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Why Samurai Tours? Samurai Tours only provides tours to Japan, allowing us to focus on our itineraries in order to provide a quality tour experience.
On our escorted tour Packages, our groups are never bigger (and often smaller) than 16 travelers. Small groups allow us to stay in memorable, centrally located, family-run lodging and to sightsee and dine where larger groups can only dream of going.
“Traveling small” also gives our groups a congenial atmosphere. Because of the way we organize our tours, and the way we travel, we tend to attract friendlier, more flexible and fun-loving people for our tours. If you are interested in learning about Japan, its culture, people and want to have a great time, you will fit right in.
The quality of your tour guides can make or break your travel experience. You want a guide who is 100% focused on bringing you the best of Japan. The common way for a tour company to have a low “sticker price” is to pay guides little or nothing, and encourage them to pull in shopping kickbacks as personal income. We pay our guides full salaries, and prohibit them from accepting kickbacks. This means your guide is motivated to give you the best travel experience possible – not earn extra income through shopping.
We also work with English-speaking Japanese guides where indicated in the itinerary detail. We have found this is important because it will give you an outlook on Japan from a Japanese point-of-view and allows you to meet one-on-one with a local and ask questions you may not be able to ask someone you just met on the street. (We have also found that many of our tour participants have struck-up friendships with our local guides, and many of them keep in touch on a regular basis.)
More Sightseeing: Prices include all group sightseeing and activities listed in detail with every tour description.
More Meals: Experiencing Japan’s great cooking is every bit as important as sightseeing, so all breakfasts and approximately half of your lunches and dinners are included. It’s a sensible balance that satisfies your dining expectations, protects your budget, yet gives you the freedom to discover plenty of other edible delights on your own.
Peace of Mind: With our included tour cancellation/interruption protection coverage, your travel investment is protected.
Travelers who have been to Japan can tell you that customer service is very important in Japan. Everybody comes home with their own personal stories about someone in Japan who went way out of their way be helpful. In order to make our tours more “Japanese,” all of the employees and guides at Samurai Tours are committed to going the extra distance to make your Japan experience more enjoyable.
The tour price listed on our website and in our tour catalog is exactly what you’ll pay, even if inflation or a drop in the dollar-to-yen exchange rate increases operating costs. This may sound like common sense, but many tour companies reserve the right to increase your final payment (in fine print, of course). Samurai Tours has never done this, and we never will. Period.
Most foreign tour operators operating tours in Japan subcontract with Japanese travel agencies. Because we have our own travel agency (Kyoto-fu Chijitoroku Ryokogyo 3-576/Japanese Travel Agency License: Kyoto Prefecture #3-576) it allows us to be more adaptable to the ever-changing travel environment in Japan and gives us better quality control. Because of our local presence, we are able to adapt and adjust to the ever-changing travel environment in Japan. And other Japanese travel agencies tend to design tours in the manner that the Japanese prefer tours, which means whirlwind, non-stop tours that never allow enough time anywhere to see anything.
On one of our tours, you will see things you have never seen before, eat foods you have never eaten before and do things you have never done before, which will add up to an experience like none you’ve had before. And best of all, you will have fun at the same time. Let us show you our side of Japan!
