Travelers are providing tour operators with a direct opportunity to make money – and these “imported” dollars could provide the additional revenue needed to remain financially viable.

To attract travelers to your business, your first and foremost necessity is to get found! How do you do this?

1. Optimize your website for travelers

Your website needs to be effective, in terms of

• Content. Do all images look professional? Is text clearly written?
• Message. Is it clear what you do? What do you want from your visitor?
• Functionality. Do all components of your website work? Is there a clear and direct path to a booking or inquiry?

Remember that this is essentially your “first impression”, so be attractive! Think about using colours that compliment each other and add visual components to compliment the written sections.

While there’s nothing wrong with getting out and interacting with people, editing your website can be done from the comfort of your home, or a warm office. Your customers will find you, and hopefully stick around long enough to schedule a booking.

2. Embrace social media

In this day and age you will struggle to become a successful and thriving business without a footprint in the social media world.

Social media provides the perfect hub to:

• Create a community of people that ‘like’ your company, provide photos of their experience, and give promotional testimonials.
• Gain vital feedback that you can take on board for improvement.
• Provide discounts and promotions to those who ‘like’ your page as an incentive. This is a core factor to attract visitors to your page.

Create a Facebook company page so you can interact with your customers one on one or as a group. If you’re stuck, download our guide to social media for tour operators. We detail exactly how you should go about each social network.

3. Know your audience

If they’re young don’t expect them to spend ludicrous amounts of money, and if they’re old don’t expect them to be thrill seekers. However, there are many older folks who would seek a thrill if approached in the right way, so be smart as there are always exceptions.

Ask yourself:

• What are their interests? Do many of your rock climbers also enjoy forest hikes? If you find a pattern amongst your audience, then you may have found yourself a new marketing channel.
• Why would they buy your experience? What makes you stand out to those travelers in particular? For example, it’s because you offer romantic tours and you know your customers tend to be couples on their honeymoon.
• What motivates them? Travelers will buy based on emotion – do you want them to feel relaxed, amazed, or thrilled?

Knowing and understanding the needs of your travelers is the KEY to getting more bookings.

4. Be trustworthy

Trust is a huge part of any relationship, especially when you’re offering a product or service. People are more likely to purchase from someone they trust.

• Be friendly. In person, smile! And use a warm tone when talking. This vibe should shine through on your website, too.
• Speak clearly. In most cases your customer will be foreign and may not be confident speaking the language so it’s important to cater to this.
• Be helpful. Always provide a solution. If people need directions, then provide them. If they need a recommendation, then provide one. If you come across helpful and engaging then there is a high chance people will return.
• Listen closely. Take on board and utilize feedback that is given to you. Your customers are your moneymakers so engage with them and ask for feedback. Perhaps, provide a quick ‘Feedback Survey’ at the end of each tour.

When travelers trust you, they will recommend you to their friends when they get home, further boosting your bookings.

5. Fish where the fish are

In other words, advertise and market yourself in high tourist traffic areas, like iconic city sights, backpacker hostels, bars, websites for travelers, etc.

And beyond brochures and flyers, you should:

• Partner with concierges and travel agents to get the word out.
• Partner with local companies and promote each other.

By the way, the fish are online, too, on websites like Google Places and TripAdvisor. Joining these platforms are a MUST for all tours and activities.

Remember to make your website accessible via mobile. With more and more people engaging with smartphones and tablets, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to learn and buy from you.

A good booking system will be available to you and your customers via mobile device, so look into finding one that’s right for your tour or activity.

For tour operators that are growing fast and need to scale quickly, you will have more complex needs that your booking software must fulfill:

6. Email Booking System Customisation

You should be able to customise each email that your booking system sends out, so that it matches your business’ branding.

This should include everything from your customer’s order details and booking confirmation to the emails leading up to and following your tour. Also, if you’re allowing customers to buy your tours as a gift, you should snazz up your gift card email to make it look special.

7. SMS & Email Automation

Sending out emails and texts that are standard procedure (confirmation, reminder, and follow-up) takes up too much time. It is tedious administrative work that many booking systems will allow you to automate.

Besides automating this for your customers, your booking system should allow you to be notified in the same way when a booking is made.

8. Consolidated Customer Communications

Things can get confusing if communications with your customers are not stored in the same database being managed by your booking software.

You should be able to send personal-style emails in addition to automated ones, so that each staff member can easily see the latest communication that has occurred with the customer in question without having to sift through a messy inbox.

9. Voucher & Promo Code Management

The ability to assess your marketing campaigns is wholly dependent on your software’s ability to manage promo codes and vouchers.

Having it tied to your booking system means that you can not only set up parameters for each promotion, but you can also track how many bookings you received per marketing channel.

10. Manifest Management

Your manifest needs to be organized so that everyone is on the same page. A well-structured manifest makes sure that you know of your customers’ special requirements, who has paid for the tour and who hasn’t, and your vehicle drivers can easily pick up your guests.

Your booking system should allow you to customize your manifest based on the fields specified in your booking form.

11. Resource Management

Maximising revenue without overbooking is always an issue if your booking software cannot manage your resources for you. That way you will always have enough equipment and tour guides on hand to service as many customers as possible comfortably.

Your system should automatically adjust your availability every time a tour is booked, so that you never run the risk of overbooking without the resources to deliver.

12. Agent Management

Odds are that you are working with several agents to distribute your tours. It results in a lot of admin work when it’s a manual process, so your booking software should take over. Make sure that it can manage your agents’ access to your products and even pay them their commission.

13. Detailed Sales Reports

Your booking system should allow you to slice and dice all the information you have on your orders. Whether it’s by agent, promo code, catalog, product, or even staff members, you want to be able to analyse your business from an operational standpoint. Otherwise, how will you be able to make those key decisions to grow your business?

14. Integration With Other Online Services

Every modern business uses more than one online service to meet their needs. For example, you have your online booking software, your email marketing software, and your accounting software. Trying to take data from one of these to another can be a painful and time-consuming task.

Make sure your booking system allows you to automate tasks between itself and a multitude of online services. For example, it can do this through Zapier, or through WebHooks.

15. Integration With Distribution Channels

You should look for booking systems that are integrated with large online travel agencies so that it is easier for you to distribute your tours. The software will automatically update your availability so that there is no lag time for people booking through these OTAs. For example, Rezdy is integrated with Viator, the largest online travel agency for tours and activities.