Growvember is officially over, and the whole Peek team is excited to see how you take the learnings and apply them to your business. It’s time to put these tips into action! We hope you enjoyed the content from all eight of our incredible speakers - don’t forget, if you missed any of the sessions, or just want to rewatch, you can find links to all of the recordings right here. Don’t know what Growvember is? Where have you been?! Growvember brought some of the top minds in the tour and activity industry together to deliver some top-notch workshops to operators like you. All for free! Pretty amazing, right? We highly recommend you watch all of the sessions in full to get the most out of this awesome free content. But for those of you in a hurry, here are eight of our favorite learnings from across the two days. Enjoy!

Collaborate with your competitors!

In Douglas Quinby’s session, Top Travel Trends for 2019 andBeyond, he goes over why activities are the fastest-growing sector in the industry right now. So why are they?Activities are the why of travel. Travellers may be booking flights and reserving hotels like never before, but tours and activities are the things that really make a trip special. The research that Douglas and his team at Arival has done backs this up. From a survey of over 4000 travellers from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany they found that on average, travellers will engage in around 7activities while on their trip!Let’s take a look at the breakdown of that:

Source: Arival, 2018

So why is this important, and how can you use this information to your advantage? One word: collaboration.Why see other operators in your area as your competition? With so many different types of activities on offer, this is a great opportunity for you to partner up with some other local attractions and cross-sell their experiences. Is there a hop-on, hop-off bus tour in your area that could promote your tour to guests? Could you partner with a fellow operator and offer mutual discounts to encourage higher bookings? Douglas says that more and more travellers are making purchasing decisions in-destination - so make sure you’re creating a strong on-the-ground presence for yourself and have a plan to sell people while they’re in the area. Why not explore the options in your area, talk to local attractions and other activity providers and see if you can find a mutually beneficial partnership! This is an easy and immediately effective to spread the word even more about your tour or activity to travellers who are already in the area. Want to learn more from Douglas? Watch his full session here.

Protect yourself from the dreaded cancellation

Next up we heard from Delamon Rego, COO of tour operator marketing/software heavyweight TOMIS. During his session on how to boost your 2019 revenue, here’s something that caught our eye…Cancellation insurance.Do you have it? If not, Delamon tells us why it’s something worth considering: Cancellation policies are often tricky waters to navigate for many tour operators. When guests cancel their tour after the allowed time, you don’t want to be losing money or ending up with empty seats that you don’t have time to fill. On the other hand, when you enforce your policy, you worry about seeming like the bad guy and damaging your reputation - even if the policy is clear as day. Delamon suggests that cancellation insurance could be the answer to your troubles.Giving customers the option to purchase this insurance during the checkout process means that those customers who were going to cancel anyway are likely to purchase it. It also helps you to enforce your cancellation policy without seeming like the bad guy. It seems way more reasonable when you say you tried to run their refund, but the system says no cancellation insurance was purchased - your hands are tied.The other great bonus to this feature is it can actually start to make you money, with any unused cancellation insurance going right into your bottom line.As a general rule, Delamon recommends charging 12-15% of your ticket price for cancellation insurance, which you can adjust if you have particularly low or high ticket prices. Want to find out other ways to boost that revenue in 2019? Check out Delamon’s session here!

Post that job - even when you’re not hiring

Kelsey Tonner is your one-stop-shop for everything tour guide education. A former guide himself, he now provides amazing training for tour guides and leaders across the world, helping  you to create incredible experiences. In his session, How to Recruit and Train Extraordinary Leaders, he gives some awesome tips for those who have to hire tour guides for their business. We think this little nugget is worth doing right now!Create a permanent job profile on your website.You may only hire a few times a year, but you could be getting hits on your website from potential candidates every day! Why not wet their appetite and let them register their interest by creating a job profile page for them to check out! Why is this such a great idea? For one thing, when the time to hire comes around, this page will already be indexed by Google, hopefully giving your chances of finding someone great a boost! Not only that, but by allowing interested candidates to enter their email in a form on this page throughout the year, you start to build a relationship before your search has even begun. They can get to know you and hear about what you’re up to, and this will hopefully make them even more passionate about working for you! Be sure to include a detailed job description, include responsibilities, and highlight any awesome perks that come with the job! Why not also build up an FAQ section, adding questions as they come in from potential hires? By allowing your website visitors to register their interest in working for you all through the year, what happens when it comes to hiring season? Boom. Your life just got a whole lot easier. Need some more hiring tips? Check out Kelsey’s full session!

Make friends with your local hotel concierge

Former tour operator and founder of The Sunshine Tribe, Josh Oakes, had some truly awesome advice for us on the important of selling through offline channels. Here’s our favorite tip of his from that session - get ready to use this one right away! As Josh was starting out with his tour company, he needed to find some channels that were going to start boosting his revenue right away.What was the solution? Hotel concierges.Josh took the time to “pound the pavement”, hitting up local hotels in the area and building some great relationships with local concierge desks. He then made sure he was revisiting them, following up with phone calls, and keeping himself front of mind. This way, Josh was able to work his way up to the top of many concierge’s lists, and started to see those phone calls rolling in. The best part about this tactic? It doesn’t cost anything but your time.Most hotels take very low or even zero commissions; so by taking a little time to build some solid relationships, you can open up a whole new market and become the go-to operator for hotels in your area! This one sounds like a winner to us. Hear about more ways to sell through offline channels by watching Josh’s talk here.

Use video to sell yourself - and your destination

Digital marketing expert and director of Tourism Marketing Agency Chris Torres kicked off day 2 of Growvember this year. He gave us an info-filled session on using video to market your tours - and how to do it on any budget. Here’s just one of his tips that you should bear in mind if (or better yet, when!) you create your next marketing video…Don’t forget to showcase your destination - not just your tour or activity. Chris gave us some pretty mind-boggling stats on video - like how an average user watches 32 videos a month (!), and how 79% of travellers will search Youtube for ideas before they book their trip. But that’s not all. Of those travellers, a huge 67% still haven’t decided on a destination for their trip. So you shouldn’t only be selling yourself; why not include some beauty spots, local businesses and people from your area in the video? Make your video about the magic of where you’re located, with your tour or activity at the heart of it. That way, you might just persuade those indecisive viewers to choose your destination over their other options -- and book your experience in the process!Get some great tips on how to achieve great videos on all types of budgets from Chris here.

Use Facebook to target in-destination travelers in the best way

Tourism marketing extraordinaire and founder of Blend Marketing Jeremiah Calvino brought us an incredible talk on the importance of “At Home vs In Destination Marketing”. These tips are so important for operators who need to focus their ad spends and target customers as wisely as possible. Here’s one of our favorite tips from Jeremiah’s session that is SO easy to implement…Facebook lets you target those who are already traveling in your area. Sounds obvious, right? Well, think about it. Almost every marketing platform out there lets you target specific locations for advertising. But what about all of those people who live in your destination? If you’re a tourist attraction or you primarily serve travelers from outside the region, your ad spend may be wasted on those people who live in your town or city. Thankfully, Facebook has broken down their users in a way that lets you filter your audience but are currently there.Take a look:

This is an awesome tool to use when running a Facebook ad campaign. Make sure you’re targeting the right kind of people and seeing some great returns on whatever your marketing budget is! To hear more on this and a bunch of other awesome location-based marketing tips, check out Jeremiah’s presentation here!

Make a clear CTA your top website priority

Andy Mott knows what he’s talking about when it comes to websites for tour and activity operators. As Head of TigerCare at TourismTiger, a top industry website provider, his session was full of tips and tricks to supercharge your website. Here is one of our favourites…Make sure a clear call to action is the main focus of your website.Will your visitors know what they need to do when they arrive at your site? Don’t underestimate the power of simple, clear messaging. Not only this, but make a strong call to action your best friend. Not sure what a call to action is? It’s essentially a button - a button which shows the user what they need to do and takes them where they need to be. Let’s see one of Andy’s examples in action. Before TourismTiger gave their website an overhaul, this operator’s homepage looked like this:

Attractive? Sure! But imagine a visitor had no idea what this company does before they visited the website. Where is the instruction to show them what to do next? Take a look at the after result:

Okay, now we can see exactly what our options are. These buttons, or CTAs, guide the user to make a choice and hit that button. So - don’t assume your visitors will know that they need to book, or how to do it. Let a CTA guide them to where they need to be - your booking page! Get some more great website tips from Andy by checking out his presentation right here.

Don’t be afraid to ask for phone reservations

Rounding off our Growvember event was the great Dustin Hoyman of Outdoor Adventure Marketing. Dustin gave us insights into a topic that is still so important in the tour and activity industry: phone calls. While online booking is certainly gaining more importance as we change the way we book, plenty of tour operators still take many of their bookings over the phone.In his workshop, Dustin gives a few great tips on how to make the most of those incoming calls. But here is our personal favorite - it’s so simple, and yet could have a major impact on your business.Don’t be afraid to ask for a reservation on every phone call.Remember, a lot of people call because they want more information - but ultimately, their goal is to book your experience! If they’ve taken the time to pick up the phone, you know they’re interested. Instead of treating the call as a simple question and answer session, why not add those magic words to the end of your call: “Are you ready to book?”If they say yes, that’s a sale made! If they say no, now you have an opportunity to find out why. Ask them if there’s anything they’re looking for that you may not have mentioned. If they talk about cost, weigh up whether it’s worth negotiating to make that sale. Whatever their answer, you are now armed with as much information as possible to try and make that sale. So make sure you’re including this question in every phone call that comes in. We told you it was simple, right?! Check out more of Dustin’s tricks to winning over those phone customers here!There you have it. Just a tiny amount of the wealth of knowledge we gained from all of our incredible Growvember speakers. Be sure to check out all of the full sessions to really get the most out of this amazing, free event! We’re pumped for next year!

Welcome to Growvember!

What a couple of days we’ve had! Thank you to everyone who participated - we think we can all agree that our eight incredible speakers provided us with some awesome insights. In case you missed any of the sessions, this is your one stop shop for all the resources you need to catch up and start applying the information to your business!

Recordings

Below you’ll find links to all 8 recordings for you to watch at your convenience: The Essential Tour and Activity Trends for 2019 and Beyond - Douglas Quinby7 Easy Steps to an Extra $54,737 in Revenue in 2019 - Delamon RegoRecruit and Train Extraordinary Leaders - Kelsey Tonner4 Ways to Sell More Experiences Through Offline Channels - Josh OakesHow Video Boosts Your Sales - On Any Budget - Chris TorresNote: Here are the links to the videos shown in Chris' presentation:1. Gray Line Iceland, 2. Background video example, 3. Rough test advert using stock footage, 4. GoPro footage, 5. Professional video, 6. Itinerary videoAt Home vs In Destination Marketing - Jeremiah CalvinoHow to Futureproof Your Website - Andy MottIncrease Your Bookings Without Spending a Dime (With This Efficient Phone Script Outline) - Dustin Hoyman

Presentation Slide Decks

Below you can find all presentation slides from each speaker, for you to follow along with recordings, download and review!

Douglas Quinby - The Top Tour and Activity Trends for 2019 and Beyond

Delamon Rego - 7 Easy Steps to an Extra $54,787 in 2019 revenue

Kelsey Tonner - How to Recruit and Train Extraordinary Guides

Josh Oakes - 4 Ways to Sell More Experiences Through Offline Channels

Chris Torres - How Video Boosts Your Brand on Any Budget

Jeremiah Calvino - At Home vs in Destination Marketing

Andy Mott - How to Futureproof Your Website

Dustin Hoyman - Increase Your Revenue Without Spending a Dime (With This Efficient Phone Script Outline)

Did you know that people are now favoring experiences over ‘stuff’ more and more? That’s why your tour or activity is the perfect gift!It’s now time to get selling because now’s the peak time for gift card sales!

Why Selling Gift Cards Will Beat Your Low Season Blues

Here are a few more key reasons why you should be utilizing gift cards to boost your sales this season:

Supercharge Your Sales During Slow Season

Holiday season is coming up, and you know that the best gift of them all is the chance to experience your awesome tour or activity. The only problem? The holidays often coincide with an operator’s low season, with fewer or no activities offered. Enter gift cards! By offering the chance to gift your experience, you can take advantage of Black Friday madness, holiday generosity, and those last minute Christmas shoppers.Figures from Peek Pro show that last year 51% of gift card sales occurred between Black Friday and Christmas. What does that mean? On an average day during the holiday season, our partners generated 10.5x the amount of gift card sales compared to their daily average the rest of the year!Take a look at this graph showing last year’s gift card sales trends:

You can see that Black Friday is when gift card sales begin to spike, with December 22nd showing as the biggest day for gift card sales in 2017. So make sure that you kick off your big gift card push in time for Black Friday, and continue it all through December!What if you offer winter activities? Maybe the holidays overlap with your peak season? In that case, this is your opportunity to double down and maximize your sales through all possible channels. Take advantage and make December a bumper month for your business!

Rake in That Instant Cash Flow

We can probably all think of a gift card we received last Christmas (or was it two Christmases ago?) that’s tucked away in a drawer somewhere, waiting to be used. In fact, almost $1 billion worth of gift cards go unused in the U.S. each year.The good news is, when someone purchases a gift card through your website, you receive that revenue right away — not when the card is redeemed. That means you don’t need to wait for Uncle Bob to clear out his desk and book his activity before you start seeing that extra revenue. As soon as your gift card is purchased, boom💥. Instant bottom line boost!

The Perfect Present

We all want to avoid seeing that “I wonder if they kept the receipt” look wash over our loved one’s face as they open our gift. That’s why experience gifts save the panic of finding the best-smelling bath set that we definitely didn’t buy last year — right?The trouble with gifting some experiences, like concerts or events with a fixed date, is we have to cross our fingers and hope the recipient is free that day. Either that, or we ruin the surprise with scheduling questions. With your gift cards, that’s not an issue. Your customers can choose the activity, rental or cash amount they want to gift, and the recipient can book for whenever suits them! Win-win!

How to Sell Gift Cards

So you decided to get in on gift card capabilities. You’re in the game. But how can you drive those sales and really take advantage? Here are a couple of key ways:

Push the (Gift Card) Button

Just like with your online bookings, your website is going to be a key player in driving your gift card sales. So slap that gift card button on your homepage right next to your Book Now button and make it clear from the get-go that your tour, activity or rental is giftable.With gift cards available in the same style booking flow you have for your online bookings, you can make it easy for your customers to choose the activity, rental or cash amount they want, and purchase their gift card in no time.Check out how Peek Partner Sunset Ranch Hollywood is promoting their gift cards:

They have dedicated a whole chunk of their homepage to promoting gift cards and making it easy for customers to purchase them. They've also added different gift options, including specific activities or a custom cash amount, giving customers more choice. Win!

Let Your Customers Bring You New Customers

Your customers came on your tour or activity, and they had an awesome time, right? Of course they did! So why not make it easy for them to share that experience with a friend or loved one? Happy customers who had a great time with you are the perfect audience to sell gift cards to. After all, they’re the ones who know for sure what a fun time your tour or activity is!Plus, by offering guests the chance to purchase a gift card for the activity they’ve just been on, you’re giving them a ready-made gift idea. And the best part is, it doesn’t involve too much extra effort on your part! Your guests are ready and waiting for gift card marketing. So why not let them be part of bringing in more guests!The point of all this is: if you want to improve your bottom line — especially this holiday season — you need to be using gift cards. They are an easy and super successful way to give your sales a boost, and showcase your awesome tours to an even wider audience.Not using gift cards on your website? Take a look at Peek Pro’s new and improved gift cards feature and see what you’re missing out on!

Growth, growth and more growth! For many tour operators, it’s the number one priority. Been looking online for ways to grow your business, but finding it hard to dissect all the information out there? Struggling to find real, applicable tips that are relevant to your business? Struggle no more — Growvember is here!

What is Growvember?

For the entire month of November, we’re focusing all our content on exclusive tips to grow your business!We’ll end Growvember with an online event on November 27th & 28th. It will feature workshops with some of the leading experts in the tours and activities industry. Peek has brought together a host of the industry’s biggest names to help you get the tools you need to see the growth you’ve been working for.Simply register for your free ticket, and you’ll get direct access to every workshop across the two days. Be part of the virtual summit by watching live, and get the chance to ask questions and hear from fellow operators. Afterwards, enjoy all of the event’s content delivered right to your inbox.

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What will I learn?

Here are some of the topics that will be covered during the event:

• How to recruit and retain extraordinary tour leaders
• The top trends in tours and activities - and how they’re going to impact your business
• How to use video to boost your sales - on any budget
• Easy marketing steps that will have the biggest impact on your 2019 revenue
• Techniques to increase your inbound phone call conversion rate
• In destination vs. at home marketing: how to reach your customers at each stage of their booking research
• How to ‘futureproof’ your website
• How to sell more tours through offline channels (why not check out Josh Oakes’ blog post on this topic here!)

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Who’s going to be speaking?

We’ve put our heads together and reached out to some of the industry’s key players to offer you the best tips to see your business grow. These people are leaders in their fields, and come armed with a wealth of knowledge and a whole host of advice and stories. Check out our speakers below:

Douglas Quinby — Co-FounderArival

Douglas Quinby is co-founder and CEO of Arival. He partnered with Alex Kremer and Bruce Rosard to establish an independent platform to serve the business needs of creators and sellers of Tours, Activities & Attractions – a segment long overlooked by the global travel and tourism industry. Douglas is a recognized expert on online travel and travel distribution and is frequently cited in leading media outlets including Bloomberg, CNN, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

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Kelsey Tonner — FounderBe a Better Guide

Kelsey helps tour businesses all over the world create, sell and market their experiences — plus he provides coaching on delivering extraordinary service. With over ten years’ experience in the industry, he has led trips in over 15  different countries across the world.He is the founder of Be a Better Guide, which brings the world’s top tour leaders and tourism businesses together to learn from one another, share best practices and build an online community.

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Chris Torres — DirectorTourism Marketing Agency

Chris is a brand and digital tourism expert with over 26 years’ industry knowledge and speaks at many tourism events worldwide, offering his advice and guidance on how travel, tourism and destination businesses can gain brand recognition and increase bookings.His knowledge on international markets gives him a unique insight into how destination businesses should market themselves internationally.

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Dustin Hoyman — Director of Business Growth Outdoor Adventure Marketing

Don’t let the cool beard fool you, Dustin Hoyman is a nerd. Dustin helped launch Outdoor Adventure Marketing, a digital marketing agency that specializes in lead generation for outdoor tours and activities.His passion for marketing and technology comes at an incredible time for the tourism industry. As more tours shift their marketing toward digital tactics, Dustin encourages owners and marketers to follow data. He can be heard repeating his favorite quote, “Never bring an opinion to a data fight.”

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Delamon Rego — COOTOMIS

Delamon is COO at TOMIS, the first marketing intelligence and growth platform for the tours and activities industry. Before joining the tourism tech world, Delamon spent six years as a guide on Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River.Delamon estimates he has spoken with over 2,000 tour providers over the past six  years. Each conversation focused on how to operate or grow a tour company efficiently. Now, Delamon enjoys gathering the best tips and tricks, sharing them at conferences, and automating them through the TOMIS software.

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Jeremiah Calvino — FounderBlend IMC

Jeremiah has combined his passion for all things marketing with his love for travel, especially with his family. Curiosity and discovery are at the core of his DNA - he loves to explore, whether it is a new museum in Chicago (his hometown), a new targeting feature on YouTube, or a night market in Mumbai. He is the founder of Blend Marketing, a team of 15 marketing and design experts that work closely with leaders of activity and travel companies to align strategy, branding, and marketing to develop consistently amazing experiences that help you succeed.

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Josh Oakes — FounderThe Sunshine Tribe

In 2007 Josh and his wife started a day tour company in Melbourne, Australia. They had no experience in tourism, no  business experience, no networks or support and no funds. After 2 years  of 60 hour weeks, they were taking home $20,000 a year and had nearly thrown in the towel more times than they could count.Fast forward 7 years and they had grown that business to $2 million plus in revenue annually, before selling the company in 2017 for 7 figures. They achieved this without working themselves into an early grave – creating a great lifestyle where they stepped out, worked remotely, travelled 4-6 months of the year, enjoyed all the things that they love about life and empowered others to run their business as it grew.Josh recently launched The Sunshine Tribe - helping  tour and activity operators,  and small tourism businesses across the globe build amazing businesses AND create awesome lives for themselves.

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Andy Mott — Head of TigerCareTourismTiger

Andy Mott is the Head of TigerCare, the customer care team at TourismTiger. TigerCare is a monthly service that provides our websites with site updates, hosting, technical support, and more. He and his team make updates to over 100 websites on a monthly basis. He will be offering insights into some of the key lessons that he has learned about how to make a successful website that will endure the test of time.Winter is coming. And so is your growth explosion. Sign up now!

This post was written by Josh Oakes as part of our Growvember series—focusing on ways to grow your business. In 2007, Josh and his wife started a day tour company in Melbourne, Australia. They had no experience in tourism, no business experience, no networks or support — and no funds. Fast forward seven years and they had grown their business to $2 million+ in annual revenue, before selling the company in 2017 for a seven figure sum. Josh recently launched www.thesunshinetribe.com— helping tour and activity operators and small tourism businesses across the globe build amazing businesses AND create awesome lives for themselves. Here he shares some of his best ways to boost sales — the “old-fashioned” way.In 2018, if you’re not selling your tours and activities online, you’re probably going to struggle to grow your business.Not exactly a ‘visionary’ statement, you may think. And you’d be right. I doubt there are many operators out there prepared to debate the importance of online channels —I’m definitely not.I’ve seen plenty of superb tour operators grow their business to high six and even seven figures by concentrating on growth via SEO, Facebook and Google Ads, Online Travel Agents, and various other online channels.As a tour operator, I knew online channels were critical to the health of our business, and we developed a strong online presence.However, at a time when we were selling more than $2 million in tours annually, approximately 70% of our revenue came via offline channels.So here’s a question for all those tour or activity operators that are currently smashing it out of the park online:How good could your business be if you were complementing those efforts with some serious success through offline channels?With that in mind, here are a few distribution channels you should consider utilizing —plus some tips on how to really make them succeed:

1. Travel Partners

Why should you consider selling your tours through carefully selected global travel agents, travel wholesalers, and inbound tour operators?The international exposure you’ll receive for your tours or activities is next level.The scope that resellers have often goes far beyond the reach of a single tour or activity operator. Good travel partners take part in multiple international trade shows, workshops and sales calls every year.When they’re out there doing deals, meeting potential partners, pitching themselves and building relationships, they’re not only talking about their business.They’re pitching the experiences they use — and they’re using their tourism expertise and experience to pitch your company to the right international travel partners that will love what you have to offer.They offer a reliable source of income.Once your relationship with the right travel partners is in full swing, you’ll discover that the ones you really connect with can deliver a super consistent and reliable revenue stream. This is something you can rely on year in, year out, and will give you the confidence to make smart business decisions.I’ll give you an idea of how this tactic impacted my business. At the time that we were generating over $2 million in annual sales, our top five travel partners were bringing us $700,000 annually. When you looked at our top 10 travel partners, they were worth over $1 million in annual revenue. This revenue had grown by between 11% and 14% for four consecutive years. The consistency in growth made it easy for us to make the decision to sell through these channels. And ultimately, it was a decision that helped propel our business forward.Let’s take a look at the figures from this time:

There it is. The real revenue generated by each of our top travel partners over a one year period. Whatever your business size, travel partners provide an awesome opportunity to make some serious additional revenue.This is the holy grail for a small tour operator.

2. Hotels and Hotel Concierges

In the very early days of our tour business, we knew that one of our long-term strategies would be a focus on travel distribution. But we also had bills to pay and we needed ‘quick wins’ that didn’t cost anything to start generating bookings, other than my time.So we came up with a short-term strategy we could put in place right away — hotels.We knew full well that generating bookings via traditional travel distribution channels was going to take time — time we didn’t have.Hotel concierges were the solution.So how did we do it? The old-fashioned way. I pounded the pavement, I got in front of concierges, I made sure they would remember me and I built awesome personal relationships across the city.Here are a few quick tips to get your phone ringing off the hook with hotel concierge enquiries and bookings:It’s all about relationships. Make life easy for a concierge. Make sure the answer you’re giving is ‘yes, yes, yes’!If you can’t provide exactly what they’re asking of you at short notice, then come up with two or three things you CAN do as an alternative. Make a concierge feel special — ‘I’m only doing this for you’. Be flexible and be resourceful. Once you’re ‘in’ the rewards will come and the bookings will flow.Every hotel is different.Find out how they work. Don’t make assumptions about the way they book tours and educate their hotel guests on tour or activity options. Learn about how they operate. Find out about their hotel guests — are they favored by more international or domestic clients? See if you can tweak what you offer to suit that market better.Be consistent and reliable with your commission payments.This one speaks for itself. Delays in payment could easily see you swapped out for another tour operator, so make sure you’re on top of all the necessary admin.Expect that every guest experience will be fed back to “the desk”.Make your guides fully aware of this. It’s often the concierge’s reputation on the line if they have pushed guests towards your tour. If there’s a problem, bring it to their attention. Don’t let them find out.I always found that it’s the manner in which an issue is handled that matters, rather than the issue itself.

3. Corporate Clients

This market offers some massive opportunities for a tour or activity operator. Team building days, hosting international visitors, pre and post meetings and conferences, reward and recognition days. Christmas parties and end of financial year activities are also a huge market to tap into.Some of the major benefits we found from selling tours and events to the corporate market were:The way it complemented our seasonal tour business.We went nuts with corporate Christmas parties every year — from December 1st right up to December 20th. This connected beautifully with our peak inbound travel season — which kicked in from December 21st right through to the end of January, meaning that December was a bumper month from start to finish.Even if major corporate events don’t line up with your peak season, they can be a great way to boost your revenue during slow periods or fill up off-peak and mid-week tour slots!They can be highly lucrative.Not only are the sales commission-free, but generally the numbers you’re seeing are larger. For us, that translated directly into more revenue and more profits.The market is massive.Consider how many businesses in and around your city potentially have a need for what you offer. In larger companies, there is also scope for multiple annual needs from multiple departments. If you get ‘in’ with, say, one of the major banks, then you could find yourself running company-wide team building days, pre and post conference tours, reward and recognition days, departmental Christmas parties, end of financial year activities and more. So put yourself out there and starting hitting up the big corporate entities in your area.

4. Other Tour Operators

When aiming to grow your business via collaborations with other tour or activity operators, I suggest you start with some basic research of your customer:Where are they coming from? Where are they going next? What are they doing/what did they do in those places? This can be done easily and informally by your tour guides and reported back to you.Start reaching out to tour or activity operators in those regions or destinations. This will allow you to build up a network of tour operators of similar size and style. Start creating a community. Then... be proactive! Take the lead and start collaborating. Create something together with one operator — an agreement, a documented referral process, a collaboration or an incentive... whatever it is, once you’ve done this successfully the first time and have results to show, others will follow and be desperate to collaborate with you.Be the one to make something happen. Hopefully I’ve given you some inspiration in terms of how you can take your tour or activity business to the next level and reach the growth you’ve been striving for.If you enjoyed this article and found it helpful, please take a moment to download our ‘15 Steps to a 7 Figure Tour Business’ HERE. We’ll give you a look 'behind the curtain' into our step-by-step process that allowed us to turn a vague idea into a multi 7 figure tour company. Enjoy!

Want to hear more from Josh and other industry experts? Register below for Growvember - a 2 day online event featuring growth-focused workshops, for tour and activity operators like you!

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Digital marketing pro, Dan Honkanen of Local Pulse, specializes in helping escape rooms grow their business and online presence. In this post, he shares a few pro tips with us on how best to boost your revenue and reputation — both online and offline.In 2014, there were still only 22 escape rooms in the US. Fast forward a few years, and the industry has exploded with growth. What started as a video game niche in Japan in the early 2000s has grown into a global phenomenon, with over 5000 escape rooms in 90+ countries offering “IRL” escape experiences. There’s no escaping this trend: escape rooms are huge right now. Escape room owners often spend a lot of time, energy and money creating amazing rooms that make players feel like they’re on the set of a big budget Hollywood movie. But too often, those same owners are surprised when they see minimal bookings and low customer footfall once open. The problem? Overlooking their marketing strategies. As a digital marketer that specializes in escape rooms, I’m here to give you a rundown of a few techniques that are essential to the successful marketing and growth of your escape room. Let’s dive in!
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1. Show some love to Google My Business

In the past, potential customers would Google you and then click straight through to the homepage of your escape room website. Not anymore. Now, searchers spend more time on your Google My Business page, before deciding whether or not to actually visit your website.Your GMB page (or Knowledge Panel) is essentially your new “homepage”. Here’s an example of what it looks like:

Users can use this panel to click through your photos & videos, check out FAQs, and see user-written reviews. These are vital tools for potential customers to access all the information they need — so make sure you’re keeping track, updating media and posting responses where necessary.

Answer customer questions via the FAQ section

Keep your photo/video section updated with new and enticing media!Pro tip: Name media files with your target search phrase (e.g. escape-room-cleveland-logo.png) for maximum search results!

GMB is also a place for potential customers to read reviews from past guests

Another cool feature of your GMB listing that you may not be utilizing is Google Posts. These are posts where you can promote events, offers and other fun details. Here’s an example:

Every seven  days, your Google Posts will expire.  So, be sure to hop back in and create a new one.  Make sure you use the appropriate type of post (i.e. what’s new, event, offer or product), and there you have it — a super simple way to direct even more customers to your page!Pro tip: In order to accurately track clicks on your posts in Google Analytics, use a URL builder such as this one.It doesn’t matter how much time or money you spent on creating your website. If your GMB page doesn’t convince them to click through to your website, they’ll simply move on to a competitor.The lesson? Don’t neglect your Google My Business page. It may be the last chance you get to make a great first impression.
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2. Fewer competitors, more partners!

Too often escape room owners don’t utilize the offerings of their competitors in the best way. This is a unique industry — you only have a limited number of rooms for people to play, and once a customer has played all the rooms at your facility, it’s likely that they won’t return. Many of these players will also ask the escape room owner for recommendations on other escape rooms to try. This is where a partnership is key. Take some time to have fun and try out the other escape rooms in your area. When you’ve identified your favorite(s), why not reach out to the owners to see if they’re interested in a joint promo? An example of this could be: The owner of Escape Room A recommends Escape Room B to players who’ve played all of their games.The owner of Escape Room B may want to further entice those players by letting the owner of Escape Room A provide a special discount code. And vice versa!The lesson? Partnering with other great escape rooms can drive more customers to your business without you having to spend a penny. Win-win!
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3. Bump up your reviews

Reviews are vital for any escape room business. You want your customers to be surprised by what’s inside your rooms — that means the information you’re able to put out can be limited. This is where reviews come in: let previous guests entice new customers by expressing what a great time they had inside your escape room!Here are a couple of ways to make sure you’re getting as many reviews as possible: First, ensure you have a system in place which captures the names and email addresses of each of your customers.Every couple of weeks you’ll want to extract the list of customers from the previous few days and upload that into your online review or reputation management tool, if you have one. This will help you to build a positive brand image and online reputation. Once you have your information, you can fire off review request emails to the customers!Every now and then, you should also create social media posts to let your followers know which platforms you’re listed on for reviews. Remember to keep it casual — don’t directly ask for more reviews. Just give them a subtle encouragement by reminding them where they can do it. Check out this example:

Remember, owners and staff can’t review their own business. You also can’t give a negative review to a competitor’s business, unless you actually were a customer and genuinely had a bad experience.You should also make sure you’re not offering any compensation — like discounts or free games — in exchange for reviews. A smart social media campaign that gives players a gentle reminder to review you can be just as effective, and ensures you don’t get in any trouble! The lesson? Don’t just rely on your own marketing content to sell your escape room. User reviews are vital to building trust in your brand and convincing potential customers to make that booking. Tactics to boost your reviews should be an integral part of your marketing strategy.
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4. Know your audience — and target them wisely

We’d all love to get our ads out on as many platforms as possible. But sometimes, the budget just won’t allow spending on money on all those paid ads. So, what do you do? Choose your platforms wisely. I always recommend using a maximum of two social media platforms to target. How do you decide which two? Start by considering your location and key demographics. Based in a college town? Trying to reel in young professionals? Sharpen up your Instagram posts. Targeting high school age customers? Get on Snapchat. Want to appeal to families? Head over to Facebook.It may be that you have a mix of demographics, so try to identify your most popular client base and appeal to them through their preferred social media channels. The lesson? Don’t spread your paid marketing too thin. By focusing on specific platforms, you can have a big impact — even if you don’t have a big budget.
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5. Consider working with a digital pro

Gone are the days of traditional advertising: billboards, radio ads, flyers.  Sure, you can still attract some new players this way, but chances are they’ll be few and far between. Plus, there’s no good way of accurately tracking the results of these techniques.To keep up with the competition, you need to spend time analyzing the competition to see what they’re doing in terms of digital marketing.If a certain competitor is appearing higher than you in the Google search results for a certain term (i.e. “escape room” + city name), there’s a good chance they’re spending more time and/or money to keep up with their digital marketing and remain on top.You should make sure you’re spending serious time keeping up to date with the frequent changes in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — either that, or consider hiring a digital marketing professional —- like me!

‍Remember, you’re great at what you do. If entering the confusing world of SEO and digital marketing isn’t exactly your strong suit, don’t be afraid to invest a little in getting advice from a pro. If they can bring more potential customers to your website, you can go back to focusing on what you love — creating and running an awesome escape room!Are you currently running or thinking about starting an escape room? Want more expert tips from Dan? Check out his website here!

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