As we continue our connectivity series, we look at the landscape of B2B sales for tour operators as it evolves thanks to new technology, connectivity, and companies changing how travel is sold.

Evan Frank has been the CEO of a tour company (Context Travel), founder of a short-term rental pioneer (onefinestay), and is no co-founder of Fora Travel, leading the charge at reimagining the role of the travel advisor, updating it with new technology and a brand that suits a new demographic of advisor today.

• How Evan's seen the evolution of B2C and B2B distribution as a tour operator
• The evolving landscape of travel advisors, especially post-COVID.
• Discussion on the importance of multichannel distribution.
• Building a modern, networked community of advisors.
• Tips for tour suppliers to connect with travel advisors.
• The importance of networking and being proactive.
• The importance of building a personal brand and relationships.

If you're interested in this potential sales channel for your business, this is a must-listen.

• Show notes on tourpreneur.com
• Join our 17,000-strong Facebook Community

This week we begin a mini-series on connectivity: interviews with people helping tour operators grow their B2B partnerships through tech tools that connect with other industry sectors.

We start the series off looking at short term rentals. This is often a desired B2B relationship for tour operators, but one that's hard to decipher and connect with.

Our guests are Karen Piscitelli, Founder of Explorabout and Annie Holcombe of the channel manager NextPax. Karen is building a platform to allow property managers to tap into inventory of unique bookable experiences, and Annie is an expert in the connectivity landscape for the short term rental market.

We look at:

• how to understand the short term rental space
• strategies tour operators can use to creatively connect with property managers
• tech challenges in connecting properties to tours & activities
• working with OTAs like Airbnb vs. direct relationships with properties
• how Explorabout and Nextpax are thinking about channel management and
• the opportunity for designing tours in partnership with property managers
• opportunities in remote workers

Show notes and more available at tourpreneur.com

Dan Christian has spent decades in the industry working at some of the world's largest travel brands: The Travel Corporation, G Adventures, Lonely Planet.

Today he's the host of the Travel Trends podcast and CEO of the Acceleration Team, helping travel companies achieve rapid growth.

Dan knows marketing and business transformation like nobody else, and in this episode he spills the secrets of the world's largest companies:

• How do the largest tour companies really make their money?
• What have they learned about marketing tours?
• How do you scale up your operations efficiently as you add new regions?
• What does smart growth look like?
• How important is brand and USP?
• How do you leverage technology?
• What are the best distribution channels for selling your tours?
• Are travel advisors worth working with?

More information...

• Show notes with more of Dan's insights
• Tourpreneur's full event schedule including CONNECT NYC in February, and our Tour Product Boot Camp in Berlin, March 3.
• Join our 16,000+ tour operator community on Facebook
• Get our free Tour Business Toolkit by joining our Community Hub

GetYourGuide has recently surpassed 200 million tickets sold. Co-Founder & COO Tao Tao sits down with Tourpreneur's Mitch Bach, Peter Syme and Chris Torres to talk about the challenges and surprises of 16 years of scaling an online experiences marketplace.

As always, we focus on takeaways for tour operators as Tao Tao shares data and insights. We examine the tensions inherent in balancing the needs of both suppliers and travelers, especially when it comes to curation—and Tao Tao shares news of new steps they're taking to curate their tour offerings and ensure quality.

We covered a lot in a one-hour conversation:

• what he's seen as changing customer behavior and how this impacts operators
• what kinds of tours GetYourGuide is really looking for, and what sells wel
• how to handle late booking windows, and how customers are discovering tours much earlier in the customer journey
• thorny supplier issues like commissions, late bookings, cancellation cut-off times, and more
• how to balance customers' evolving needs with the needs of suppliers
• why there is polarization in the industry regarding the opinion of OTAs
• how an experience marketplace is different than other travel OTAs
• how a brand like GetYourGuide can inspire customer loyalty
• pricing: how do you create a marketplace that doesn't just compete on price
• how to make sure you have enough tours to serve a variety of customers, but enough curation to ensure quality
• thoughts on how AI is and will be used behind the scenes and in front of customers in the future to discover and experience travel
• multi-day travel: is it a future avenue they're thinking about?

Upcoming Tourpreneur events:

• Feb 18-20, 2025: New York City - TourpreneurCONNECT, focused on scaling your operations, sales, and marketing strategies
• March 3, 2025: Free Pre-ITB Tourpreneur Business Workshop at GetYourGuide Headquarters
• View our whole global calendar of meetups and conferences

A Christmas Eve gift for you!

We're just days away from 2025, so it's clearly time to start thinking about how you're going to grow and improve your business next year!

Tourpreneur hosts Mitch Bach and Peter Syme have a conversation about what Pete calls the 70-20-10 rule for how to spend your time doing business development in the off season. (You'll have to listen to find out).

We cover topics such as:

• Leading guide training and innovation workshops
• finding new sales partners
• looking at your finances
• a system for figuring out what's working and what's not

And so much more.

Thank you all so much for being supporters and listeners of Tourpreneur in 2024. We have so much in store for you for next year.

• Join Tourpreneur.com for free courses, resources, and full archives of all our podcasts
• Attend one of dozens of global meetups in 2025

TP hosts Mitch Bach, Peter Syme and Chris Torres have just returned from their California Road Show, in partnership with GetYourGuide.

We spent a week hosting business development workshops in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles, meeting dozens of operators in all sorts of verticals. Thanks to everyone who showed up, and to GetYourGuide who shared regional data on travel trends and customer behavior insights relevant to the local market. The Tourpreneur team paired that data with live business audits.

The results were surprising.

In this episode, we look at 6 easy fixes to your tour business that we repeatedly saw in the operators we audited, as well as the top 6 sales channels—according to the operators attending—that are working right now. We dig into the why of it all, and Peter does his best Grumpy Grinch impression.

All the resources and events we mentioned are available at tourpreneur.com

This episode is going to inspire and surprise you. Rodrigo Atuesta is the CEO of Impulse Travel. From humble beginnings as a guide and Couch Surfer, Rodrigo and his partners have built a DMC in Colombia that has now served over 30,000 travelers. But the way he's built it has been extraordinary, challenging assumptions about how DMCs should work, and understanding the responsibility and power that a travel company has to transform destinations.

In this far-reaching conversation, Tourpreneur's Mitch Bach talks a variety of topics with Rodrigo:

• What he learned about hospitality and “meaningful interactions” from his days of Couch Surfing
• how he participates in and hosts FAM trips with agents to promote his business and country
• how to challenge and change global stereotypes about Colombia
• his approach to the “co-creation” process as a DMC working with tour operators
• the surprising lessons learned from his experience with Booking.com’s Booking Booster accelerator program
• what true leadership … soft skills, good leadership is the capacity to reinvent yourself. Learning to be vulnerable in leadership perspectives.
• the importance of thinking intentionally about company culture as you build your company, not after.
• his discovery of how developing tourism in a community, and fostering local leadership brought change and impact to a community… watching the murder rate drop.
• how you can build a company as a response to a need within a community, rather than imposing your vision on a place.
• His team's HEART design process for product development: (Human Encounters & Connection, Economic Opportunity, Authenticity, Regenerative Narratives, Top Notch)
• his thinking around how to tell the story of Colombia and develop tourism in a way that improves communities and changes narratives
• how Impulse takes travelers' assumptions about what they want to do (see Pablo Escobar sights) and changes those intentions into something positive
• how his DMC builds bridges with other tour operators through partnerships, creating an association, and supporting each other to grow the whole pie.
• Impulse's surprising “total transparency” model, in which they disclose everything down to the penny to the client!

My favorite quote from the episode:

"A true leader is anyone who is aware of their impact on other people, and acts on this awareness.”

For more information, visit tourpreneur.com.

And don't forget great upcoming TP events!

• the Tourpreneur California Road Show starting December 8, 2024 thanks to our partnership with GetYourGuide
• TourpreneurCONNECT:NYC sales & operations conference in February
• Tourpreneur Shindigs — global small group meetups in dozens of countries around the world

Visit our global events calendar here.

In this episode of Tourpreneur, we dive into the intricacies of sustainable travel with Xavier Font, a seasoned expert in travel and sustainability. With over two decades of experience and a professorship at the University of Surrey, Xavier brings a wealth of knowledge to our discussion.

We explore the necessity of rethinking travel for environmental reasons and the potential for combining work and travel for greater efficiency and satisfaction. Xavier emphasizes designing meaningful travel experiences that foster personal interactions, rather than purely focusing on technical sustainability measures. We also tackle the growth of sustainable consumer interest, the implications of certifications like B Corp, and the practical steps small to medium-sized operators can take to integrate sustainability.

Join us as we unpack the opportunities and challenges facing the travel industry and discover how tour operators can lead the charge towards a more sustainable future.

Today, we're tackling a crucial topic for those looking to expand their business into new territories: B2B marketing strategies for tour operators.

If you're aiming to attract corporate clients or promote team-building experiences, this episode is a must-listen. Chris Torres provides some quick tips on how to build a strong brand, utilise SEO, leverage targeted ads, and make the most of platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to grow your business in the corporate marketplace.

Whether you're new to this or looking to refine your approach, these tips will help position you as a trusted expert in the industry and pave the way for higher revenue and profit margins. So, let's get started!

In this quick episode, Tourpreneur partners Peter Syme and Chris Torres dive into the latest buzz around Airbnb's third attempt to amplify their experiences offering.

Despite previous failures, Airbnb is pushing hard again, proclaiming that experiences represent a massive market opportunity. But can they succeed this time? Peter and Chris weigh in on the challenges Airbnb faces, from curating high-quality experiences to ensuring sustainable pricing for operators.

They discuss the potential pitfalls of relying on non-professional hosts and the importance of integrating API connectivity for seamless bookings. Will Airbnb's powerful brand and vast resources finally turn the tide? Tune in as our hosts dissect the prospects of Airbnb becoming a major player in the experiences sector and share insights on what needs to change for this ambitious venture to thrive.

For more, visit tourpreneur.com