Quick answer: A free place, or FOC, is never free: it is a cost the paying guests share. In a Korea group quote it usually covers the tour leader travelling with the group, and it is earned at a threshold of paying guests that is agreed in the contract and varies by supplier and season. Hotels may give their own complimentary rooms at a room-count threshold; the ground package has its own. The tour leader usually needs a single room, which is a cost even when the place is free, and overnight coach tours carry the driver's and guide's accommodation. If the group shrinks below the threshold, the FOC falls away and the per-person price rises. Explera DMC Korea shows all of it as separate lines.
What an FOC actually is
- A place the group pays for collectively. The cost of the free place is spread across the paying guests; the quote should show that honestly rather than bury it.
- Earned at a threshold. One free place for a set number of paying guests. The threshold is a commercial term, agreed in the contract, and differs between suppliers and seasons.
- Usually for the tour leader. Most FOCs cover the escort travelling with the group from the source market. Some programmes use a second FOC for a co-leader on large groups.
Where the free places come from
- Hotels may grant complimentary rooms at a room-count threshold, on their own terms, and often not in peak weeks.
- The ground package — coach, guide, entrances, meals — carries its own FOC basis in the DMC quotation.
- Attractions and restaurants sometimes waive the escort's entry or meal, but not always, and never for a second escort without asking.
- Airlines have their own group rules, which sit with the agent or its air consolidator, not with the DMC.
What a free place still costs
- The single room. A tour leader usually has a room alone. Unless the hotel's own complimentary room covers it, the single supplement is a cost to build in.
- Overnight trips outside Seoul. On multi-day coach tours, the driver's and the guide's accommodation and meals are part of the ground cost. They are not optional, and in Korea they are usually quoted as separate lines.
- Extra services for the leader, such as a separate transfer or a different flight, are charged as extras.
When the group gets smaller
FOC thresholds work on the final number of paying guests, not the number quoted. If a group of twenty drops to fourteen and the threshold was fifteen, the free place falls away: the leader's costs have to be paid, and the price per person for everyone else rises. The coach and guide cost does not fall much either, because a smaller group still needs a coach and a guide.
The fix is to agree it at the start: quote price bands by group size, state the FOC basis in the quotation, and set the date by which numbers are final. That turns a late surprise into a clause everyone has already read.
Shown line by line
Explera DMC Korea quotes the FOC basis, the tour leader's single room and the driver's and guide's overnight costs as separate lines, with price bands by group size, so the agent can see exactly what a change in numbers does to the file.
Send your dates, expected pax range and tour-leader arrangements to b2b@explera.kr or WhatsApp +66 93 656 8090. Explera DMC Korea is IATA TIDS-registered (96215733) and an ASTA member (#900408341); our KTO and KATA registrations are in application.
Where this fits in our Korea programmes
The pages below carry the operational detail behind this briefing.
- Services: Group travel & GIT in Korea · Guide services in Korea · Transportation & coaches in Korea
- Destinations: Seoul · Busan · Jeju
