Adding an online booking button to your website delivers countless benefits, allowing you to:

  • Easily sell tours online and enable 24/7 bookings, encouraging travellers to take immediate action and increasing sales opportunities outside normal business hours.
  • Boost website bookings and conversion rates by making it easy for visitors to reserve instantly. Recent research shows a clear call-to-action button can increase website conversion rates by 161%, and optimising booking buttons for mobile devices can improve conversion rates by 32.5%.
  • Increase direct revenue by reducing reliance on third-party booking sites and avoiding steep commission fees, keeping more of each booking’s value in your pocket.
  • Meet traveller expectations and enhance booking experiences with a straightforward, efficient, and mobile-friendly process.
  • Save staff time by automating reservation management and reducing errors.
  • Drive business growth by collecting customer data for retargeting, upselling, and enhancing your online presence and brand credibility.

Our guide explains the best way to add a ‘Book Now’ button to your site, offers tips to increase website bookings, and provides resources to compare top-rated tour booking management systems.

Bókun is a Tripadvisor brand and Viator Preferred Partner, offering leading tour operator software with a complete toolkit to:

  • Sell tours online — from your site and OTAs — and manage all bookings in one central calendar.
  • Expand your distribution network and reach new audiences via partnerships and affiliates.
  • Manage all back-office operations — staff scheduling, resource management, customer communications, revenue reporting, and more.

Best of all? Bókun is available at the industry’s most affordable rates and lowest booking fees — just 1% to 1.5%.

We offer a 14-day risk-free trial (no credit card required!) to test our solution and see if it fits your needs.

How to add a Book Tour button to your website

There are a few ways to make your site bookable, but the #1 method is to embed a widget from dedicated tour booking software — or connect your website via API.

Any high-quality tour scheduling system offers easy-to-use online booking widgets you can add to your existing website in just a few clicks. This is the best solution because:

  • Booking widgets come in various styles — choose a simple button, calendar view, product lists, or detailed product pages.
  • They offer user-friendly customisation to showcase your branding and logos.
  • Widgets are optimised to simplify the booking process and boost conversion rates. While much advice focuses on testing button designs, styles, colours, and copy, booking software providers have already done the research and built it into their systems.
  • They’re desktop- and mobile-friendly by default — no extra steps required.
  • It’s the simplest solution, needing no technical skills. Just generate the embeddable code and paste it into your website in minutes.

The key consideration is compatibility with your website builder. Bókun’s online booking engine widget is compatible with all website builders, while others may only support WordPress or another major platform.

Adding Bókun’s online booking engine to your site is simple:

  1. Go to the “Sales Tools” tab.
  2. Choose your preferred widget style.
  3. Generate your embeddable code.
    Note: It has two parts — the JavaScript loader script (handles widget functionality) and the widget container (displays the booking engine).
  4. Paste the JavaScript loader code into your site’s header to ensure the widget functions correctly across all website pages.
  5. Paste the widget container wherever you want the booking engine displayed.

You can read more about the steps here, or watch our demo below:


Read more: 7 steps to create a booking website (from scratch)

Bonus: How to add a Book Now button to your Tripadvisor listing

As a Tripadvisor brand, we’d be doing you a disservice if we didn’t share this tip to boost your bookings.

Tour and activity operators on Tripadvisor can make those listings bookable for travellers. However, this can only be enabled by linking your Viator account, so you have to start there.

  • If you aren’t already selling tours on Viator, you can learn how to become a Viator supplier here.
  • After you enrol in Viator’s program, you can integrate Viator and Tripadvisor so the systems work in sync.
  • After connecting platforms, Viator will automatically match your products to the corresponding Tripadvisor page, and the “Book Now” button will appear.
    It may take up to 48 hours to complete the matching process.

Travellers who click the ‘Book Now’ button on Tripadvisor will be redirected to the Viator booking page to complete their reservation.

Read more: How Viator works (for tour operators, agents, and travellers)

Bókun’s tips to increase website bookings

  • Add clear and prominent booking buttons throughout your site to streamline the reservation process and reduce friction for potential customers.
  • Design attention-grabbing product listings with detailed descriptions and high-quality images and videos. Regularly update listings with new media and information from recent tours to keep content fresh and engaging.
  • Offer direct booking incentives, such as exclusive discounts, loyalty rewards, or free add-ons, to encourage travellers to book directly rather than through OTAs.
  • Link Tripadvisor or other major review platforms to your website to display authentic guest reviews and build credibility, regardless of where travellers first discover you.
  • Showcase compelling guest testimonials and trust signals (certifications, awards, security badges) to build trust and reassure website visitors.
  • Use Google Things to do to leverage Google’s ecosystem, reach global audiences, and drive that traffic back to your website.
  • Promote your website and tours actively on social media. Share engaging posts, stories, and videos, and include direct booking links in your profiles and posts to convert followers into customers.
  • Attend tourism industry events, trade shows, and networking opportunities to promote your brand and build partnerships with other travel businesses.
  • Create enticing packages by either bundling your own tours or partnering with local providers (hotels, restaurants, attractions) to offer unique experiences and increase average booking value.
  • Partner with suppliers to promote and sell their travel products on your website; this is a tried-and-true strategy to boost revenue, whether your tours are sold out or you’re building your business.
  • Regularly check your website’s performance and user experience to ensure fast load times, mobile optimisation, and error-free navigation. Fix address issues like slow site speed or 404 errors promptly to avoid losing potential customers.
  • Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive, as most travellers research and book tours on their phones.
  • Explore SEO strategies to boost your organic search performance, including:
  • Conducting comprehensive keyword research targeting both broad and long-tail search terms relevant to your tours and travel experiences.
  • Focusing on local SEO by optimising for location-based keywords, maintaining your Google My Business listing, and getting listed in local directories.
  • Optimising on-page elements (titles, meta descriptions, headers) and adding descriptive alt text to images.
  • Creating targeted website content (blog posts, travel guides, and FAQs) that answers traveller questions and improves rankings.

Find more tips in our guides below:

Top-rated tour booking management systems with user-friendly ‘Book Now’ buttons

Most high-quality tour operator software includes an online booking engine widget. Some, like Bókun, also offer one-click website builders or website-building services to help you create a professional site that reflects your brand.

In addition to Bókun, you might consider:

  • Xola — Ideal for tour operators looking to drive website bookings with an advanced booking engine optimised to keep travellers in the checkout flow and reduce abandoned carts.
  • Checkfront — A good fit for small teams digitising their business, offering 100+ features to sell tours online, automate booking management, and oversee operations.
  • Rezdy — A global brand catering to businesses of all sizes, with a user-friendly platform and flexible packages.
  • TicketingHub — Best suited for attractions and larger teams managing high-volume ticket sales.
  • TripWorks — An enterprise-focused solution with optimised booking widgets and powerful marketing tools for building your customer base and driving retargeting.

Compare other highly-rated tour operator software in our guides below:

Sell tours online & expand your digital reach with Bókun

Adding a professional booking button is just the start of growing your business online. Bókun’s complete ecosystem helps you capture more bookings, manage them efficiently, and grow your business — without the usual growing pains or high costs.

See how other tour businesses have leveraged our system in our case studies below:

Start a 14-day free trial and see how Bókun can transform your business.

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