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In a time where ‘digital’ rules the roost, harnessing information is key to achieving success in the travel industry. There isn’t a better time for tourism businesses to extract key information from their data to improve profits. Unfortunately, many Activity Operators lack the knowledge and understanding to effectively tap into the data sources available to them. However, with the right tools and approach, you can easily analyse information to implement major improvements in your business.

Some ways you can use leverage data for your business are:

1. Personalise Your Offerings
   Targeting your customers with customised offers and deals can help bring customers coming back, thus improving customer loyalty in the long run. Does your business offer custom packages? Airport pick-up? Multi-day tours? Gluten free food? Make sure this information is clearly visible on your website.

2. Provide Complimentary Offers on Activities
   Tailored experiences are more personal, memorable and build trust and retention. Most industry leaders have complimentary offers. To do this well, you need to know what your customers really want. It might be complimentary photos with each activity or a glass of wine with a dinner package.

3. Informed Pricing Strategies
   It is never a good idea to keep a fixed price tag on your tour/activity. Have dynamic pricing that changes with the season or the day of the week. Customers look for deals in the off-peak seasons. Finally, cheaper last-minute pricing is a clever way to ramp up the revenue.

4. Obtain Repeat Business
   Offer incentives to your customers so they want to come back. Obtain repeat business by offering customers good deals and discounts, such as 10% discount for a second trip.
   
   

Report and Analyse

Reports are a great way to summarise bookings, sales, income and expenses. Booking software offers a comprehensive and easy mechanism to record sales and expenses. Your reports are packed with numbers that can yield valuable insights when aggregated. Use them to see your daily sales or track which activities are selling more.

Track Customer Feedback and Gain Social Media Insights

Creating your Facebook profile is only the starting point into the world of social media. Customers are more vocal online than in any other platform and this provides a whole new window of opportunity to pull knowledge from. Be regularly connected online – for example, take photos or videos of your customers on tour and share them on Facebook. Monitor their recommendations, ratings and comments. This can go a long way in giving you valuable insights on your future offerings and thereby improve business.

Online Tools

Whyte Waters’ Real Time Booking System (RTBS) is a complete solution for activity businesses. Activity Operators use the RTBS Central Reservation System (CRS) to manage bookings, manifests, distribute their activities to agents nationwide and connect their business to other platforms like Facebook and Trip Advisor. CRS also provides a selection of detailed reports to enable activity operators to observe sales trends and keep snapshots of your business at any given time. Booking Agents use the RTBS Trade Manual Online (TMO) to access live inventory, book activities and track best performers with detailed reports.

Contact Whyte Waters Group to find out more.