TORONTO — Exclusive Tours is a brand recognized across Canada for distributing vacation programs that deliver unique itineraries with a focus on experiencing destinations in smaller numbers and in interesting ways.

For example, one of the monikers of Exclusive Tours has been, “experts in small ship cruising”, the first tour operator in Canada to bring European River Cruises to the market. Over time Exclusive Tours has added more and more small ship cruise products that have been warmly received by Canadian travellers.

In keeping with the focus on delivering a unique experience at affordable prices Exclusive Tours announces the release of winter Longstay programs. The Longstay programs offer Canadian snowbirds great value vacations for a month long or more and include return air, accommodations, transfers, some with hosted tours, cultural excursions, car rentals, meals and more.

“As the well-travelled boomers reach the age of appreciating the opportunity to get away for weeks, even months at a time to escape winter, we realized they did not want to just drive to Florida and hang out”, says Michael Geske, Managing Director of Exclusive Tours. “We also observed that some travellers like to ‘test the water’ before going for extended periods, and being a bit more active, may want to see and do things before settling in to a region for a long time and exploring from there,” added Geske.

For these travellers Exclusive Tours has designed a couple of shorter tours that feature staying in one or two places in Portugal to get a feel for an alternative destination to ‘snowbirding’; and a couple of tours that allows one to drive and stay at different, upscale accommodations to ‘test the waters.’  Two tours even feature championship golfing for the more active traveller.

Portugal’s Algarve region has hosted thousands of Canadian snowbirds but the quality of the hand selected accommodations and price points for these properties are features of the Exclusive Tours programs, and all properties are hosted by a local representative.

Longer stay and tour packages of 21 to 37 nights offer a variety of extraordinary features. For example, a 37-day Longstay in Galveston concludes with a 7-night western Caribbean cruise for a finale. A 25-day Longstay in the Costa del Sol of Spain features four full day tours with lunch, a 9-night Mediterranean cruise and ends in Barcelona for two nights.

Other destinations include the French Riviera with cultural excursions to Monaco, Nice, St. Paul de Vence and more; and Tuscany, with excursions to Florence, Pisa and Siena, wine tasting, lunch and a cooking class in San Gimignano. This tour also features three nights in Rome at the end of the program.

“But the bottom line is the bottom line”, adds Geske, “when we launched this our test panel said these are great, but are the prices just for filler? Because no one could believe how truly affordable they are.”

For more copies of Exclusive Tours’ 2014 brochure, polybagged with the Oct. 17 issue of Travelweek, visit exclusivetours.ca or call 1-800-268-1820 or visit envoynetworks.ca.