E-mail: divetrip@bitstream.net

Internet Address:
www.usdivetravel.com

Mailing Address:
U.S. Dive Travel Network
PMB 307 / Suite # 116
15050 Cedar Ave. S.
St. Paul, MN 55124-7047
 

You may find it helpful to click back to our Home Page, then click on the hot link for "How to Book a Trip," where U.S. Dive Travel's Terms & Conditions for clients are detailed. All of our overseas wholesale contracts are designed to dovetail smoothly with these terms. Here's a little background on the U.S. Dive Travel partnership, before we proceed to the proposed administrative agreement.

U.S. Dive Travel -- based in St. Paul, MN, U.S.A. -- is a national wholesaler of scuba vacation packages with affiliate offices in several North American cities. Our contract partnership strives to promote exotic yet affordable tropical vacations in 30+ countries worldwide. Our packages serve both scuba divers & snorkelers alike.

Working alongside USDT, Wild Island Expeditions is an adventure-travel guide service that specializes in aquatic & cultural tours to the Hawaiian Islands, Central America, South America & the South Pacific, as well as custom guided tours -- both via resorts & live-aboard yachts.

The overseas exploratory diving work to establish Wild Island Expeditions, & later U.S. Dive Travel, started in March of 1990. Then USDT began marketing scuba & snorkeling vacation packages, both for FITs & guided clients, in March '91. Our website was kick-started in late 1995.

U.S. Dive Travel is a family-owned contract partnership of modest goals -- perhaps the diving world's equivalent of a 200-acre organic farm. Elbows on the counter of the New Cyber-Space Store Front, we still do business the way our parents & grandparents did -- featuring efficiency, accuracy & friendly service as our priorities.

USDT now represents more than 200 three-star to five-star dive resorts, hotels & dive operations in 30 colorful countries, plus more than 30 of the world's top live-aboard vessels. USDT gives the properties we represent a strong positive exposure several times a year in our package advertisements, & at all the trade shows we cover, plus full-time on our Web site.

U.S. Dive Travel periodically attends the annual DEMA convention (Dive Equipment Manufacturers Association), which takes place in a different U.S. city each year. DEMA is the world's largest gathering of scuba gear manufacturing companies, dive resorts, dive vessels & dive-travel agencies.

Sixty-hour work weeks are the norm around here. Among the main companies in our client referral network are dive shops, dive clubs & travel agencies with adventure-travel specialists on board.

U.S. Dive Travel's founder & general manager, John Hessburg, is also an experienced travel consultant (dive travel specialist) with our associate travel firm, which holds the exclusive contract in the Northwest region with Continental Airlines for the lowest net airfare rates available to Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama & Nicaragua. USDT also has in-line contracts with air consolidators for most key dive destinations in Micronesia, the Fiji Islands, Australia, Hawaii & Mexico.

We now work through wholesale land or dive vessel contracts in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Truk, Palau, Yap, seven of the Hawaiian islands, Mexico, Grand Cayman & Little Cayman & Cayman Brac, Provo & Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos group, Guanaja in the Bay Islands of Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica, Bonaire & Curacao, Saba & Oman, among other destinations.

Perhaps the best way to tell you about our business structure & marketing efforts is for you to click back to our Home Page, then click on the hot links to our resort & vessel pages. Also, please review our open letters to clients & tour leaders for more background on U.S. Dive Travel & its management.

Following is a thumbnail summary of the typical letter of agreement for booking procedures that we request from all of our service providers worldwide. We don't want to bog anybody down with paperwork, but a few items of information are required by our partnership rules before we can cut checks to you, or vouchers to our clients. Thank you very much for your time, patience & goodwill.

Here's the basic contract wording. If it fits your needs, just download this following contract language, fill it in, sign it & return the hardcopy to our above USDT address. Then we're in business, tout de suite. If you need additional contract provisions, just call us & we'll negotiate terms to our mutual satisfaction. I'm sure you'll agree -- the simpler the better.

The workaday reality is this: if we send you a decent volume of FITs & groups, & you take good care of our clients, the wholesale contract becomes a mere formality, underpinning an already excellent professional relationship.

Please study this document. After you peruse our administrative terms, we can negotiate the commission structure in a private forum. Feel free to call us any time with follow-up questions at 952-953-4124 in St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.

GENERAL SERVICE AGREEMENT
for CLIENT BOOKING PROCEDURES

Name of Contract Associate Company:

(ie. Hotel, Resort, Lodge, Dive Operation, Vessel Company or Tour Company)

______________________________________________________________________

Names of Company's Principal Owners:____________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Name of Company's General Manager:_____________________________________

Sales & Marketing Manager:_____________________________________________

Company Address:______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Phone:____________________________ FAX:_______________________________

Internet Address:_______________________________________________________

E-Mail Address:_________________________________________________________

Summarize Facilities & Services You Offer / & Seasonal Prices:_______________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Following is the standard procedure that ________________________ & U.S. Dive Travel (USDT) agree to follow each time a client booking takes place:

1. Once a client has committed with a deposit or payment in full, USDT will telephone or fax your Reservations Office to make a formal booking. USDT will cite the client names, dates in & out, & preferred type of lodging, plus other necessary data (ie. roommates, room type ).

2. Then, preferably that same day, & no later than 24 hours following USDT's booking call, please have your Reservations Office fax USDT with a formal confirmation of reservation & an invoice. The invoice will state clearly that USDT's clients have a reservation held. The invoice will list client names, dates of service booked (in & out), a formal reservation code number (if you use such numbers), number of nights booked, type of accommodation, total "rack rate" (public retail price) for that season, total commission amount, total sales tax, & total net balance due. Please specify your final payment deadline as well.

3. Then, once your confirmation of reservation & invoice are received, USDT will collect full payment from clients & mail the balance due to you, including sales tax, & minus appropriate wholesale commission. USDT will make our payment to your property by cutting a check, normally within 48 hours of our receipt of client payment. In practice, nearly all of our clients -- except occasional 11th-hour bookings -- pay their deposits more than 90 days out & final balances no later than 70 days before arrival.

4. USDT agrees to honor whatever final payment deadline your company requires, except in the rare cases of late & unforeseen bookings that neither of us want to lose. In these rare cases, if there is space available at the last minute, both USDT & your company pledge to cooperate & facilitate this 11th-hour booking for the good of the client.

5. Then once USDT's check is received by you, your Reservations Office will immediately fax USDT with a receipt of "Paid In Full" & will later mail hardcopies of your voucher, plus orientation documents, for our clients. Please note: these vouchers must NOT state our wholesale net prices but instead should state the normal published rack rate. Also, please have the vouchers state client names, dates of service, type of lodging, number of nights, & the fact the USDT client is "Paid In Full."

6. Please have your Reservations Office mail formal vouchers to USDT in time to send to our clients, well in advance of their departure date, specifically no later than 30 days out.

7. Both USDT & _________________________ hereby also agree that if ever a dispute or misunderstanding should arise about some unforeseen facet of a client's booking, we will work to cooperate & resolve the matter quickly & amicably. We therefore pledge to place the client's well-being as our Number One priority, & well above inflexible adherence to contract minutiae. And let's try to have some fun while we're at it!

______________________________________________        ________________

John Hessburg, General Manager, USDT                  Date of signature

______________________________________________        ________________

Representative of Service Provider (& Job Title)      Date of Signature