For travel advisors
Compare DMC proposals without rebuilding them in a spreadsheet
To compare DMC proposals properly, put every quote on the same basis before judging price: identical dates, party size, room categories, inclusions and exclusions. Orelea does this by sending one structured request to several DMCs, then presenting the responses side by side so differences in scope are visible rather than buried in attachments.
The problem is not collecting quotes. It is comparing them.
Three DMCs will answer the same brief in three formats: a PDF, a Word document, and a long email. One quotes net, one quotes commissionable, one is silent on the point. One includes airport transfers and internal flights; another lists them separately; the third assumes you are handling them.
The usual response is a spreadsheet - retyping every line so the numbers finally sit next to each other. That is an hour per trip on a good day, it is where transcription errors enter the quote you send the client, and it has to be redone the moment one DMC revises.
Ask once, in a structure that makes answers comparable
The comparison problem starts at the request. If each DMC receives a slightly different brief, their proposals are not comparable in principle, and no amount of formatting afterwards fixes that.
A structured trip request fixes the variables up front - dates, party composition, service levels, what is in scope, what is explicitly out - and sends the identical brief to every DMC you approach. What comes back differs on the things you actually want to judge them on.
- One brief, sent to as many DMCs as you want to consider
- The same required fields answered by everyone
- Inclusions and exclusions captured as structured fields, not prose
- Revisions tracked against the original request instead of restarting the thread
Read the differences, not the layouts
With proposals normalised, the comparison becomes the thing it should always have been: a judgement about value, supplier quality and fit for this particular client, rather than an exercise in reading three different document templates.
Price stops being one number to rank by and becomes a number attached to a defined scope - which is the only way a cheaper proposal can be recognised as a smaller one.
What this does not do
It does not pick the DMC for you, and it does not score proposals against each other automatically. Judgement about a supplier for a specific client is the part of an advisor’s work that should not be automated, and pretending otherwise produces confident, wrong recommendations.
What it removes is the retyping, the version confusion and the risk of comparing two quotes that were never describing the same trip.
Frequently asked questions
Is there software that lets me compare quotes from different DMCs?
Yes. Orelea lets a travel advisor send one structured trip request to multiple DMCs and then view the returned proposals side by side, with inclusions, exclusions, pricing basis and terms presented in the same structure for each supplier.
What should I look for when comparing proposals from different DMCs?
Check that every proposal covers the same dates, party composition, room categories and service levels, then compare what is included versus excluded, whether rates are net or commissionable, what the payment and cancellation terms are, and which named suppliers and guides are being used. Compare price only after scope matches.
How can a travel advisor manage multiple DMC proposals for the same client trip?
Keep every proposal attached to a single trip request rather than in separate email threads, so revisions update a version chain instead of creating parallel documents. Orelea groups all DMC responses for one trip together, keeping each supplier’s current proposal and its history in one place.
How can I tell whether a DMC proposal is fairly priced?
A single proposal cannot tell you. Fair pricing is only visible against comparable quotes for identical scope, so request the same structured brief from two or three DMCs in the destination and compare like for like - including whether rates are net or commissionable, which changes the effective price substantially.
How do I compare two DMCs offering different services for the same destination?
Separate the differences into scope and quality. Scope differences - one includes internal flights, the other does not - should be normalised before comparing price. Quality differences, such as guide seniority, vehicle class or named properties, are judgement calls that belong to the advisor, not to a scoring formula.