How to Get More Bookings for Your Tours, Activities or Experiences

As a tour operator, the quality of your tours/activities/experiences listings is essential to get more bookings. This guide will take you through the necessary steps to write the perfect listing on Triptipedia.

Reduce friction

Friction is everything that will get in the way of a potential customer reading your listing and making a booking. In other words, friction is created by both big and small obstacles to fast and easy bookings.

Remember we’re on the Internet. If people don't get what they’re looking for fairly easily, they'll just close the tab and go elsewhere.

Some customers will bother inquiring if they don't understand something about your listing or if they have questions. Others will simply leave. For this reason, you’ll want to make sure that your listing contains answers to any of the questions your customers may have. Do your best to save clients the hassle of contacting you for information.

Here are some examples that increase friction:

• Long list of places/activities without details or explaination
• Huge blocks of text that are hard to read
• Poorly chosen title
• Secretive pricing
• etc.

There are also other factors that increase friction (price, destination's popularity, etc). But not much can be done for those. Let's focus on what we can improve!

Start with important stuff, end with the details

People are different. Some of them will read every word twice before booking, others will book after having a glimpse at your listing. I'm sure you've ever had clueless customers at one moment or another: Oh, I needed to bring a swimsuit?

Your listing must be suitable for all types of customers.

In the description field of your listing on Triptipedia, start by giving an overview of your tour; 2 or 3 sentences that give a good idea of what it's all about. Then, proceed to the itinerary or activity details.

Give your customer a clear idea of what to expect

If your tour has different parts (such as places or activities), it is important to give a short but comprehensive summary before elaborating. Make it both descriptive and catchy.

Then, proceed to explain the steps one by one, starting with the meeting point.

• What is going to happen during this step?
• How do we get here?
• How long does it last?

The longer the step, the more details you must give.

Don't forget to specify where the tour ends, especially if it's in a different place than where it began.

Transportation

If your tour takes place in different spots, you must talk about the transport each time:

• Means (walking, car, bus, boat, etc)
• Duration
• Stops/breaks

Details and options

Triptipedia is read by people all around the world, expect a your customers to be very diverse.

Your listing must contain a wide range of information. If you do, how will you accommodate people:

• ...who have diet restrictions (vegan, gluten-free, allergies, religious, etc)?
• ...who have children (can they use a stroller)?
• ...who use a wheelchair?
• ...who have pets?

Prices & payments

Unclear pricing is a huge source of friction. People won't book if they don't know exactly how much they'll pay.

Be straightforward with what's included in the price and what's not. If you offer extras or options, state a price.

We strongly encourage you to list the payment methods (including currencies if you accept cash) that your guests can pay you with. Use the Things to consider field. Don't forget to mention any required deposit and your cancellation policy.

Choosing a good title for your tour

The title of your tour must be both catchy (to make people want to click) and informative.

The maximum length is 70 characters, get as close as possible to this limit.

Avoid huge blocks of text

They are hard to read and not engaging. Write short paragraphs instead.

Adopt a scientific style (with lists) when possible:

Let people find your tours through search engines

Giving as many details as possible improves your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and allows you to get traffic from search engines. For this reason, it may be worth it to share historical facts or practical tips when appropriate.

Let's say you are offering a trail hike:

Having this kind of information in your listing will give you a chance to be found by people looking for information about this trail. Maybe some of them will end up booking the hike with you?

Pictures

The perfect pictures to upload to your listing are:

• Beautiful
• Taken during a tour
• Engaging

Put your best picture first in your tour's gallery; it will serve as a thumbnail on Triptipedia.

Note: vertical pictures get cropped to make a thumbnail. You'll want your first picture to be horizontal.

When adding a picture to your listing on Triptipedia, make sure to fill the title field with a description. Simply describe what can be seen in the picture.

We live in the age of social media, so don't hesitate to highlight the picture opportunities for your guests, both in your listing's description and through your pictures.

One tour per listing

Always follow this rule: 1 listing = 1 tour.

Don't combine all tours & activites in a single page! This will confuse readers and search engines.

Making a presentation of your company and the different services you offer is important, but a listing isn't the place for that. Use your public profile instead.

Keep your listing up-to-date

Make sure that all the information in your listing is up-to-date to reflect seasonal itinerary changes, exceptional events, etc, that can affect your tour.

If a customer asks you a question that's relevant, make sure to include the answer for other customers to see.

Fill your public profile!

Your public profile on Triptipedia is a page that's dedicated to you and your company. It's similar to a social media profile. There, you can add a biography/description, upload a picture, link your website and social media, etc. Everything that you add on Triptipedia (tours, accommodations, travel tips) will be featured on your public profile.

Before booking, some people will want to know more about you and your company.

A "offered by" section is displayed under each of your listings:

Potential customers can click on this section to see your public profile. And maybe, reach out on social media or book on your website.

Users who set up their Triptipedia profile got on average 18x more views than those who didn't.
-- Insights from Triptipedia's analytics

If you have any reviews from other websites (such as Google, TripAdvisor, etc), feel free to mention your rating in your biography!

So if it's not already done, set up your profile now.

Write a few travel tips

Do you have travel tips to share about the place(s) you operate in? Contributing to Triptipedia with travel tips will increase the visibility of your public profile and your listings.

While your subscription is active, your travel tips will feature your most-related tour near the middle of the article. You can see an example of a preview here.

Your public profile will list both your tours & travel tips (as well as your accommodation, if any).

Resources

Here are a few useful links to help you write an awesome listing:

• Thesaurus: A synonym dictionary to avoid repetitions and use better vocabulary
• How to write plain English: An excellent guide to writing clear English
• Mary Dash’s Writing Tips: Writing tips from an IRS's employee

Published by Triptipedia on 30/09/2020