Tourism Tim Warren is no stranger to helping tourism businesses succeed. The founder of Adventure Business Consultants and host of top industry podcast Travel Business Success, Tim and his team have helped thousands of private and public sector tourism & hospitality businesses start, grow, scale and exit profitably. In this post, he lets us in on a few key tips to help capture the attention of your website visitors - and give your sales a boost in the process.“If only I had a better search ranking, or more traffic to my website, I would surely be booking more trips.”If you’re a tour or activity operator, I’m guessing this thought has crossed your mind on more than one occasion. It’s natural to think that if your website is more visible, your traffic will increase, and your bookings will rise.The problem? This is a mostly false perception. It’s not to say that these things can’t ever give your business a boost. The issue is, things can get real expensive real fast when dealing with search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. And the worst part? Many operators are not earning many leads and those all-important conversions from this form of investment. Okay, so where’s the good news? What should you be doing instead? Well, since it often seems like only the great Google Gods know what’s next in terms of changes to their search engine algorithms, here’s my recommendation:Focus on learning about the Profitable Powers of Conversion.In this post, I’ll be laying out some core tourism marketing principles that will help you more than triple your leads and bookings. All without ANY increase in ranking or traffic. By understanding and applying the following ideas, your tourism marketing efforts will yield a better return on investment -- one that you are in control of.

The Profitable Powers of Sales Conversion

Here’s a sad tourism website marketing fact.You’re probably missing out on 97% or more of potential leads that visit your tour or activity website. A huge percentage of operators websites worldwide, including many I have consulted with, suffer from this problem.Not sure if this is true for you?Check out your website visitor stats with Google Analytics. Take a look at your “Bounce Rate”. This is the percentage of people who visited your site, and left in less than 10 seconds. If over 60% or higher of your web visitors are leaving in less than 10 seconds, how can you possibly convince them to book with you?So, you need more time to show your customers how great your experiences are. But you also need to make sure you’re making those first 5-10 seconds count when someone enters your website. Before we talk about how to do that, let’s take a look at the possible results from making small, simple changes to your bounce and conversion rates. These three realistic examples show what it can do to your bookings - and profits:Graphic #1 represents a tour operator with 1,000 monthly website visitors and $500 revenue per booking. Just by lowering the bounce rate from 70% to 50% and increasing sales conversions from a conservative 1% to 2%, increases bookings and revenues 333%. These small improvements that I am going to show you - that you can do too - are worth an extra US$42,000 a year in this example.

Let’s look at two more scenarios to show you how you can increase bookings up to 500%.Graphic #2 represents an average Peek tour operator or attraction with 5,000 monthly website visitors and $85 revenue per booking. Again, by lowering the bounce rate from 70% to 50% and increasing sales conversions from 1% to 2%, bookings increase 333% with $35,700 in additional revenues. Pretty nice!

Graphic #3 represents the same Peek tour operator or attraction with 5,000 website visitors monthly, $85 revenue per booking. Again, we lowered the website bounce rate from 70% to 50%. But in example #3, we increased sales conversions from 1% to a still pretty conservative 3%. This same operator now sees bookings increase by 500% and a revenue boost of $61,200. Sweet!

These examples show that lowering your bounce rate and increasing your sales conversions means more profits for you. And best of all, this can actually be done while lowering your marketing costs.All this could mean a 233% - 500% increase in your revenues with 2 simple website improvements.

Successful Tourism Marketing Establishes Trust & Credibility Fast

Ok, so what are some of the ways in which we can lower that bounce rate and increase conversions?Based on a Nielsen study on effective advertising with over 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, the #1 reason why a stranger might stay engaged in your tourism website, and decide you may be a good choice and want to book is – trust.Establishing this trust is called “social proof.”Remember your bounce rate from above? Well, it means you have less than 7 seconds to establish trust and credibility – especially on your tourism website. This is one of the most important lessons I have learned in 25+ years of helping tourism, travel & hospitality companies worldwide increase bookings, profits and business value. When you can communicate trust effectively and quickly, you will generate more leads and sales. Guaranteed.I’ve found that a key part of establishing social proof revolves around what I like to call “Credibility Statements”.Some of the things you need to communicate fast are your:

• Years of experience
• Number of happy guests
• Any special recognition or awards you have received
• High social media review ranking and any celebrity endorsements

Let’s take a look at some examples: On this website, Alaska Fishing Lodges, they have managed to convey their depth of experience, satisfied customers and third-party ranking all at the top of their page. This helps to draw the visitor in and immediately gives them credibility.

Why not include some impressive stats too? Customers will feel more at ease - and more confident about booking - if they know that this is an area in which you’re experienced and established.

Don’t forget to also convey this through your Google “snippet” (or meta description), which you can edit through sites like Wordpress.

I have also created a free 25 point tourism website marketing checklist to help you build more social proof, lower bounce rate and increase bookings. This quick and easy self-assessment will show you how your tourism website scores, whether or not you currently have a “tourism website that sells”, and what you can do to improve it.

Tap Into the Psychological Triggers That Create a “Tourism Website That Sells”

To achieve a Tourism Website That Sells you must tap into travel shoppers’ psychological triggers around trust. Remember, a large percentage of your website visitors may be leaving your site fast. That means you need to establish trust and clarity in what you do – FAST.You need to show visitors a few key things within the first 7 seconds of them entering your website. Here are the “Big Three” that you should make clear in this time window:

1. You are experienced.
2. You provide quality service.
3. Their safety is your #1 concern.

Of course, there are a number of ways to boost conversions on your website. A powerful online booking system is also key - particularly one that uses these proven principles within their system.The good news is that these ideas work across all of your tourism marketing - the benefits extending way beyond your website. These are proven, powerful principles and should be used EVERYWHERE.They are guaranteed to help you communicate trust fast and convert more strangers into prospects (and prospects into bookings). The cool thing is, these tips are simple and easy to implement. When you fully understand and apply the power of social proof in your tourism marketing, magic happens.I would love to hear from you and find out how you have or will integrate “Social Proof” into your tourism marketing and how you scored on the marketing assessment. Want to hear more great tips from Tourism Tim? Check out the recording of his most recent webinar with Peek, where he gave even more tips on how to increase your leads and conversions.You can also check out his online course, Tourism Marketing Success, for even more great insight into your tourism business.

Growvember is officially over, and the whole Peek team is excited to see how you take the learnings and apply them to your business. It’s time to put these tips into action! We hope you enjoyed the content from all eight of our incredible speakers - don’t forget, if you missed any of the sessions, or just want to rewatch, you can find links to all of the recordings right here. Don’t know what Growvember is? Where have you been?! Growvember brought some of the top minds in the tour and activity industry together to deliver some top-notch workshops to operators like you. All for free! Pretty amazing, right? We highly recommend you watch all of the sessions in full to get the most out of this awesome free content. But for those of you in a hurry, here are eight of our favorite learnings from across the two days. Enjoy!

Collaborate with your competitors!

In Douglas Quinby’s session, Top Travel Trends for 2019 andBeyond, he goes over why activities are the fastest-growing sector in the industry right now. So why are they?Activities are the why of travel. Travellers may be booking flights and reserving hotels like never before, but tours and activities are the things that really make a trip special. The research that Douglas and his team at Arival has done backs this up. From a survey of over 4000 travellers from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany they found that on average, travellers will engage in around 7activities while on their trip!Let’s take a look at the breakdown of that:

Source: Arival, 2018

So why is this important, and how can you use this information to your advantage? One word: collaboration.Why see other operators in your area as your competition? With so many different types of activities on offer, this is a great opportunity for you to partner up with some other local attractions and cross-sell their experiences. Is there a hop-on, hop-off bus tour in your area that could promote your tour to guests? Could you partner with a fellow operator and offer mutual discounts to encourage higher bookings? Douglas says that more and more travellers are making purchasing decisions in-destination - so make sure you’re creating a strong on-the-ground presence for yourself and have a plan to sell people while they’re in the area. Why not explore the options in your area, talk to local attractions and other activity providers and see if you can find a mutually beneficial partnership! This is an easy and immediately effective to spread the word even more about your tour or activity to travellers who are already in the area. Want to learn more from Douglas? Watch his full session here.

Protect yourself from the dreaded cancellation

Next up we heard from Delamon Rego, COO of tour operator marketing/software heavyweight TOMIS. During his session on how to boost your 2019 revenue, here’s something that caught our eye…Cancellation insurance.Do you have it? If not, Delamon tells us why it’s something worth considering: Cancellation policies are often tricky waters to navigate for many tour operators. When guests cancel their tour after the allowed time, you don’t want to be losing money or ending up with empty seats that you don’t have time to fill. On the other hand, when you enforce your policy, you worry about seeming like the bad guy and damaging your reputation - even if the policy is clear as day. Delamon suggests that cancellation insurance could be the answer to your troubles.Giving customers the option to purchase this insurance during the checkout process means that those customers who were going to cancel anyway are likely to purchase it. It also helps you to enforce your cancellation policy without seeming like the bad guy. It seems way more reasonable when you say you tried to run their refund, but the system says no cancellation insurance was purchased - your hands are tied.The other great bonus to this feature is it can actually start to make you money, with any unused cancellation insurance going right into your bottom line.As a general rule, Delamon recommends charging 12-15% of your ticket price for cancellation insurance, which you can adjust if you have particularly low or high ticket prices. Want to find out other ways to boost that revenue in 2019? Check out Delamon’s session here!

Post that job - even when you’re not hiring

Kelsey Tonner is your one-stop-shop for everything tour guide education. A former guide himself, he now provides amazing training for tour guides and leaders across the world, helping  you to create incredible experiences. In his session, How to Recruit and Train Extraordinary Leaders, he gives some awesome tips for those who have to hire tour guides for their business. We think this little nugget is worth doing right now!Create a permanent job profile on your website.You may only hire a few times a year, but you could be getting hits on your website from potential candidates every day! Why not wet their appetite and let them register their interest by creating a job profile page for them to check out! Why is this such a great idea? For one thing, when the time to hire comes around, this page will already be indexed by Google, hopefully giving your chances of finding someone great a boost! Not only that, but by allowing interested candidates to enter their email in a form on this page throughout the year, you start to build a relationship before your search has even begun. They can get to know you and hear about what you’re up to, and this will hopefully make them even more passionate about working for you! Be sure to include a detailed job description, include responsibilities, and highlight any awesome perks that come with the job! Why not also build up an FAQ section, adding questions as they come in from potential hires? By allowing your website visitors to register their interest in working for you all through the year, what happens when it comes to hiring season? Boom. Your life just got a whole lot easier. Need some more hiring tips? Check out Kelsey’s full session!

Make friends with your local hotel concierge

Former tour operator and founder of The Sunshine Tribe, Josh Oakes, had some truly awesome advice for us on the important of selling through offline channels. Here’s our favorite tip of his from that session - get ready to use this one right away! As Josh was starting out with his tour company, he needed to find some channels that were going to start boosting his revenue right away.What was the solution? Hotel concierges.Josh took the time to “pound the pavement”, hitting up local hotels in the area and building some great relationships with local concierge desks. He then made sure he was revisiting them, following up with phone calls, and keeping himself front of mind. This way, Josh was able to work his way up to the top of many concierge’s lists, and started to see those phone calls rolling in. The best part about this tactic? It doesn’t cost anything but your time.Most hotels take very low or even zero commissions; so by taking a little time to build some solid relationships, you can open up a whole new market and become the go-to operator for hotels in your area! This one sounds like a winner to us. Hear about more ways to sell through offline channels by watching Josh’s talk here.

Use video to sell yourself - and your destination

Digital marketing expert and director of Tourism Marketing Agency Chris Torres kicked off day 2 of Growvember this year. He gave us an info-filled session on using video to market your tours - and how to do it on any budget. Here’s just one of his tips that you should bear in mind if (or better yet, when!) you create your next marketing video…Don’t forget to showcase your destination - not just your tour or activity. Chris gave us some pretty mind-boggling stats on video - like how an average user watches 32 videos a month (!), and how 79% of travellers will search Youtube for ideas before they book their trip. But that’s not all. Of those travellers, a huge 67% still haven’t decided on a destination for their trip. So you shouldn’t only be selling yourself; why not include some beauty spots, local businesses and people from your area in the video? Make your video about the magic of where you’re located, with your tour or activity at the heart of it. That way, you might just persuade those indecisive viewers to choose your destination over their other options -- and book your experience in the process!Get some great tips on how to achieve great videos on all types of budgets from Chris here.

Use Facebook to target in-destination travelers in the best way

Tourism marketing extraordinaire and founder of Blend Marketing Jeremiah Calvino brought us an incredible talk on the importance of “At Home vs In Destination Marketing”. These tips are so important for operators who need to focus their ad spends and target customers as wisely as possible. Here’s one of our favorite tips from Jeremiah’s session that is SO easy to implement…Facebook lets you target those who are already traveling in your area. Sounds obvious, right? Well, think about it. Almost every marketing platform out there lets you target specific locations for advertising. But what about all of those people who live in your destination? If you’re a tourist attraction or you primarily serve travelers from outside the region, your ad spend may be wasted on those people who live in your town or city. Thankfully, Facebook has broken down their users in a way that lets you filter your audience but are currently there.Take a look:

This is an awesome tool to use when running a Facebook ad campaign. Make sure you’re targeting the right kind of people and seeing some great returns on whatever your marketing budget is! To hear more on this and a bunch of other awesome location-based marketing tips, check out Jeremiah’s presentation here!

Make a clear CTA your top website priority

Andy Mott knows what he’s talking about when it comes to websites for tour and activity operators. As Head of TigerCare at TourismTiger, a top industry website provider, his session was full of tips and tricks to supercharge your website. Here is one of our favourites…Make sure a clear call to action is the main focus of your website.Will your visitors know what they need to do when they arrive at your site? Don’t underestimate the power of simple, clear messaging. Not only this, but make a strong call to action your best friend. Not sure what a call to action is? It’s essentially a button - a button which shows the user what they need to do and takes them where they need to be. Let’s see one of Andy’s examples in action. Before TourismTiger gave their website an overhaul, this operator’s homepage looked like this:

Attractive? Sure! But imagine a visitor had no idea what this company does before they visited the website. Where is the instruction to show them what to do next? Take a look at the after result:

Okay, now we can see exactly what our options are. These buttons, or CTAs, guide the user to make a choice and hit that button. So - don’t assume your visitors will know that they need to book, or how to do it. Let a CTA guide them to where they need to be - your booking page! Get some more great website tips from Andy by checking out his presentation right here.

Don’t be afraid to ask for phone reservations

Rounding off our Growvember event was the great Dustin Hoyman of Outdoor Adventure Marketing. Dustin gave us insights into a topic that is still so important in the tour and activity industry: phone calls. While online booking is certainly gaining more importance as we change the way we book, plenty of tour operators still take many of their bookings over the phone.In his workshop, Dustin gives a few great tips on how to make the most of those incoming calls. But here is our personal favorite - it’s so simple, and yet could have a major impact on your business.Don’t be afraid to ask for a reservation on every phone call.Remember, a lot of people call because they want more information - but ultimately, their goal is to book your experience! If they’ve taken the time to pick up the phone, you know they’re interested. Instead of treating the call as a simple question and answer session, why not add those magic words to the end of your call: “Are you ready to book?”If they say yes, that’s a sale made! If they say no, now you have an opportunity to find out why. Ask them if there’s anything they’re looking for that you may not have mentioned. If they talk about cost, weigh up whether it’s worth negotiating to make that sale. Whatever their answer, you are now armed with as much information as possible to try and make that sale. So make sure you’re including this question in every phone call that comes in. We told you it was simple, right?! Check out more of Dustin’s tricks to winning over those phone customers here!There you have it. Just a tiny amount of the wealth of knowledge we gained from all of our incredible Growvember speakers. Be sure to check out all of the full sessions to really get the most out of this amazing, free event! We’re pumped for next year!

How do you start a tour business in the aftermath of one of the most devastating hurricanes your country has ever seen? How do you build your brand, spread the word, and find that first paying guest? How do you get to the top of your game and still manage to love what you do? In this post, Cindi Richardson takes us through her journey as a tour operator, and how her efforts resulted in her business, French Quarter Phantoms, being named the Number 1 Ghost Tour in the U.S. in 2018. Take it away, Cindi! My love for New Orleans began as a small child. The city seemed so special - it had a magic to it. I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, so New Orleans was where we went with family and friends for special occasions and family fun. When I got old enough to move out on my own, there was only one place I was headed - straight to New Orleans. I was so excited to live and thrive in my favorite place on earth.Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina: The city was devastated - it seemed like everything I had once loved about it was now gone. I heard people asking, "Why do people live there? Why should it even be rebuilt?" It broke my heart that they couldn’t see the magic and beauty of New Orleans that I had seen throughout my life. Every evening, my neighbor Mike and I would sit on our porch, waiting for the Red Cross to bring us our daily plate of hot food. The city was filled with volunteers from all over the country who had come to lend a helping hand in the wake of the destruction. Mike and I started thinking about what we could do to pay them back. How could we share with them our love for New Orleans, and show others exactly why this incredible city deserved to be rebuilt?Mike had his tour guide license and my background was in sales and marketing - we were a good fit. I also had a passion for anything scary: Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone, the Anne Rice novels. And so, the idea for French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours was born.Our first year “in business”, most of the tours we did were for free to the many disaster aid workers who were in the city. Every day, Mike would do two tours, while I walked around five miles back and forth across the downtown area, getting the word out and building our reputation.Eventually, word started to spread, and visitors started coming back. We took on a partner, Drew, who funded our first round of real brochures. We started charging a little for the tours and the business started to grow. This year, 12 years after we started, we were named as the #1 Ghost Tour in the country by USA Today.

The road to success

Our goals today are pretty much the same as they were in the beginning. We want to make a decent living doing something we love. It’s not about getting rich - for our team, what’s important is feeling great about what we’ve done at the end of each day. There are plenty of lessons we’ve learned along the way, and a few key things I believe are vital to our success as a business. Here are a few pieces of advice I would give to other tour operators on their own journey:

Hire people who love to tell a story

There's a quote by Theodore Roosevelt that I love and have really taken to heart: “A great manager is someone who hires the right person to do a job and has sense enough to leave them alone while they do it." I think that this applies perfectly to our hiring and employment practices. We hire educated, intelligent people with engaging personalities and allow them to craft their tour in the style that best fits their personality. We make sure we give a few guidelines, but we don't micromanage or script their tours. Instead, our tour manager, Luke, will regularly walk with each guide to pass along pointers (and compliments!) where needed. Allowing our guides this creativity gives them a sense of ownership and great job satisfaction. It also ensures all of our tours are the right balance of chills up the spine and good laughs.

The French Quarter Phantoms team - I am so proud of them all!

Our tour guides - or as we call them, our Master Story Tellers - are French Quarter Phantoms’ greatest asset. I am a great salesperson - I can get a hotel concierge or ticket seller to recommend us once. But it’s the post-tour feedback conveyed to that reseller that gets us the 2nd, 3rd and 100th recommendation. Our storytellers are the reason they’ll recommend us again and again.

Think like a customer

I’ve always believed that entertainment value needs to be better than the price of the ticket. That means that after the tour is over, I want you to think you had so much fun that really you would have paid more. It’s important to provide something that is fun no matter what the age or makeup of your group. Think about college groups, bachelorette parties, family outings - spend time crafting a tour that has something for everybody. Give a little Lagniappe - a Louisiana way of saying a little something extra. On our tours, we offer 2 for 1 Hurricanes (our famous New Orleans cocktails) for adult participants, served in a free souvenir cup that they get to take home and keep. On the rare occasion we do get a complaint, well - remember that old saying about the customer always being right? It may sound cliché, but the truth is: if someone is mad, I am probably not going to get them to change their mind. The best thing I can do is listen, learn and provide them with the best customer service possible. I always try to let customers know their voice has been heard, and try to make it right for them however I can.

Never stop learning

I read our online reviews - and those of our competitors - several times a week. It is important to understand what the customer likes and doesn't like from both our tours and those of the operators around us. I then pass pointers along to our guides or office personnel. We never stop asking ourselves what we can do to be more efficient and more entertaining. We want to be one of the reasons that people fall in love with our city as much as we all did.

There is a lot to be learned from your customers, so take time to listen to their feedback

The best advice I can give to another business owner is: never stop listening to your customers. Never stop listening to your competitors’ customers either! There is great value in "hearing" what they have to say.Plus, when those great reviews roll in, it makes the job even more worthwhile. Here are some of my favorite things that have been said about French Quarter Phantoms: "French Quarter Phantoms guides are the strangest bunch of real historians you will ever have the pleasure of spending time with.""My kids loved the tour so much they didn't even realize they were learning something!""This was the world's best tour guide and tour. I dragged my boyfriend along to this and he hates ghost stuff but by the end of this he was asking all of the questions and wanting more. I've never seen this side of this man. I think I will marry him."Our dedication, willingness to learn, and passion for what we do is what has kept us going strong more than a decade after we first began in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Mike eventually left the business to follow his calling as a Calvinist minister, leaving Drew and I with the company and my passions. Mike is still my best friend and I will always love what we started together. And I will continue to love what I do, right here in the city I love the most.

For more stories and tips from fellow tour operators, why not check out our latest post from Vantigo owner Erik Hormann, talking about how he created a profitable, popular tour! And if you’re planning a trip to New Orleans, make sure you drop in on Cindi and her team at French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours for an unforgettable experience - and to see a top-class tour operator in action!

In this post, serial entrepreneur and super coach Drew Renner takes us through some simple tricks to boost revenue through upselling - without putting customers off. When not writing blog posts for Peek, Drew is busy helping tour and attraction owners win customers through simplicity, authenticity and highly-leveraged systems, providing no-nonsense frameworks for business growth. Trust us, this guy knows his stuff. Hit it, Drew! If you’re anything like me, you hate the feeling of being ‘sold’ to. You have these awesome tours and activities for your guests. You may also have a few little ‘extras’ that you are offering, or want to offer, in order to bring in some additional revenue. But the last thing you want to be is that greasy salesman from the car lot. Here lies the issue: how do we avoid being aggressive while still presenting the options to guests? As a former owner and operator of an off-road adventures company, here are 3 simple things I have always kept in mind when it comes to increasing my upsells without being pushy or sleazy.

It should actually enhance their experience

Do your current upsell options make the experience better, or is it just more revenue for you? Think about what things you could offer that would make the experience way cooler. What things would it suck not to have? What things have guests mentioned they would love? Upsells can also be great when there are some things that you would like to add to the experience, but recognise not everyone might want. Whatever the reason, keep in mind the needs and wants of your guests.Here’s an example. With our off-road outfitter, one thing people were liable for was damage to the vehicles, including tire damage. This didn’t happen often, but when it did it was a real bummer for the guests. We decided to offer a “Tire Protection” option that they could purchase for $25. It wasn’t expensive, and it could potentially keep them from having to pay $200 for a tire. Really a no-brainer for most guests. The way we presented this offer helped them to see we had their interest in mind.

Don’t offer too many options

Too many options will overwhelm your guests. When they feel overwhelmed, they run away. And if they keep seeing all these options or offers they’ll feel like they are just being sold to. Select a few things you can offer to your guests during the booking process. I suggest no more than 3. Present them all at once. You want to make the check out process as simple and short as possible. If offers keep popping up, you will lose out on bookings because people will get annoyed and leave.

Offer what they want - even if they don’t know they want it

I kept hearing my guests say after the tour was over that they wished they had a GoPro to record their adventure. Hearing this consistent dialog told me people wanted it, but didn’t think about it when they booked their adventure. So as they were booking, I set up an add-on item in Peek Pro to offer to them the option to rent a GoPro. 15-20% of our guests chose to rent a GoPro during their booking process. Rad, right?!But wait - there’s more. Just because the remainder didn’t go for it when booking, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t want one. Having that add-on option was just planting an idea. As guests arrived and were checking in, we’d causally ask them if they had brought their GoPro so we could mount it for them.This was now the second time they’d heard about it, which started to cause them to wonder if they needed one for the trip. They’d most often reply that they forgot it or didn’t own one. We’d reply with something like, that’s a bummer... and proceed to tell them a story about how people would tell us how the wished they had a GoPro recording of the ride. Almost like magic, the guests would ask, “do you guys have one I could rent?”. In which we’d reply yes - would you like one? No pushy sales. They saw a need to have one and we helped them. As you think about what and how to offer upsells to your guests without being pushy, decide what would enhance their experience, keep the options simple, and offer them in a way that shows you have their best interest in mind. Share a story about it. When you do, people will be willing to open up their wallets knowing you have their best interest in mind.If you’re a tour or activity operators looking for other great ways to enhance your experience, check out Drew’s site at DrewRenner.com to see how you can grow both sales and profits!

Erik Hormann is the owner of Vantigo — San Francisco’s #1 rated tour on TripAdvisor. In this post, he shows us how the key to a tour operator’s success lies in the two Ps — profitability and popularity. Take it away Erik!

How to Make a Tour Profitable

“Show me the money!”Every business owner says the same thing to themselves. Okay, maybe they’re not always quoting a ‘90s Tom Cruise film exactly, but the point remains. At the end of the day, if you’re not making money, then what you’re doing is just a hobby.

Maybe you’re a guide who wants to strike out on their own. Maybe you have a tour company that has grown to 20 buses, but you still feel like you made more money when it was just you and one bus.After five years of scaling a business to become the top tour in San Francisco, I’ve gone through this same cycle every year. Here are some key things to consider when thinking about the real profitability of your tour:

Is your product right for the market?

First, let’s talk about your tour or rental itself. Is it in the right place? Does it have the right market? I once had a tour where we would take participants up the California coast to shuck oysters, taste cheese and drink mead. Sounds amazing, right? But while blog articles may make this seem like the most glorious tour ever, the audience was just not there. As much as I loved doing this tour, it was so much work and could not be priced high enough to make it viable. Maybe if I had amped up the marketing and found all the best Instagram-famous “influencers” and bloggers to promote it, I could have found my audience. But at the end of the day, I knew I could do two city tours in the time it would take for me to pull this tour off — and triple my profit in the process.

I loved doing this tour! But in the end, it just wasn’t profitable enough for my business

The price is right… or is it?

How much is your tour really worth? I had a good friend put it in a great frame of reference: When you are a solo operator, how much are you worth? How much do you need to make an hour? This is the question I asked myself when I started, when I hired my first guide and each time I decided to scale. It’s also something to consider when you make the leap from working as a tour guide, to managing your own company. How many guides do you need working full-time to pay for you in a management role? I’ll be the first to admit I should have really dove into the numbers in the beginning to understand this better. Ultimately, it all rolls up into how you price your tour or rental. When I started out, I also did a comparison of all nearby tour companies that were similar to me. I broke down what they charged by looking at their capacity and tour pricing, converting it into an hourly rate. What do I mean by that? Let’s say Ted’s Most Excellent Adventures tour company has a tour that costs $45 per person. And on average it has 10 people for a six-hour tour. His per hour amount would break down to $45 x 10 / 6 = $75/hour. This has nothing to do with how much it costs him to run his tour; it’s simply the hourly amount he receives. I used this calculation with similar tours and figured out that my per hour charge was below the average. Therefore, in order to be competitive in the market, I raised the price.

The cost of making money: is it raining dollars or overdraft fees?

Once I had fixed my pricing based on that of my competitors’, I then had to look at what it cost me to run a business. And there are a lot of factors that need to be considered. The easiest thing to calculate is fixed costs.Or is it? Rent, insurance, loan payments, vehicle leases — all these factors can easily be put together. The real trick is splitting them up between tours. If one of your tours accounts for 70% of your business, and two others account for just 30%, then the fixed costs should be split accordingly. You’ll be able to see pretty quickly which tours are worth putting more energy into. On top of that, you’ll then have to split out the individual fixed costs per tour itself — the rest will follow from there.To help you out with some basic costing, I’ve created a tour profitability calculator which you can download here. This should help to get you on the right track in terms of being profitable.

To employ or not to employ?

Hiring may seem like a perfectly logical idea if demand is high — but you should always consider the cost of your time and any insurance involved. In most cases — especially in the U.S. — you’ll need workers’ compensation insurance. Some companies like to treat guides as contractors to get around this. My advice — and the advice of any smart lawyer — don’t do it. If you end up in court for whatever reason, they’ll almost always find a way to be defined as an employee. There are other options out there. One of the best I have seen is offering employee ownership. Be sure to reach out to a lawyer to fully understand how this works, but in some cases it can save operators a lot of money.

Here’s our dream team — make sure you build one that’s viable for your business

Remember, when considering any part of your tour’s profitability, you should be thinking about your end game. Do you have an expansion plan for your company? Do you want to sell it? Is it worth anything? It’s important to understand that what you charge now is directly related to your prospective plans — so always keep one eye on the future.

How to Make a Tour Popular

So you’ve run the numbers, and you’re sure you’ve got a viable tour on your hands. Now the question you need to ask yourself is: what makes a good tour great?

It’s the little things

We’ve all been on good tours and bad tours. But what makes a tour so great that you not only want to buy a t-shirt, you want to straight up invest your kids’ college fund into it?All I can say is: details. While on vacation, I’m always looking at how other people do tours to see if there is anything I’m missing. And the one thing that always sticks? The details. Take the Brewseum in Hawaii. A family-run museum and brewery — how could this place not be perfect? It takes you on a journey, starting with the museum and ending up in the brewery. This could probably succeed based on the idea alone, right? But, what made this experience truly unforgettable were the details that operator Duke and his father Glenn added:The museum told a story. From the very beginning, you’re immersed in 1930s Hawaii, before the Pearl Harbor bombing. As you weave along the path, you follow all the action until you end up at a door. That door leads to a military-themed speakeasy, where Glenn, dressed in military uniform, plays the part of bartender. The bar is full of touchable relics from the era. Once we were done in the speakeasy, we moved along to the brewery. It was so well done that I had to write a review right afterwards. This is why they hit a home run. There are so many well-placed details that I didn’t have time to think or pick it apart. It’s the same reason why adults love to go to Disneyland! They’re too busy living in this new, created world, to think about anything else.So. Let’s say you’re operating a walking tour that goes down the same street every day. Along the way, you call on a shopkeeper who has a sample goodie for your folks to try. There’s a detail: a way to make people feel like this is a one-of-a-kind experience — that they are a VIP.Do you have an epic, relevant soundtrack for your tour? Maybe some antiques that are part of the local history? Maps, newspaper clippings, local delicacies — all of this adds to the magic of your tour. Be on constant lookout for details like these, and review their success on a regular basis.

Let’s talk about content

Even when I first started touring, I was encyclopedic in my knowledge of San Francisco. So much so, that people walked away from my first couple of beta tours looking like they had been in class for eight hours. The content of your tour needs to be catered to your audience. Ask questions, find out what they like, then provide information that they can connect with. A great example is when I have someone from NYC on a tour. I love to explain that the person who built Central Park is the same person who inspired and helped with the design of Golden Gate Park. This connects them with something they are familiar with and may know something about. One of my best guides told me once that people will remember 10% of what you tell them, but at the end of the day they will always remember how you made them feel. How can you make them feel great? The best thing you can do is connect with people on your tour in some way. Ask them where they are from, understand what their itinerary looks like. People always love to talk a little about themselves. If people let you know that they are a local or an expert in the field of your tour, use them. When I give beer tours and find out that someone is a homebrewer, boom — they just became a second staff member. I’ll ask them questions about how they brew at home or what type of ingredients they like to use. Honestly, the self-proclaimed expert is probably already thinking about poking holes in your tour. This is your chance to flip it on its head and have them add more flavor and dialogue to the experience!

Guests can make a great contribution to your tour — even the beer nerds! ;)

The big thing to remember when creating a great tour is that you want it to have an echo. It should leave an impression on someone: whether they walk away with a map, recommendations on where to eat, or just a song that gets stuck in their head. Make them feel special, and involve them in the experience. This will replace any negative thoughts or reflections they may have had.So as you prepare to start, scale or breathe new life into your tour or activity operation, remember the two pillars of your success — profitability and popularity.Make sure to download's Erik's tour profitability calculator by filling out the form below!

Welcome to Growvember!

What a couple of days we’ve had! Thank you to everyone who participated - we think we can all agree that our eight incredible speakers provided us with some awesome insights. In case you missed any of the sessions, this is your one stop shop for all the resources you need to catch up and start applying the information to your business!

Recordings

Below you’ll find links to all 8 recordings for you to watch at your convenience: The Essential Tour and Activity Trends for 2019 and Beyond - Douglas Quinby7 Easy Steps to an Extra $54,737 in Revenue in 2019 - Delamon RegoRecruit and Train Extraordinary Leaders - Kelsey Tonner4 Ways to Sell More Experiences Through Offline Channels - Josh OakesHow Video Boosts Your Sales - On Any Budget - Chris TorresNote: Here are the links to the videos shown in Chris' presentation:1. Gray Line Iceland, 2. Background video example, 3. Rough test advert using stock footage, 4. GoPro footage, 5. Professional video, 6. Itinerary videoAt Home vs In Destination Marketing - Jeremiah CalvinoHow to Futureproof Your Website - Andy MottIncrease Your Bookings Without Spending a Dime (With This Efficient Phone Script Outline) - Dustin Hoyman

Presentation Slide Decks

Below you can find all presentation slides from each speaker, for you to follow along with recordings, download and review!

Douglas Quinby - The Top Tour and Activity Trends for 2019 and Beyond

Delamon Rego - 7 Easy Steps to an Extra $54,787 in 2019 revenue

Kelsey Tonner - How to Recruit and Train Extraordinary Guides

Josh Oakes - 4 Ways to Sell More Experiences Through Offline Channels

Chris Torres - How Video Boosts Your Brand on Any Budget

Jeremiah Calvino - At Home vs in Destination Marketing

Andy Mott - How to Futureproof Your Website

Dustin Hoyman - Increase Your Revenue Without Spending a Dime (With This Efficient Phone Script Outline)