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...
Top 5 Payment Questions Operators Should Ask Their Reservation Software
So you’ve found online reservation software you’re interested in using. It has all the features you’ve been looking for, more benefits than running your tour operations solo, and its team is competent. Another important component of online booking technology that shouldn’t be overlooked is its payment transparency. In other words, do you know how the online booking system collects your customers’ credit card information and deposits, what shows up on your clients’ bank statements, how you get paid out, what they charge to use their platform, and do they ever hold your money from you? These are our top five...
We’ve all abandoned a booking for one reason or another. But when your guiding company depends on as many reservations as you can handle, it’s important to know why your website visitors may be leaving before paying for an adventure with you. What are abandoned bookings? Abandoned bookings are when a customer doesn’t complete the trip reservation process. They may have started selecting a date for their adventure or entered in their details, but they left your website at some point. There could be a number of reasons why too. Why is it important to lower them? The more booking...
An online booking process needs to be quick and simple or your customers will go somewhere else. We’ve seen too many sites with clunky booking steps either using online booking software or a manual process like calling to book a trip. Neither is good for your customers and prevents you from making sales. The current problem with websites we’ve seen is too many clicks to book. Step after step after step of entering information, confirming that information, and entering more details. Or, alternatively, making website visitors call or email you to book a trip. Both methods deter guests, especially Gen...
The guiding season is non-stop. There’s always an adventure to go on with an expert guide, but some guiding companies only operate during a specific season or two. For those preparing for their upcoming season, here are eight tech aspects to have dialed before you take clients on their next adventure. Review Or Update Your Liability Waivers Have liability waivers for your guided trips? It’s a good idea to review your liability waiver text and make sure they’re up-to-date. If you have a new trip that requires an additional waiver, it’s important to upload that before the season. Origin users...
Have you ever wondered what your booking process says about your business? Imagine this: You’re seeing a return of travel, but your bookings are lackluster. You’re open for business. You get a decent amount of interest from travelers, especially after COVID, but you’re ready for more bookings. In fact, you need more bookings. There’s one thing: You haven’t touched your booking process in ages. You may not even realize that’s likely the problem for the small number of tour reservations filtering through. Maybe you’re still blaming COVID (which is fair). But the fact is, if you’ve been struggling to increase...
Tour deposit functionality, especially those that are higher-priced, makes it more appealing to customers when they can book now and pay later. With the uncertainty of travel currently, especially with airlines, deposits give travelers peace of mind —knowing that they don’t have to pay in full right now in case a trip is canceled outside of their control. The Problem - Without Deposit Functionality When you don’t have automatic deposit functionality, you can take the initial deposit, but collecting the rest is a pain. It becomes a manual and insecure process of charging a credit card. For tour operators who...
Why You Need Outdoor Adventure Guide Scheduling Within Your Booking Platform
Outdoor adventure guide scheduling can be a total headache when you’re forced to do it manually. Operators we’ve spoken to lost faith in their online book system. They’d request features from their previous reservation platforms to no avail. Most admins use one system to book reservations and schedule their guides separately. Operators want one system they can log into for outdoor adventure guide scheduling. They don’t want multiple logins. They don’t want to share passwords with their guides. You should be able to reserve trips and schedule your guides on one platform. It’s common sense. What Is Outdoor Adventure Guide...
Online reservation software is key to the outdoor tourism industry rebounding after the pandemic. It’s a bold statement, but guess what? Do you know who’s going to fuel the outdoor tourism rebound? Youth. Travelers between 18-35 years old. People who use and prefer digital technology. We can nearly do everything without having to talk to someone on the phone. So, which tour provider do you think this group prefers? The one they have to call to book or the one where they can reserve and pay for a hiking trip with a few taps on the screen? It’s no secret...
Outdoor adventure travel is unlike other tour companies. That's why it will recover faster than other travel sectors. Travelers want to immerse themselves in nature, avoid the crowds, and explore off-the-beaten-path. Travelers Prefer The Outdoors Outdoors Provide More Space Since March, travelers have dealt with lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and quarantines. Because of this, people desperately want to get outside and into nature. In “The Travel Industry Turned Upside Down,” Skift Research states that outdoor scenic travel is recovering faster than other travel sectors. This is likely due to being able to social distance easier. It’s easier to distance yourself physically...
Online booking software is better for adventure providers. First, it makes it easier for customers to book trips. It also benefits tour operators because it automatically collects, organizes, and centralizes important information needed to run a business. What is Online Booking Software? Online booking software is used for managing reservations. It is a self-service portal that allows for a customer to book and pay for an activity or service through a website. Customers can book trips that have open time/date slots suggested to them by the system. Origin’s simple online booking software easily integrates into your website. It doesn’t need...
IFrames and SEO don't go together like you'd hope they would. See, Iframes impact your site's SEO negatively. We noticed tour operator websites with bookings embedded in an iFrame weren’t showing in Google results. In other words, booking pop-ups installed on sites hindered their SEO. We copied text inside the popup window and pasted that in Google. Nothing came up. We researched further and we're convinced you should not use iframes on your site. We want our clients to succeed. With that, we want their websites to be discoverable through Google search results. Because of this, in this article, we...
As we all know, tour operators are a resilient bunch. The travel industry has gone through crises before COVID-19. Everything from terrorist attacks to disease to depressions to wars and we’ll do it again. What this crisis has shown us is how innovative tour guiding companies are. To regain confidence in returning (and new) customers, tour operators must be willing to change and adapt. We found four ways companies are improvising to persevere and even make the travel industry better than before: collaborating with other businesses, personalizing tours, practicing sustainability, and staying flexible. Tour Operators Collaborating With Other Businesses When...
If your tour booking platform is too confusing, customers may leave to find a site that has a simple user interface (UI) instead. Users visiting your website must have a good — if not great, experience.
Origin is the latest online marketplace for booking authentic outdoor adventures with expert guides. From helping tour guides and outfitting businesses thrive through online booking and modern technology, to empowering travelers to find and reserve the perfect adventure, we’re passionate about making the outdoors more accessible to those who want to explore the wild.