How Do I Choose the Best Tour Operator Software?

Tour operator software is made to help tour and travel agencies organize their business efforts and effectively serve clients. Observing sales is critical for the tour business, because this lets tour operators know what tours are popular and which ones are not. The best tour operator software likely will have an anti-overbooking feature, which can help to ensure that clients are not inconvenienced by an overbooked tour. Travel agencies need marketing to get clients interested in taking trips or tours, and tour operator software with specialized marketing tools can assist in marketing efforts. Clients will often have questions about tours, and not answering these questions can be a terrible business move, so software that assists communication efforts can be beneficial.

Monitoring sales is important for any business and, with tour agencies, this allows operators to know which tours are popular or unpopular. Knowing this, operators can save money by doing away with unpopular tours and maybe even make money by focusing more on the popular tours. Getting tour operator software with sales tracking can keep agencies from making costly mistakes.

A trip can only accommodate so many people, thanks to hotel and transportation limitations. Operators who aren't careful can easily overbook a trip. This mistake is costly, because overbooked clients will likely be angry that they cannot make the trip they booked and paid for. Clients who do not switch their business to another travel agency likely will expect solid discounts on future bookings. Tour operator software that includes an anti-overbooking feature will keep this from happening, but it may be an unnecessary expense if the agency has careful operators who can keep track of bookings on their own.

Marketing tours, especially toward specific demographics, will assist agencies in making sales. Most tour operator software comes with a marketing tool. At the basic level, this tool will send emails about new trips to past clients. Advanced marketing tools allow operators to market only to clients interested in a specific trip; for example, if a client took a trip to Brazil last year or showed interest in going to Brazil, then Brazilian tours will be marketed toward that client. At the same time, some advanced marketing tools may be hard for new operators to pick up and use effectively.

Clients typically have a constant stream of questions about tours and trips, and not answering these questions can be a poor business move. Tour operator software should come with a communication module that tracks all communication from the business’s website, email, fax and phone calls. Having an advanced communication tracker can help a business answer every question. People should ensure the software works with all the business’s communication channels before choosing tour software.