How to Stand Out From Your Competition: 3 Steps for Tour Operators

How to Stand Out From Your Competition: 3 Steps for Tour Operators

In the Tour & Activities sector, the competition is fierce. Here’s how you can stand out.

1. With your offering

The following factors impact your perceived value:

  • Your product and service. The way you deliver your tour or activity matters because it contributes to the overall opinion of your brand. This includes the tour or activity itself and intangible elements like the level of service your customers receive.
  • Your presentation. This is your physical location(s) and the atmosphere(s) you create.
  • Your communication skills. How well you communicate with customers on your website – before they book, during the tour, and afterwards – are all indicators of how professional you are.
  • Your distribution channels. When people see you being sold through third parties, it’s a good look. For example, can they book via TripAdvisor? Or travel agents? How about the biggest OTAs? Daily deal sites are a good channel, too.

Many would argue that this is solely a pricing game, but that’s not necessarily true. While you can certainly compete with your competitors on pricing, remember that people are willing to pay more for more value.

2. With your customer reviews

Customer reviews are highly influential in travelers’ buying decisions. In fact, 93% of global travelers say their booking decisions are impacted by online reviews!

If you’re ranking higher than your competitors, or you’re getting more positive reviews, then you can be sure that it will give you a competitive advantage.

So once you have established an offering that your customers love, it’s time to get them to spread the word.

Stuck on ideas of how to do that? Some things you can do to bump up your customer reviews are:

  • Offer a prize or incentive for leaving a review of your company and its services.
  • Send out an email survey and ask for a review at the end of it.
  • Advertise your TripAdvisor/Facebook page at the end of a tour.
  • Simply ask for a review through a status update (pro tip: attach it to a photograph of your most recent tour so it’s addressed to the people who had the most recent experience with you).

Provided you’ve done a good job, they should be more than happy to share their experience in places like TripAdvisor and Facebook. All you need to do is ask.

3. With modern technology

For tour operators, the main concern is how to use technology to make booking management easier for both customers and staff.

Eye For Travel reports that “embracing new technologies and platforms will not only give the organisation a competitive advantage, but will also provide services and facilities that satisfy today’s consumers, expand company revenues and allow to effectively control distribution costs to provide a reasonable return on investment.”

With 52% of travelers who use a smart phone or tablet to complete travel bookings, one of your key success factors is the ability to incorporate the mobile trend into your strategy.

If you fail on the mobile front, these mobile browsers may very well leave your website and head over to your competitors, instead.

Your mobile booking site should have a good user experience design, be free of friction that keeps users from completing transactions, and be fast to load.

If you don’t yet have a booking site that’s optimised for mobile, then it’s time you start. Download the ebook below to learn more about how to do it well.

[hs id=”07bd4b63-4c6b-4a43-9cf0-d14cf164360b”]

Or if you just want to get going, take a free trial of Rezdy and you can see mobile bookings in action.

[hs id=”cbf39995-f3b1-4a6e-8292-f62dbf0b2063″]

By continuing to use this website you agree to the use of cookies according to our privacy policy and terms.

Okay