You’re probably reading this because you have an automated booking confirmation process, right? You take trip reservations over the phone. You write your client’s contact information and credit card details on a random piece of paper. Then you draft an email with the trip date, time, meeting location, and whatever they need to bring with them. We’ve heard this story hundreds of times. In fact, one of our clients, Ryan, at Atlantic Climbing School, realized he was working hours before and after business hours doing menial and mundane tasks like sending confirmation emails to clients. All the extra time spent...
Mastering Post-Trip Automated Review Requests: A Guide For Tour Operators
Automating post-trip review requests doesn’t have to sound as impersonal as you think. In fact, using a system that automates the review collection process frees up your time so you can offer a personalized experience to your clients. Many tour operators don’t like the idea of asking for a client to leave a public-facing review for them, which is why most of them fall short on their sheer number of reviews. If you’re one of those tour operators who shudders at the idea of asking a client to leave you a review, consider this: 65% of people left reviews because...
When you automate your content creation, you set your tour company apart from the others. In the fast-paced realm of the travel industry, where captivating an audience and maintaining a vibrant online presence is key, tour operators find themselves navigating a delicate balance between showcasing their unique offerings, offering amazing customer support, and efficiently managing their digital content. Enter the era of automation – a game-changer for tour operators seeking to streamline their content creation processes. In this blog, we’re going to explore the power of automating content creation across various facets of a tour operator's digital landscape, from social...
Automating internal communications becomes really important for tour operators because so many serious (and potentially fatal) things can go wrong that you need to be able to get the word out ASAP. Alternatively, internal communications is wrought with endless back-and-forth, countless steps, and never-ending to-dos. It kind of feels like once you get one thing done, another thing pops up. Forever. In this post, we’re going to cover what internal communication is, why you should automate internal communications, and how you can streamline those tasks. Table of Contents What Is Internal Communications For Tour Operators? Why Should You Automate Internal...
In this technology era, you have to find as many ways to automate tour reservations as possible—not just for tech-savvy clients, but for your overall time management. There’s no reason to continue booking trips manually (or using outdated software) when so many apps, booking software (like Origin), and tools exist to make your life easier. When you automate tour reservations, you save your and your clients’ time. You’re not wasting it by the endless back and forth confirming details, answering questions that should be obvious, or asking for signed waivers when the trip’s supposed to start. You eliminate the risk...
As a tour operator, you’re busy. And that’s probably an understatement. You don’t have time to work on those annoying and repetitive tasks, but you also don’t have the extra funds to hire someone else to do it for you. Instead, save your money and your time by using these different automation tools that will help overwhelmed tour operators like yourself. As we all know, tour guides and operators manage a million tasks to run their business successfully, and some of these tasks can become repetitive and annoying. Coordinating with clients, confirming reservations, and making last-minute adjustments takes a lot...
Tour operators can automate their sales process without a salesperson by using technology to their advantage and implementing different strategies. This leads to more tour bookings and spending less time selling them. This frees up your time, so you can get back to doing what you love (which is probably not taking customer service calls). Before we start, ask yourself these four questions. After reading through the different ways to sell more tours automatically, you can use your answers to develop an automated sales strategy: Why are your customers interested in your tours? How can you get them excited about...
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...
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...
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...
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...