Automating social media strategy, creation, and posting is a surefire way to get more time back in your time while also creating a solid community of adventure-lovers around your company. Tour operators are already pressed for time and finding time for social media usually ends up last on the list—even though it’s a great way to get more bookings. We’ll cover apps to automate strategizing your social media. And yes, you need to come up with a plan for it. We’ll quickly cover SMART goals, Google Analytics, and Google Alerts. Next, we’re going to go over what apps you can...
The Great American Outdoors Act provides up to $9.5 billion in non-taxpayer funds toward national parks and other public lands repairs and permanently funds $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Colorado, aspens, and Fall go together like "pumpkin," "spice," and "latte." When we think of Fall, we imagine golden leaves shining in the sun against a bright blue sky. Colorado is known for its beautiful fall colors. Anyone seeking to snap photos can go anywhere in the high country in mid-September. In addition to the beautiful Colorado fall colors, there is a myriad of fall adventures in Colorado. Here is a list of ten Colorado Fall activities you may not have thought of and should try: Hike A Fourteener Fall is a perfect time to hike Colorado fourteeners because fewer...
Climbing a fourteener in Colorado is a very popular outdoor activity to do for both locals and tourists. With 58 mountain peaks above 14,000 feet, ranging from “easy” to challenging, there is no shortage of hikes. Here is our list of ten 14ers for beginners in the Colorado mountains:
From Views to Bookings: How To Optimize Tour Sales with CRM Automation
In today's fast-paced and hyper-competitive tour guiding world, you need to stay ahead of the curve by automating as many tasks as you can. One area where tour businesses can get more time back in their day is by automating their customer relationship management (CRM) system. By leveraging cutting-edge automation technology, tour operators can streamline their operations, enhance efficiency, and increase customer satisfaction. Automating your CRM lets you eliminate manual tasks and repetitive processes, which frees up your and your team’s time to focus on strategic initiatives. It helps you centralize and organize customer data, gives you a full view...
Standard operating procedures. “SOPs” for short. Not a sexy topic, but an important one for adventure tour operators, especially when it comes to finding ways to automate them. SOPs are critical for maintaining consistency, safety, and quality in adventure tourism operations. While the title does say “standard,” SOPs may vary depending on the specific activities you offer, where you’re located, and your company's policies. So, we’re going to put the “standard” in Standard Operating Procedures by giving a general overview of what they are and how to automate them for your adventure tour guiding business. What Are Adventure Tour Guide...
As a tour operator, finding ways to streamline your business and improve efficiency is crucial. One way to go about this is through website automation, which will not just save you time and money, but you’ll actually increase bookings too because you’ll improve the customer experience. In this article, we’ll examine the benefits of website automation for tour operators, what you can automate on your website, and how to do it so you can grow your business without all the manual work. What Is Website Automation? “Website automation” simply means using technology and software to automate various tasks and processes...
Automating your marketing efforts is crucial in today’s fast-paced world of travel and tourism. And tour operators need to find innovative ways to reach their target audience without having to hire an additional staff member to take care of it. That’s where marketing automation comes in. It’s a great solution for tour operators to help automate their marketing processes as a small business (or large business, even). In this post, we’ll cover the benefits and strategies that tour operators can employ to automate their marketing efforts, streamline operations, and drive remarkable success. Table of Contents What is Marketing Automation? Create...
In the fast-paced world of tour operations, efficient document management is crucial to stay organized and compliant. With the advent of digital waivers, Google Sheets, and booking software, and the power of automation tools like Zapier, tour operators now have the opportunity to streamline their document management processes easier than they ever could. In this article, we’re going to explore how to automate document management, including digital waivers, Google Sheets integration, and using Zapier to establish automatic connections, ultimately helping tour operators save time, reduce manual effort, eliminate errors, and improve productivity. The Benefits of Automating Document Management Automating document...
It’s our goal to always be improving the Origin platform, and we’re excited to announce two new upgrades to Origin: QuickBooks integration and Lead Guides Category. Keep reading to learn more about both of these updates. Create a free account today to test these features yourself. Origin x QuickBooks Integration With our new QuickBooks integration, you’ll save even more time by automating bookkeeping tasks. Your office manager and accountant will thank you! Here's how it works: Connecting Origin to QuickBooks We’ve made it super simple to connect Origin to your QuickBooks account. When you're ready, you'll be prompted to sign...
You’re probably doing payroll wrong. If you’re using manual processes to pay your guides, then you’re definitely doing payroll wrong. According to Clutch, “25% of small businesses handle their finances on paper rather than a computer, and 45% don’t even have an in-house accountant or bookkeeper.” Automating payroll management is critical when running an adventure tour business. If you want to keep your guides motivated and your operations running smoothly, you need accurate and timely payment to your staff. Unfortunately, many tour operators still rely on manual payroll processes, which leads to errors, inefficiencies, and very unhappy guides. Let’s talk...
How much time do you spend scheduling your guides and staff per week? Too much probably? Nearly half of tour operators still do many of their processes manually, which means they’re wasting a ton of valuable time. It’s a time-consuming and labor-intensive task for adventure tour companies. It requires coordinating multiple factors, such as guide availability, skills, and experience to ensure you have the right guide leading the right trip every time. With manual scheduling, you’re prone to human errors and inefficiency which can lead to overbooking a guide, not having a guide at all to lead a trip, missed...
Most of the emails you get in your inbox are probably automated. As in, someone made that email long before it was sent, used tags to customize it, and scheduled it to send when you’re most likely to open it. Email marketing is still a powerful way for guiding companies to reach their target audience and promote their tours to potential customers. However, managing email marketing is time-consuming and takes a solid chunk of effort to make it worth using. Fortunately, automating your emails can help you save time, increase your efficiency, and improve the overall effectiveness of your email...
As a business owner, you’re well aware you need to provide excellent customer service as it’s crucial to the success of your company. You don’t have a business without customers. However, managing customer questions, support requests, and customer information can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. As a small tour guiding business, it makes it that much more challenging to stay on top of customer service while also managing the rest of the business. By automating some of your customer service tasks, you’ll free up your time and save yourself some money along the way. Jump ahead to a section What is...
Administrative, office work is the bane of everyone’s existence. It’s why there are actual roles at companies—so people who don’t want to do the admin work can pay someone else to do it. It’s especially challenging for small to medium-sized tour operators who don’t have the time to cover all the administrative work while also guiding or the money to pay someone else to do it. Even the big tour guiding companies who can afford front staff can benefit from automating mundane office tasks and instead, give their employees something more exciting to do. What you'll read: Hack #1: Automate...