Growth Strategies for Adventure Tour Operators: Be Efficient, Expand or Get Started

Opportunities and strategies operators can pursue for 2022 and beyond

We’ve looked across our portfolio of clients and integration partners to address some of the most effective opportunities you might have.

We gather operator advice from customers Kern River Outfitters, Royal Gorge Rafting and Zip Line, and Glacier Raft Co. We then learned some great tips from Tomis about the different ways chatbots are changing the game for adventure travel companies of all sizes. Finally, we explored our own customer data to create a new insights report.

Looking at 2021 photo sales data across hundreds of operators in North America, we found on average 10% of guests purchasing online photos and videos also shared their photo to the leading review sites TripAdvisor and Google Reviews.

Operator strategies: Determine your strength and style

Determining your strength starts with assessing your business size and stability. Based on how established your operation is, and maybe how long you’ve been in your location, you should have a sense of your business’s market share. The simplest way to estimate that would be how your weekly bookings compare to your local competition. But there’s more you can learn.

Your strengths could lie in your expertise or in your ability to retain great talent. It can also be how strong your brand awareness and marketing activities are for your specific types of activities.

So while there are many ways you could assess your opportunities, we’ve taken one approach to group together the low-hanging fruit based on your primary business objective – efficiency, growth or get started.

Operator strategy: Excel with Efficiency

If you’ve been around a while, and have a larger outfit, you may be facing growing pains. It’s always challenging to find new ways to earn incremental revenue, without out-growing your current operations. After considering buying new permits or hiring more staff, it may make sense to start looking to gain efficiencies in the day to day tasks.

Make the best decisions that will help your business excel. The most valuable asset every operator has is time, so what tools can you leverage to get more time back?

Key decisions for adventure tour operator efficiencies:

What services or processes consume the majority of your time?

Many operators tell us they receive the same questions from customers day in and day out. Even when they have FAQs on their site, they are managing phone calls and responding to email with the same answers. AI ChatBots and SMS messaging are ways to take pressure off operators and still provide excellent customer service. Download this checklist to uncover other areas for efficiency.

And what about those USBs? We know there are many many steps that go into transferring images from DSLR cameras to a computer to a USB. We simplified all that with online photo galleries and a one-step automated process.

What extra revenue options are you missing?

Every business has had an idea to diversify their services, or add-on a new product. But sometimes giving it the right amount of thought puts it at the bottom of the list. If it requires training or adds steps to an already very busy work day, you’re not going to know if the ROI is enough.

That’s what is so great about selling videos and photos via a branded online site. The guest experience is seamless, and the steps for the team are simplified. **Get more details **on how to make the right move with your retail strategy.

Operator success:_ The Adventure Park at Sandy Spring increased conversion rates by 103% when a chatbot was added to the website. Source: Tomis.tech_

Operator strategy: Brand and Expand

The second type of operator is completely growth focused. If you consider yourself in Beast Mode, it could be because you just got into the business because you saw an opening. Or it could be you’re part of an emerging trend. However you are manifesting your vision, if growth is the focus, then you ideally have a product or service customers want and plenty of room to grow.

Your overall strategy and goal setting are key to scaling your business. The changes you make now, will ensure you achieve those goals over the next few seasons.

Key decisions for growth-minded adventure tour operators:

What have you done really well, where could you use assistance?

We are all skilled in certain areas, while other aspects of running a business maybe don’t come as naturally. If your location or your team is really talented in storytelling and capturing the unique moments, then elevating your photo and video retail strategy is a smart move.

Maybe you have a great in-house paid ads person, but the conversions just aren’t there. Now is a good time to get your website to a necessary level to achieve those goals. Step one is knowing where to start. We recommend looking at optimizing your website conversions with Tomis.

Are you leveraging your satisfied customers and their happy experiences?

Making it easy for guests to share quality images and quickly describe their experience in a review can boost your search results. To further extend guest engagement, add links to guest review sites TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google Reviews from multiple parts of the guest experience, including the photo gallery. Capture your best customers at the right moment.

For more quick tips to engage guests, read through our findings from the 2022 PicThrive Insights Report.

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Operator strategy: Gear Up, Start Up

For those operators looking to make a new dream a reality; you got this!

Maybe you’ve just realized a lifelong goal and started an outfit or purchased an existing one. Congrats, you’re officially a tour operator, now where to begin? Your start-up strategy may be about tackling one part of the guest experience at a time, so these are questions to keep in mind.

Key decisions for start-up adventure tour operators:

Are your providers and partners ready to grow with you?

Find a reservation system that works for your business and your budget. There are a lot of options out there. You’ll want to determine if they are flexible and can adapt to your specific operational needs. Many of our customers have had success with The Flybook, Checkfront and Rezdy.

What services can you provide to go above and beyond your competitors?

Automated pre trip reminders are a great way to offer added-value. Creating new VIP experiences or customized adventures built around your staff expertise can also help your brand stand out in your local market.

And finally, offering a photo gallery for guests to instantly buy and share memories after the trip gives the guest a high-quality memento, and can also drive incremental revenue per guest.