5 tips to increase sales on a tour operator website

I categorise the functions of consumer facing tour operator websites into 3 core roles:

1. Sales - the actual online reservation / booking 
2. Marketing - making someone want to buy a product (and making them aware of it in the first place)
3. Operations - online balance payments / errata notification / crisis management etc

These three levels really illustrate how the web is evolving within online travel - as companies tend to progress through the three levels logically. Most small tour operators are at step 1 or 2 while a number of the very large tour operators are now at level 3 (although not quite yet doing online erratas or effective crisis management) (An errata is some information that you need to communicate to a customer that may be different to the product as advertised - this may be prior to purchase - or post purchase / pre travel - for example building works in a nearby hotel)

A ”sales” website would be one where the customer has made their purchase decision based on a brochure - or speaking to a sales representative - but the purchase takes place online - made directly by the customer. This may generate efficiencies within your business (as presumably an online sale takes less staff time than a manually entered reservation) - but in the main this is just moving bookings from one “channel” (telephone or booking form) to another(web). The customer has gained their confidence in your organisation through something physical (the brochure or the human) - and therefore may overlook any little problems you may have on your site.

A ”marketing” website would be one where the customer makes their purchase decision based on information they have read on your website - without you having to get involved. Hopefully the sale then takes place online as well.

Of course you will take sales however they come, but its a “marketing” efficient website you are looking to create. Very few websites really succeed at this - especially on the more complex “tailor made” type product - as often not enough information is put online - or not the right information.

Product information is difficult to pitch at the right level - I remember back to managing development on a hotel reservation system (I have worked on a few) - and the discussion was all about televisions. If you put as a room amenity “TV” while a competitor website has “Colour TV”, a customer may make an assumption that your television isn’t colour…. So if you then put “Colour TV with Satellite” - and another site then puts “Colour TV with Satellite and British TV channels” - the customer may choose that website to make the reservation….. (Personally I try to stay in Accor owned hotels when I can, because they always have French TV channels….. which just goes to show you can’t suit everyone with your product descriptions)

However it is the “supporting” (non product) pages where people really get to know your company.

What kind of supporting web pages do you have?

• Contact pages (giving telephone numbers, addresses etc)
• Special offers tables
• Brochure request forms
• Terms & Conditions
• About the destination
• Specifics about travelling (for example travelling with children, travel when requiring special needs etc)
• Blog ?
• Available jobs
• Industry association memberships
• Environmental awareness
• Testimonials

I haven’t done the research (perhaps I should!) but in my opinion these supporting pages are as important to generating your “decision to purchase” from a customer as the product information itself. Just prior to the “sale” a potential customer will normally do a little tour of your site - and all the supporting web pages (having mainly looked at product pages upto this point). These supporting pages will all be looked at - so collectively can be very influential in making (or breaking the sale).

Also it is the area that is least looked at by small tour operators. Probably when a new website is launched the brochure content is put online - and so the product information will be reasonable from the start. However, the rest of the site will probably be a few paragraphs from here or there cobbled together and put online. This is not good enough.

What should be the focus?

1. Demonstrate expertise - if you are a tour operator this should be easy (it is slightly harder for travel agents as they are one step removed, but still possible to do very well). You can easily take on the large travel company giants by showing greater knowledge of your destination and your product than they do - you have the knowledge - just put it online. The larger companies are really good at the big things like taking bookings and running massive advertising campaigns - and managing systems that hold x thousand holidays - but terrible at generating interesting destination specific content. You can never be too expert in something. Get your expertise online.
2. Reinforce that you are a tour operator -  you and I both know what a tour operator is (vs a travel agent) but it seems that many customers don’t - and can quite easily get confused. So don’t use the words “tour operator” - but instead make sure you have lots of photos of your guides - in branded uniform - really showing the product is yours. This message needs to be seen on every page of your website. (One way I did this in the past was to put a local “Operations office” address on the “Contact Us” page - so people saw that - even if they were just looking to email the UK sales office….. osmotically the customer knows that you are “real” and present in the destination country) 
3. Remember that a potential customer will visit your competitor sites as well - if you are selling tours to France - don’t give me endless information about France - it won’t be read as I will have seen it on other sites already. Really focus on your product and your style of product delivery (* see note). For example, do you do cycle tours? Lets see some close up pictures (with all the detail) of the cycles you use. Lets see the bikes left outside of a local bar - this gives you an opportunity to incorporate that local information - and information about France - while at the same time adding a little more interest to your general approach to product delivery.
4. Make your website “dynamic” - if you have 3 or 4 tours that are pretty similar - and you can easily advise people on the phone why someone should do one rather than the other - then create a little “tool” that asks a couple of questions -and in response - gives some advice or suggestions. Not only have you created a little feature on your website that people may find useful (hopefully!), but they are much more likely to send that to their friends than a link to a bit of text (as it captures interest while a user is thinking about researching their holiday, rather than buying). Also, if you store all the requests on your server - you can evaluate them - and check that you have the right products for the people who are coming to your site! Don’t ask for customer details at this stage, just make it fun and easy and “low emotional investment”.
5. Go “land only” - historically companies have been in one niche - and in order to expand - have had to go into another. For example by adding additional countries to their offering. However, with the web, sales can come from everywhere (not just your home country). Reinforce your “land only” (i.e. no flight) prices. If you get your marketing site working well, you will find your non-home country sales going upwards. It is much easier to keep your number of destinations down, but increase your global marketing, that to operationally increase the number of destinations you offer, but keep to your home market. (One reason to cover multiple countries is to mitigate risk - but that is slightly different) 

* Note from above - OK sometimes it is good to put endless information about France on a tour operator selling to France -as this can help with search engine optimisation - but put it on your website in such a way that it isn’t seen as content that “must be read” prior to purchase.

Lets take another example, the contact page. This is pretty much the most boring page you can have on your website - normally it just has perhaps a postal address, a telephone number (perhaps different ones for sales and accounts) and not much else. However you can be 100% sure that every single potential customer will visit this page at least once prior to purchase, even if they don’t have any questions for you. What can you do to it to spruce it up?

• Put a Skype (internet phone) mechanism on there. Doesn’t matter if you don’t have it turned on - but it gives reassurance that you are there (or could be)
• Put a little map so people can find you. No one actually will come to visit you (if they are buying online) but they like to think they might - and a map will convince them that you care about them enough. Tell them about the parking and the local bus route.
• Put your local time (that updates automatically) - and list your office hours. You could even list the best times to call (with the shortest wait)

The point here is that you can make a boring page much more interesting - and turn it into a page that helps turn your site into a marketing site - not just a sales site.

Do you have any more ideas? Please use the comment form below

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