Same company as Fabulous Travel & Tours - held guilty by the Government of Pakistan, licence expired
This is the same business as Fabulous Travel & Tours of Lahore, run by Nasir Iqbal. Same address, same two telephone numbers, same stated founding year, same overseas offices. His name appears on this company's own website as the author of its posts, and the site carries a contact address in his name. Whichever of the two trading names you found, this is the history behind it. I am a Japanese independent traveller. In December 2025 I booked a nine-day private guided tour of Balochistan and Thatta. The itinerary I was sent read as though it had been generated by ChatGPT. Before booking they told me repeatedly that they knew Balochistan well. On the ground it was obvious that they did not. Permits and the daily schedule were worked out as we went, by asking local people on the spot. I was charged permit costs that had never been disclosed to me. They brought along a woman introduced as their "marketing manager" who sat in the back of the vehicle for the whole trip and did no work at all. The two of them shared a room, which is not common in a Muslim country. They spent time at the beach. The trip became a date between them. On 7 December 2025, en route to Gwadar, the operator's staff opened a conversation about the atomic bombings and abused both Japan and the United States. When I raised it, Nasir Iqbal and the woman told me on the telephone that what they had said was justified and that they would not apologise. I left the tour at that point and made my own way to Karachi. I complained in writing to PTDC, the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation. PTDC appointed an inquiry officer, held the operator guilty, and by order dated 23 February 2026 fined it and directed that the amount be paid to me. I supplied full bank details as required. Nothing was paid. The officer handling my case stopped answering in April 2026. I then went to nine further institutions - the Overseas Pakistanis Grievance Commissioner, the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Ministry of Commerce, the federal Department of Tourist Services, the Department of Tourist Services Punjab, the Provincial Ombudsman Punjab, the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination, and the Embassy of Pakistan in Tokyo. None of them moved it. In June 2026 the operator sent me a money-transfer slip as proof that payment had been made. It was printed with the words that it was not a receipt, and the reference-number field was blank. Nothing had been sent. They then demanded, for two months, a copy of my recipient's passport before payment could proceed. I refused every time and wrote to MoneyGram, who confirmed in writing, under a reference number, that a recipient's passport or ID is not required before a cash-pickup transfer is sent. What finally worked was the Wafaqi Mohtasib, the Federal Ombudsman of Pakistan. I filed against PTDC rather than against the operator, for failing to enforce its own order. The Findings, issued 21 July 2026, record that the operator had been held guilty of non-compliance with the agreed itinerary, undisclosed permit charges, abandonment of professional guiding duties, and passing insulting political remarks. The Ombudsman held that the inability to redress my grievance for so long was tantamount to maladministration, and directed compliance within thirty days. The money was collected on 22 August 2026. No passport copy was ever provided. Eight and a half months after the tour. On 3 September 2026 an officer of the Department of Tourist Services Punjab, the authority that licenses travel agencies in the province, told me that as per official record this operator's licence has expired. I asked twice for the expiry date and the licence number. No answer. That department publishes its own register of currently licensed operators on its official website, as a downloadable PDF listing 404 companies with licence numbers, addresses and validity dates. Neither of this operator's two trading names appears anywhere in it. The only entry matching the business is a licence held in an individual's name, and its telephone number is the number printed on both of the company's websites. Both websites are still live and still taking bookings. The business is still listed and selling through TripAdvisor and Viator, and it promotes actively on Facebook and Instagram. Nothing on any of those pages tells you any of the above. I hold the Findings of the Federal Ombudsman and all related correspondence.
By Aya K.