Cost-Conscious Tour Masters Is ‘Going Public’

George Demas has spent more than 25 years in the travel industry, much of it as president of his own tour company. And it looks now as if he’ll never get rich.

He cares too much about how other people spend their money.

As operator of Tour Masters Inc., Demas caters exclusively to mature travelers--mostly to senior citizen clubs and organizations.

“All of our tours are designed and priced strictly for seniors,” says Demas. “But it’s not just low prices. That’s not enough. We don’t sacrifice routings or other tour components.”

Tour Masters keeps costs low in several ways. It owns three modern motor coaches, a modest office and staff and, to a great extent, a workaholic president who plans tours and writes, lays out and does the rest of his own tour brochures and flyers and trims costs by running his own errands to senior clubs in the evening hours.

So far, Tour Masters has worked only through club-sponsored tour groups, with only a small number of its tours open to the public. But that is beginning to change.

Tour Masters’ regular program of one-day motor-coach excursions, all at low or very competitive rates, will remain open just for group tours.

But a series of longer tours by the company’s motor coaches, air and coach or coach and cruise trips will now be available to the public as well as to mature and senior groups.

These include a 15-day fall foliage air and coach tour of New England, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dutch country and Washington, D.C., plus Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City, priced at $1,469 per person, double occupancy.

Or a 12-day all motor coach, coast-to-coast tour at $1,099; 17-day motor-coach tour to Nashville, New Orleans, Memphis, San Antonio and other locales for $799, and motor-coach trips to Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons at $449 for 11 days. Other destinations include the Canadian Rockies, “The Best of Arizona,” Great Southwest, Mexico and a four-island, 12-day Hawaii tour for $975.

“We don’t skimp on attractions or sightseeing admissions,” Demas says. “But we do not include meals, as we’ve found that many seniors prefer to set their own budget on these.”

Demas says that the number of mature travelers who have taken his tours passed 312,174 in 1987. Tour Masters gets many repeaters on its tours--the best endorsement you can get as to reputation and value.

Demas works with about 80 Los Angeles senior clubs and organizations on a regular basis, and is a member of STRAC (Senior Travel and Recreation Assn. of California).

“We are strictly a tour company,” Demas says, “and we plan and operate almost our entire program ourselves. We get little walk-in business looking for brochures or other package plans and tour companies. We operate tours not just domestic but to Europe, China and other foreign destinations--and at prices seniors can afford.”

Senior club travel program representatives can get Tour Masters’ full catalogue, from day trips to local and long-distance tours, by writing on their club letterhead stationery.

For others just interested in the tour company’s longer tours now available to the public, ask for the “Oper-Tour” brochure.

For more information: Tour Masters Inc., 1054 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 303, Los Angeles 90017, phone (213) 482-1150 or toll-free outside of the 213 area, (800) 992-8877.