Reference
The words in your quote, in plain English.
Travel companies write to each other in shorthand and then send you the same document. Here is what each term actually means — and, where it matters, what it costs you to misread it.
Quick answer
What do DMC, FIT, GIT and MICE mean in travel?
The travel trade runs on abbreviations that rarely get explained to the person paying the invoice. A DMC is a locally based company that designs and operates ground services in one destination. FIT is an individually tailored itinerary; GIT is a fixed-departure group tour. MICE covers corporate meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions. Allocation means rooms or seats a company holds under contract, and net rate is the confidential trade price before the selling company adds its margin. This glossary defines the terms you are most likely to meet in a European travel quote — 25 of them, each in one sentence, written for the traveller or buyer rather than the trade.
- Terms defined
- 25
- Scope
- European travel trade
- Written for
- Buyers, not the trade
- Schema
- DefinedTermSet
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- Quarterly
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Last updated August 2026 · EuropeanTravelCompanies.com
A
- Allocation
- Rooms or seats contractually held by an operator with a supplier, released back if unsold by an agreed date.
B
- B2B
- Business-to-business — trade between two travel companies, such as a European tour operator contracting a local DMC, rather than a company selling to a traveller.
- Blackout dates
- Periods a contracted rate or allocation does not apply — typically local holidays, major events and peak weeks, when suppliers sell at rack rate anyway.
D
- DMC
- Destination Management Company — a locally based company that designs and operates ground services in one destination for tour operators, agencies and corporate clients.
E
- Engagement rate
- Interactions divided by reach or followers. On ETC it is computed from official platform APIs over a rolling window, never self-reported by the creator.
F
- Familiarisation trip
- A subsidised trip (“fam trip”) hosted for agents, operators or creators so they can sell or describe a destination from first-hand experience.
- FIT
- Free Independent Traveller — an individually tailored itinerary for one party, as opposed to a fixed-departure group tour.
G
- GIT
- Group Inclusive Tour — a fixed itinerary operated for a group, usually with contracted allocations and a set departure date.
- Ground handling
- All services delivered in the destination once a traveller arrives: transfers, guides, excursions, restaurants and assistance.
I
- Inbound operator
- A company that receives and services travellers arriving into its own country. The mirror image of an outbound operator, which sends its domestic clients abroad.
- Incentive travel
- A trip funded by an employer as a reward for staff or partners. The “I” in MICE, and typically the highest per-head budget in the corporate segment.
- Insolvency protection
- A bond, trust account or insurance policy that refunds travellers and repatriates them if the organiser fails. Legally required for packages sold in the EU and UK.
L
- Land arrangements
- Everything in a trip except international flights: accommodation, transfers, guiding, excursions and meals. Most DMC quotes are land-only.
- Lead time
- The gap between booking and travel. Short lead times limit availability and negotiating room, which is why last-minute quotes are often higher for less inventory.
- Licensed guide
- A guide holding a state or regional licence. In Italy, Greece, Turkey and Spain, guiding at certain sites without one is an offence, which is why licence status is part of verification.
M
- Meet and greet
- An assisted arrival: a representative meets the traveller airside or in arrivals and hands them to their transfer, rather than leaving them to find it.
- MICE
- Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions — the corporate events segment of the travel industry.
N
- Net rate
- The confidential price a supplier gives a trade partner, excluding the partner’s own margin. The traveller sees the marked-up selling price, never the net rate.
P
- Package travel regulations
- EU rules (Directive 2015/2302, as implemented nationally) requiring organisers of combined travel services to hold insolvency protection and to accept liability for the package as a whole.
R
- Rack rate
- A supplier’s published public price, before any contracted or negotiated discount.
- Release period
- The deadline by which an operator must confirm or hand back allocated rooms or seats. Missing it returns the inventory to the supplier, usually at a higher price.
S
- Shoulder season
- The periods either side of peak season, typically offering lower prices and lower crowding at similar weather quality.
- Single supplement
- The surcharge a solo traveller pays because per-person pricing assumes two people share a room. It reflects the room cost, not a penalty on solo travel.
T
- Tour leader
- Someone who accompanies a group throughout a trip. Distinct from a licensed local guide, who is qualified — and in many countries legally required — to interpret specific sites.
W
- Whitelabel
- A service one company operates but another sells under its own brand. Common between DMCs and outbound operators, and the reason the operating company is not always the one you booked with.
Three terms worth reading twice
Net rate. If a company quotes you a “net” price, it is telling you there is no margin in it — which is almost never true of a consumer quote. The useful question is not whether a price is net, but what is inside it: which services, whose staff, and what happens to the price if the group shrinks.
Insolvency protection. This is the one term on the list that is about your money rather than your itinerary. Packages sold in the EU and UK must be protected against the organiser failing. Verification confirms a company carries the cover its jurisdiction requires; it does not replace it.
Release period. The reason a quote expires. An operator holding rooms has a date by which it must confirm or return them, and after that date the same trip is genuinely a different price. It is not a sales tactic, though it is sometimes used as one.
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