, at times, highly specific questions regarding an event, information that only the sellers of the events can give accurate responses to. If the organizing company is not in constant direct contact with their partners, answering a few question can turn into days of emails, which is not what you want when the whole point is simplifying the whole getaway.
A local organizer also has an innate advantage over any non-locals, by the sheer fact that they know everything there is to know about each event, where they take place, and what else to combine it with. A local guide knows what places to go to, what to expect, what you will need, simply because it is where they live, and thus don’t have to rely on maps, papers, or anything. They go out and know where the best places are, let them take you.
There is no need to plan ahead, you can have spur-of-the-moment needs, and they will easily be met. Local organizers are also privy to inside information, and usually have access that is not granted to non-locals.
Finally, hiring a local tour operator is cheaper. Whatever you book goes through fewer hands, making the final price lower. It really is that simple. You contact Stag’s Emporium, we directly contact the host of the event, and you get the quote. If you contact someone outside the country, they contact their tour operator partners, then those partners contact the hosts…see how that works?
Not only is it more expensive, it also takes longer, and is somewhat less reliable. I’m not saying that is always the case, but the clear cut advantages of going into business with a local operator are more than apparent…
To put all this very simply: if you were on a trek to the Himalayas, you would hire a local Sherpa. The same principle should apply to your Stag Do. Not because Budapest is like Himalayas, but because you will be out of your mind, still, you want to enjoy your stag do in Budapest!
STAG Emporium