It’s time to make Christmas holiday travel plans

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• Savings • Travel • Debt & Borrowing • Utilities • Managing your Tax

This is M NEY A daily guide to your Personal Finance

32 Monday 28 September 2015BUSINESS DAY

Yesterday, Sep-tember 27th was World Tourism Day. Its pur-pose is to foster

awareness among the in-ternational community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, po-litical and economic value.

Did you end up paying exorbitant prices during your last holiday because you waited until the last minute and booked far too late? Don’t let that happen to you again this Christ-mas if you plan to go away. It is already time to start planning for the holidays, especially if it involves air travel. You don’t have to make firm bookings now but consult with your fam-ily and start to look at what dates make sense.

Where would you like to visit?

Start to research current fares and do shop around. The internet is a good first place to start to look for the best packages. When you book well in advance there could be huge sav-ings particularly for a trip that involves several fam-ily members. Even the de-parture date can have an impact on fares and often you will find that travel at the beginning of the week may be cheaper than on a Friday for example. Mak-ing early reservations give you much more choice and helps you to avoid the inconvenience of not get-ting what you really want and disappointment.

Have you applied for your leave?

Christmas is one of the most popular times of year to take a vacation and it is natural for an employer to have a policy that restricts the number of people in the same department or unit that can take time off work at the same time. Put in your leave request early so that your dates are se-cure and do not clash with work colleagues, which could jeopardize your trip. If you need extra vacation time without pay, deter-mine how much money you will be forfeiting for the extra time and see if it is worth it.

Where will you stay?Do your research on

hotels and transport ar-rangements and secure your bookings well before the prices start to go up; they usually do closer to the holiday period. With the plethora of websites and agents for hotel book-ings securing the best deal can be time-consuming so it makes sense to start early as ultimately the reward of a perfect destination at the best prices makes it time well spent.

Choose your location wisely. Sometimes staying in the heart of town costs twice as much as staying at a hotel just a few miles away. Carefully weigh up the pros and cons in terms of transport costs before you decide. If you have friends or family at your destination consider stay-ing with them if you won’t be imposing on them.

Would you consider a home swapping vaca-

tion?Home swapping simply

means exchanging your home with someone else’s home during the holidays. This form of holidaying is very popular in the United States and other destina-tions. Both parties save money when compared to staying in expensive holidays or self catered apartments. Not only does home swapping give you free accommodation, but it also gives you a great expe-rience of actually living the life of a local in a foreign land. However, it may be hard to imagine this form of holidaying taking root in Nigeria until one is able to fully rely upon background checks and references.

Make special reserva-tions

If you are planning to treat your family to some special events during the holiday season including shows or concerts, find out if reservations are required and make them now. The best concert tickets may be sold out close to the time or you might not get decent seats. The best res-taurants are also likely to be fully booked during a major holiday, so, do se-cure your booking early; by booking early you might benefit discounts and spe-cial offers.

Have you accumulat-ed air miles?

If you want to use your air miles to travel for Christmas, book now. The most popular dates have

already started filling up. To really benefit from your air miles try to be flexible with your dates otherwise you may need to spend more miles to secure par-ticular dates.

You don’t have to trav-el abroad

Remember that a va-cation does not need to be expensive. There are breathtaking tourist sites in Nigeria that are well worth a visit; you can dis-cover your own country by visiting places close to home. Nigeria is blessed with outstanding natural heritage sites, which are listed among the UNESCO Heritage Sites. These in-clude the Idanre Hills of Ondo State, The Ikogosi

Spring in Ekiti, The Alok Ikom Monoliths of Cross River State, The Ogbunike Caves of Anambra State, The Ancient Kano City Walls and several beauti-ful sites spread across the country. These extraordi-nary sites exist nowhere else in the world and are right here in Nigeria for us all to enjoy.

It seems absurd to start thinking about the holidays this early but far too many people lose significant amounts of money by not being disciplined enough to plan ahead… even for the holidays. Once your ar-rangements are all in place with some wonderful deals in hand, you can just sit back and look forward to a

wonderful holiday without all the stress of last minute preparations and unneces-sary expenses.

Nimi Akinkugbe has extensive experience in private wealth manage-ment. She seeks to empow-er people regarding their finances and offers frank, practical insights to create a greater awareness and understanding of personal finance.