For UK tour operators and tailor-made specialists, the DMC is the partner on the ground. It contracts and runs services in the destination at net rates, looks after customers when they arrive and solves problems locally, often under the operator’s brand rather than its own.

Example: a UK agent tailor-making a Sri Lanka trip buys flights from a consolidator and has a Colombo DMC supply the driver-guide, hotels and transfers at a net price, which the agent marks up and sells as one package.

Who is liable to the traveller

When a UK business combines a DMC’s services into a package it sells, it is the organiser and is responsible to the traveller for the DMC’s performance. It can seek redress from the DMC where the DMC caused or contributed to the problem. If a UK agent sells packages put together by a DMC based outside the UK, the agent takes on the organiser’s duties for performing the package and for insolvency protection, unless it can show that the DMC meets them.

For packages booked from 6 April 2027, a supplier such as a DMC that cancels or fails to provide a service in a package will have to refund what the organiser paid it within 14 days.

Worth knowing

• Usage varies. DMC, ground handler, ground agent and incoming agent overlap, and some DMCs focus on meetings and events, others on leisure travel.

• A DMC is not a bed bank. A bed bank sells accommodation at scale, usually by API, while a DMC delivers services on the ground.