Travel Business Succes‪s‬

During these tough times, do you wish you had some fellow tourism peers with many decades of experience to answer your questions and get solid tourism business strategies during Covid answers and advice on some of these core topics?

* Customer communications and marketing to keep guests engaged

* What to do and not do with your team to keep them productive

* How to be more agile and not to feel stuck

* Where should I optimize my systems to improve bookings & lower costs

* When to start selling and how to do it

* Insert your tourism business, marketing, sales, operations or planning topic here…

Then join award-winning, family owned tour operator Dan Austin founder of Austin Adventures and host “Tourism Tim” Warren, a fellow tour operator and founder of Travel Business Success Radio Podcast with almost 60 years combined experience in international and domestic tour operations and leadership in a candid tip-filled question and answer session with your tourism peers to help you survive and thrive in the these challenging times.

 

Tourism Business Strategies During COVID: Top Three Suggestions for Food Tour Operators Re-Opening Their Businesses

* Stay relevant. One way of staying relevant is to come up with creative and amazing to go package. A friend of Dan has a similar business and one of the things they did was to create gift boxes with barbeque sauces and recipes. Give them something physical to keep the anticipation and excitement going.

* Embrace the restaurants as your partners. Create a restaurant virtual visit and ask the Chef to come out and explain what he did and how he did it

* Make everything an experience to remember because it is all about the experience. Instead of eating in the restaurants, you go picnics.

Bottom-line is to continue to try and make it an experience. Come up with ways and gimmicks to make whatever for you to get started again make that part of the experience. This time is the opportunity to make things interesting.

 

How does the industry plan against over visitation & over saturation once things open up?

The physical world is taking a breather right there. There's probably never going to be a time like this in our history, to visit places without the crowds. No tour buses this year. The international travel scene will be an all-time low, so overcrowding doesn’t seem to be a problem or worry. And it’s a great time to travel if you can. Long term, it would be great to learn from this.

* Evaluating on how to manage or control overcrowding.

* Maybe it is minimizing the size of tour buses, shuttles, and cruises. Having less of them.

* Just learning and seeing what works this year might actually motivate us to dig a little deeper and be better in the future.

 

Tourism Business Strategies During Covid: When do you see yourself starting to ramp international trips back up? How are you navigating the international situation?

Tourism Business Strategies During Covid

It’s really going to come down on the market. At this point, a lot of countries are still opening up and then closing back again. This makes implementing your

tourism business strategies during COVID difficult at times. Domestic trips are back about 70%. But internationally, we have guides or partners on the ground to find out what the consensus is. There are 4 different steps to situations like this. The first is fear. The next one in is understanding. The third step is planning. Then finally the action phase.

* There’s a great website out there that you can monitor different countries and see what is happening daily.

 

Do you wonder what are some best practices on customer and cash retention, marketing and promotions, optimizing your operational systems or your lead and sales conversion funnels? Then join multi-award winning, family owned tour operator founder Dan Austin with Austin Adventures and Travel Business Success Radio Podcast founder & host “Tourism Tim” Warren with almost 60 years combined experience in international and domestic tour operations and leadership in a candid tip-filled conversation on top tourism business tips during Covid to help you survive and thrive in the these challenging times.

Dan and Tim have known each other since 1995. They both have passion for travel, tourism and now they are both involved with tour companies. They used to connect every month on Saturday’s to talk about tourism business, marketing, operations, etc. and are now here to share their best tourism business tips during COVID.

Dan Austin is the founder and CEO of Austin Adventures. He ignited his passion for adventure travel in 1976. His travels soon took him to Alaska we’re he owned and operated a mid-sized construction company. He gained valuable experience working out difficult logistics and long distance problem solving.

“Tourism Tim” Warren is the founder of Adventure Business Consultants. For over 26 years, Tim has dedicated himself to helping current and future tourism stakeholders worldwide to start, grow, and prosper. He’s also the host of the Travel Business Success Radio Podcast and Tourism Marketing TV, and the author of Double Your Tourism Bookings Online Program.

Marketing & Communications (Corona Virus Tourism Marketing Tips)

When did you start communicating with existing guests as COVID 19 set in?

As the COVID 19 Pandemic started unfolding in most businesses, Dan Austin started to reach out to his guests. He and his team focused on a really aggressive campaign with a total from outgoing sales efforts to outgoing communication efforts. And they started making it more personal.

How did you communicate? 

They dropped the standard template emails. And started sending out personal emails to their guests and really became honest with them. 

What did you share? 

They also quickly changed their cancellation policies and deposit policies.

What were the impact on your cancellations and refunds for 2020?

A: Anticipate

They started reaching out to their guests on the first week of March. They communicated with them even before their trips were due. They asked questions like – “What are you looking for?” “What are you most comfortable with?” Consider Corona Virus Tourism Marketing Tips like these – reach out to guests early.

They also had guests that wanted to cancel their trips because they don’t know when they could travel again because of the pandemic. 60% of their guests said they would wait and see if they could travel, 12% rescheduled for later in 2020, and 12% rescheduled for 2021.

B: Be honest 

They implemented an open dialogue with their guests. They also quickly changed their cancellation policies and deposit policies.

C: Communicate 

Their guests appreciated the fact that they posted on their homepage – here’s what we’re doing, here’s what we’re willing to do now or what we can do to push back final payments. Their guests are also very easy to work with and willing to compr...

 

Social Proof Tourism Marketing© Free Mini-Training

Special 5-Part  A Proven Tourism Marketing System

Part-2

Hey, good day, folks, it’s Tourism Tim Warren here with a special mini-training dedicated to helping you double your tourism leads, double your bookings, double your profits, especially online and without being a tech wizard.  This is going to be a 4 or 5-part mini-training on something I’ve been using for many, many years and other tourism professionals that are highly successful worldwide use too. It is a special tourism marketing and strategy system I am packaging and going to give to you, called “Social Proof Tourism Marketing ©.”  

So, this top marketing strategy that has helped me and countless people all over the world radically increase their leads, their sales, their bookings, will also increase your profits. Once you understand this scientifically proven strategy and you start applying it to all your tourism marketing, what you’re going to see is that your leads and bookings are going to go up and your profits are going to go up too. And the coolest thing is that you don’t have to be a tech wizard. You don’t have to be a marketing master. And you don’t have to spend more money buying traffic or being worried about SEO. 

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Social Proof Tourism Marketing©: How to Double Your Tourism Leads, Bookings & Profits - Part 2 of 5

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This is about getting more bookings from your existing traffic. 

So, let’s do a quick review of what I covered in Episode 1.  I talked about the common issue we all face. I don’t care if you’re in Timbuktu or Toledo, China or South Africa, if you’re in the tourism, travel, hospitality or attraction trade, or even if you’re a travel agent, we all face the same thing.  

How do you get more people to make an inquiry, and more importantly, make a booking with us? And how do you do this online since it’s your doorway to the world?  

Your website is your brochure and doorway to the world.  So the really big question is, how can you get more leads and bookings - without traffic and being a technology master.  

Let me just give you a quick review of my background.  I’ve been in the tourism business for over thirty years helping my brother start grow a fly-in adventure travel ecotourism tour company in Baja, Mexico. We’ve done very well.  Over the last twenty years, we got involved with ecotours and lodges. I’m really proud to say that Las Animas Ecolodge is the #1 specialty lodging in TripAdvisor for Baja, California out of about 280 properties. And all of this knowledge that I’ve gained, I’ve been helping  global tourism industry professionals succeed, with a focus on business, marketing, sales, management, operations, and now,

How to Double Your Tourism Bookings

Special 5-Part  Free Tourism Marketing Training Series 

Part-1

Hey, folks, it’s Tourism Tim Warren here with a special 5-part free tourism marketing training series (audio, video below and blog posts) dedicated to helping tourism leaders, attractions, lodging, travel agencies and destinations deal with something that we all face as tourism professionals - how the heck can we get more people to  visit our website, decide that we’re a good choice, make an inquiry - or better yet, make a booking, buy your service, visit or stay in our lodge, or even visit our destination, no matter where you are in the world?  

How can you get more people to make an inquiry or booking, especially from your website?

No matter how big or how small, this is a common question we all face.  For those of you who don’t know me, my brother and I have been in the tourism business now for thirty years - both as a tour operator in the soft adventure, ecotourism space in Baja, Mexico, as well as an ecolodge owner and manager.  I’m proud to say that we are the #1 TripAdvisor “Specialty Lodging” in Baja, California. It is called Las Animas Ecolodge.

So, the things that I want to share with you, not only today, but really in the start of this special series are really some of the biggest “aha moments”, and the biggest takeaways that I’ve learned that really helped us not only to become one of the top lodges, but more importantly, a profitable growing company.

So here’s a big problem that limits your bookings and profits.  

Even if you have all the web traffic in the world,  the greatest product, service or greatest lodge, if you’re not converting inquiries into bookings from your websites - because that is your storefront to the world - you’re not going to grow.  You may not even be able to stay in business. 

You will struggle.   That sucks!

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How to Double Your Tourism Leads, Bookings, and Profits (Special Series) - Part 1 of 5

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What is “Social Proof Tourism Marketing”© and How Can it Double Your Tourism Bookings?

So, what I want to share in this free training series is a special system that I developed called “Social Proof Tourism Marketing”©. It’s been the very basis of what has helped myself and many, many people just like you around the world increase their leads, and more importantly, increase their bookings from the existing web traffic they’ve got.  

We’re not talking about technology here.  We’re not talking about SEO or how to get your website working to get more traffic.  That’s important but we’re talking about psychology.  

Are you curious about how Facebook tourism advertising can play a role on your tourism marketing to increase bookings? Do you want to know the right ways to harness the true potentials of Facebook advertising and social media marketing for the tourism stakeholders? Do you have unanswered questions on Facebook travel advertising? Then take some…

Do You often feel lost sometimes? Need help with your tourism business growth strategies? 

Are you unsure of what exact steps you can take to grow your travel business? 

Do you wish you had seasoned and experienced role models in the tourism business that could show you the way? 

Well, You’re in luck! Listen in as my guests and I share insightful and ground-breaking tips on how you can grow your tourism business over time.  

Tourism Business Growth Strategies: How to Grow & Scale Your Tourism Business in a Competitive Environment

The tour operator business is riddled with growing competition every day. Because of this, professionals must always be active in their tourism business growth strategies. These strategies will have to seep into their tourism business management, on and off-line marketing, sales, customer service, and every other aspect to ensure continuous profitable growth.

Although sometimes, regardless of the efforts you put in, does it sometimes still feel like your tourism business isn’t growing the way you expect?

This is why you need the advice of professionals who have succeeded and have helped many others succeed in the tourism industry. Their experience, successes, failures, and insight will surely give you a clearer perspective of your goals and present situation. This new information will help you map out a clear plan for your tourism business growth. This Travel Business Success Radio podcast features two highly professional tour operator stakeholders and is a sure way to get you started on the right track to tourism business growth.  

Let’s Get to Know Our Guests 

Josh Oakes – The Sunshine Tribe

Josh Oakes

 Josh Oakes with his wife started their tour operator business company back in 2002 with no experience, knowledge and no help. They struggled to navigate the industry waters for a couple of years and were taking in as little as $20,000 in revenue yearly. However, they didn’t let the small numbers influence their work ethic. Instead, they kept improving their strategies, lived their lives to the fullest and hired a consultant to learn as much as they could about the industry they were in. Seven years later, their business was raking in about $2million yearly before they decided to sell it off in 2017 for 7 figures. Josh is seasoned, experienced, highly intelligent and a force to reckon with in the travel business industry.  

Kelsey Tonner

Kelsey Tonner – Be a Better Guide Academy

Kelsey is a highly experienced and talented tour guide who is passionate about creating a network of tour operators to come together, liaise and help each other grow. Regardless of where an operator is located in the world, Kelsey believes that we can help ourselves offer memorable experiences to travelers with something as simple as sharing tips and pointers with each other. With over a decade worth of experience in the industry, Kelsey has guided various trips in different countries and continents. He is highly adventurous and always gives great insight into the true state of the travel industry.  

 

 

Travel Business Success Podcast  #78 Highlights

* Learn about the Different Challenges that Tour Business Owners Often Face in the Start-up Phase (7-20-13:25) 

There are various challenges that tourism business owners face in the early stages of their business. One of the most common ones being the failure or inability to overcome fear. Young operators tend to spend a lot of time worrying about whether they will be successful or not and this affects their output. Also,

Do you want travel marketing training to improve your skills?

Are you getting a lot of website traffic without enough leads and bookings?

Are you wondering why you are not getting as many bookings as your competitors?

Want to learn more about travel website marketing to increase bookings?

Travel Business Success Radio Podcast episode #77. “HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR TOURISM LEADS, BOOKING AND PROFITS”. This is the second and last part of a two-part webinar training series focused on helping you increase and convert all your leads to actual bookings in no time. Also, listen at the end of the show for a special announcement for a live training course with Tourism Tim Warren which is slated to start July 25th, 2019 called “How to Double Your Leads, Bookings & Profits”.

Do You Have Competition? Need to Increase Your Bookings?

It is no news that the travel, tour and attraction business industry is quite competitive. Many new businesses being started in various locations. This creates quite a strain on any existing business. This struggle should push owners to seek new travel marketing training skills that will give them a clear edge over the competition. A great way to learn new travel marketing tips is to listen to experts in the industry and gain new knowledge from their vast experiences.

Who Is Tourism Tim Warren?

Tourism Business Startup, Growth & Exit Expert

"Tourism Tim" - Tourism Marketing & Customer Service Expert

“Tourism Tim” Warren has been in the travel business industry for over 25 years. As a tour operator and ecolodge stakeholder and by helping 1000’s of global tourism, travel and hospitality stakeholders like you, he has garnered great experience in travel business startup, growth and exit strategies, mostly focused on marketing, sales, operations, management, customer service, leadership and business value building. He offers key travel marketing training tips to various businesses in the industry through his book, podcast, live and online trainings and web series. He is passionate about travel marketing training and dedicate his time and resources to help travel businesses maximize their potential.

 

HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR TOURISM LEADS, BOOKING AND PROFITS PART II -  TRAVEL MARKETING TRAINING – WEBINAR HIGHLIGHTS

* Get an In-depth Insight on How Different Factors Can Affect Buying Decisions (02:00 - 6:00)

A clear knowledge of the various factors that affect buying decisions and how they truly come into play will help redefine and shape your travel website marketing strategies for better results. Targeting your travel advertising strategies through knowledge of these three factors will definitely increase your leads and bookings at an exponential level in no time.

* Find Out How Trust is a Key Factor that Affects Your Travel Website Marketing Strategies (06:00-10:20)

The layout of your website, editorial content, social media reviews and other important factors go a long way to determine how much your audience will trust you. The right content on your website tells your audience that you are an authority in your field and will definitely keep them on your website a lot longer.

* Learn about a Simple Formula Using the Three Deciding Factors that will Help You Determine Your Credibility and Increase Your Bookings (11:00-15:40)

This two-part formula focuses on how long you have been in business,

Do You need easy tourism marketing training advice from the experts with proven results? 

Have you been thinking of the best way to increase your leads and bookings?

Do you want to convert more of your web traffic to real bookings?

Are your competitors getting more bookings than you, even though you have better service and prices?

Want to increase your effectiveness in Tourism marketing?

Want to take your tour operator marketing strategies to the next level?

Take some time to listen in to part I of this free online tourism marketing training webinar by tour operator expert, Tourism Tim Warren. Tourism Tim shares great insight on tourism advertising with key pointers on what converts travel shoppers into buyers that will take your tour operator business to the next level.

How Can You Stand Out From Competition and Increase Your Tourism Bookings

The tour operator business niche is quite saturated with a lot of businesses springing up in different parts of the world. Focus is, therefore, being placed on what sets a particular tour operator business apart from the rest. Most times, this is hinged on the strength of the company’s tourism advertising and marketing. All these being said, it is crucial to the success of your tourism business that you place a large emphasis on really understanding the psychology of travel shoppers and what motivates them to make a purchase with one operator over another. It comes down to trust. Listen and learn from this important tourism marketing training to get the necessary knowledge that will put you ahead of the ever-growing competition, and increase your leads and booking guaranteed!

Who Is Tourism Tim Warren and Why Should I listen to Him?

"Tourism Tim" - Tourism Marketing & Customer Service Expert

Tim Warren, commonly known as “Tourism Tim” is a tour operator business and marketing expert with over 35 years of experience in various industries with a common focus on sales, business development, marketing, and entrepreneurial management. He has helped thousands of global tourism companies to increase their leads and promote their tourism business globally through consultations, podcasts, and insightful live and online tourism marketing trainings. He is also an author, adventure traveler and social entrepreneur.

Listen or Download Podcast Here

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How to Double Your Tourism Leads, Booking & Profits, Travel Business Success Webinar Highlights: TBS77

* Learn How to Effectively convert Leads and Website Traffic into Real Bookings with Tourism Team’s 3-part tourism marketing training tips. (20:40-31:35)

One of the key points of every tourism marketing training list is that your website has to be your biggest marketing tool regardless of whatever ads or promos you are running. Without a consistent generation of leads and sales on your website, you stand a risk of being out of a business regardless of how great your services or prices are. With a “Travel Website that Sells©”, your marketing and advertising costs are reduced drastically and you will generate more leads that t...

Are you curious about how Facebook tourism advertising can play a role on your tourism marketing to increase bookings?

Do you want to know the right ways to harness the true potentials of Facebook advertising and social media marketing for the tourism stakeholders?

Do you have unanswered questions on Facebook travel advertising?

Then take some time to listen in as Chris Torres, a tourism and digital marketing expert and Tourism Tim Warren discuss the impact of Facebook on the tourism business. Chris and Tourism Tim answer top frequently asked questions on how tourism, travel and hospitality professionals can use this amazing tool to generate more quality leads and bookings.

Facebook Tourism Advertising Tips to Market Your Tours, Lodging & Activities. Part I

Does Facebook Advertising for Tour Operators Suck? Top Tips to Increase Bookings and ROI: Part II

Best Facebook Ads Tour Operators Use to Increase Customer Awareness & Trust, Part 3 of 5

4 Steps to the Perfect Facebook Video Ad Sequence for Tourism Marketing: Part 4

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Why is this Facebook Important for Travel Marketing?

It is no news that the tourism business is highly competitive. Different tour operator, lodges, attractions and travel vendors like you should always be looking for ways to stand out from your competition and attract more clients. This should make you highly focused on re-strategizing and improving your marketing strategies to appeal to their various audience demographics.

Have you been thinking of new ways to increase bookings via online tourism

booking systems?

Are you curious about new tourism marketing strategies that could bring a boost to your online bookings?

Do you want to know more about attraction marketing and how it can influence your online tourism booking engines? 

Then listen in today as Stephanie Kutschera; Head of Marketing, in Trekksoft and I tackle many of the looming questions you might have on how to increase bookings on your tourism booking systems, lower marketing costs, increase distributions and boost revenue sources. Also be sure to check out my free webinar below on how to double your website bookings and revenue.

Why are Online Booking Systems So Important?

Over the years, the growth of tourism booking systems has made it incredibly easy for people to have direct access to hotels and accommodation all at the click of a button. This also makes it easy for tourism and travel businesses to increase their customer reach and book more clients in no time. Therefore, understanding the workings of tourism booking systems and how to tweak the to work in favor of your travel business will definitely put you at the top of your niche. The best way to do this is via tourism marketing and we have just the right expert to tell you exactly how it’s done.

 

Let’s Get to Know Stephanie (1:54-2:35)

Stephanie is originally from Scotland. She has been in marketing for over 8 years and has worked with multiple companies and hotel groups in the United Kingdom with the most recent being Trekksoft. She joined Trekksoft as part of the marketing team before being becoming the head. Her job description entails to curate and oversee great and appealing content that keeps their audience engaged. she also oversees all marketing strategies at Treksoft on a global level.

Listen or Download Podcast Here

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Online Tourism Booking Systems | Common misperceptions & Tips to Increase Bookings  - Travel Business Success Podcast Show Highlights

Learn About Free Online Booking Systems and How to Get one (4:20-6:59)

* These are online booking systems that more or less pass on the entire cost of bookings to the customers, only charging a transaction fee when a booking is made. The key part about these booking systems is ensuring that they are well integrated into your travel business. This way, all traffic, bookings and engagement you get via the booking systems are centralized and can easily be tracked.

Find Out How Online Booking Systems Increase Bookings (17:13-22:30)

* Tourism booking systems enables users to book online and get all the information they need about a particular listing really boosts the amount of bookings a customer gets. This is because it makes the entire process a lot easier and more transparent for the customer and helps them make quicker and better buying decisions. It also helps travel businesses decrease their marketing costs by a huge percentage and allows these funds to be channeled towards other parts of the business.

Learn About What Benefits Tourism Booking Systems Give to their Users (25:10-29:00)

* With the really low transaction fee and round the clock access to the desired audience demographic,