Your club wants to get involved in international service and initiate projects with clubs abroad, so it decides to host visitors from another country as a way to build partnerships. You connect with a Rotary member you met at the Rotary International Convention and invite them to bring their club members to your region. As you work with your club to plan the visit, you decide you want your guests to see the culture of the region. A member of your club works for a travel agency and is excited to offer sightseeing tours of local attractions for the international visitors. Your club would pay for the tours. You have found similar tours at a lower price, but your fellow club member insists you use his agency and maintains that it’s the best offer.
What would you do?
Service in Action 
Hello. I would use your clubs travel agency. They are paying for it and it’s also a great way for your other club members and the travel agency owner to introduce himself. If you otherwise go outside of the club your own your own and your international guest are deprived of meeting your club.
It may be paying a little bit more than the usual price. But getting your club to pay for it and to use club resources to take care of the tours, creates a relationship with both clubs.
It will be easy to convince your member to match the offer of the others. It’s just business, and at the same time, it will serve the interest of your club.
I would tell my fellow club member that the Club would love to use their agency, but that you have to provide the best deal for the Club. Show him the cheaper deals and give him the opportunity to match it.
R/C of Spruce Pine, NC: Nix the idea of travel agencies. I would ask my fellow club members to volunteer to introduce our guests to our cultural centers, and also arrange our guest speaker list to include representatives of our cultural achievements in arts, humanities and education.
In the tale there is an interesting point, in fact also if you are in the planning Group of the event: “…You decide you want your guests to see the culure …”
This event cannot be a personal initiative, you had to propose a plan to the Board and then receive the mandate to organize the trip.
In this case you can choose the cheapest trip without problem (of course if the trip is similar) because you have the responsability given to you by the Club.
In the case reported I understand that the initiative to contact another agency it was your personal initiave without ask an endorsement of your club. So, in my opinion, you can only negotiate with your fellow owner of his agency.
I think the realistic way to conclude the case is you try to agree with your rotarian fellow that his agency organizes the tour, but the price must be equal or very near to the price you have found in the other agency.
If your fellow insists to mantain the previous price it is necessary that he gives some gadget or amenities that can partially compensate the higher price.
Finally I think we should not be maximalist, starting from the undoubted honesty of our fellow, you must make him aware that if he wants to be the provider he should give something more, considering that another provides the same service at a lower price.
We are rotarian and I think that this is a reasonable solution….
The fellow club member does not agree? (difficult to think it if he is rotarian), at this point no matter …we have tried. We have offered in friendship various and reasonable solutions, so, also if the fellow disagrees, we will choose the best price!
Great! I will encourage my fellow Rotarian to match the offer. I will want to patronize fellow Rotarian only if the deal is good and quality of service high. It is the Truth, and it will be Fair to all concerned.