Connecting France

Connecting France is a Paris-based tour operator offering expert guided experiences at the city’s most iconic cultural landmarks (including the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and Rodin Museum) as well as immersive walking tours. 

Founded in January 2024, the company has grown rapidly, building a team of over 50 specialist guides who deliver small-group experiences primarily in English, with tours increasingly available in additional languages. With a focus on local expertise and authentic storytelling, Connecting France has established itself as a key operator in one of the world’s most competitive tourism markets.

Key Results

• 1.33M bookings processed in the first 9 months of joining Bókun 
• 12 reseller contracts established through the Bókun Marketplace
• 50+ tour guides managed centrally through the Resource Management Centre
• 65% direct offline / 33% OTA / 1.5% direct online booking channel breakdown
• Reduced single-channel OTA dependency through diversified marketplace partnerships

When Connecting France launched in 2024, their original booking software handled the basics well enough. But as tour volume grew and the team expanded to over 50 guides, the limitations of their old system became unsustainable.

The biggest problem was resource management. Connecting France runs small groups of up to six guests per guide, so precise slot coordination is essential for every departure. Their old booking system had no way to group customers by guide or resource. The team was left monitoring bookings manually, opening and closing slots throughout the day to stay on top of capacity.

“If we had this volume that we’re having now, there’s no way we would have been able to keep up with our old system,” says Talya De La Touche, Guest Relations & Team Manager. “We had to constantly be monitoring emails, opening and closing, opening and closing.”

The commercial picture was equally fragile. Their previous system’s marketplace was too limited to connect with major platforms like Klook and Airbnb, so Connecting France had concentrated almost all of their bookings through a single OTA, a dependency that wasn’t sustainable in the long term.

 The decision to move to Bókun came when a Parisian partner company they were exploring combo sales with was already on the platform. Connecting France then decided that joining would make the partnership smoother and open new doors for growth.

Connecting France joined Bókun in September 2025, migrating during an active period with little downtime to absorb the transition. Initial setup presented a real challenge: migrating existing bookings produced some duplicate entries that required manual checks, and learning Bókun’s configurations for rates, price schedules, availability rules, and resource assignments took time that a busy operation running year-round couldn’t easily find.

What made the difference was the support team. Connecting France found that Bókun’s live chat function connected them quickly to real people who were willing to escalate to a call when needed.

“It’s a real person at the end,” says Talya. “You’re not talking to a bot trying to figure out what you’re saying.”

Bókun’s commercial contact, Nawal, was also central to the experience. “From the very beginning, Nawal was very helpful,” says Elvan Uzel Mateo, Owner & Managing Director of Connecting France. “She’s very efficient, very quick-thinking and solution-oriented, which is very comfortable for us.”

Support staff also surfaced capabilities the team hadn’t known to look for. “The creative solutions they come up with for our problems have been great,” says Talya. “Things that we didn’t even think we could do or should do, they have done for us.”

The impact of Bókun’s Resource Management Centre has been the most significant operational shift for Connecting France. The team now coordinates 50+ tour guides across multiple daily departures from a single platform, with Bókun handling capacity tracking and guide assignment in the background rather than requiring constant manual intervention.

“What helped with Bókun was the Resource Management Centre,” says Talya. “We could assign resources (our guides, who each had six people they could take), and assigning those to the slots meant that Bókun kind of did the work for us.”

On the commercial side, the Marketplace has opened up partnerships that simply weren’t accessible before. Connecting France now has 9 active reseller contracts. A combo sales partnership with a fellow Parisian operator allows both companies to share guides and capacity, extending each company’s commercial reach without adding overhead.

“We can see the light at the end of the tunnel where we’re not fully relying on one website,” says Talya. “That has shifted our business model, definitely.”

Rate flexibility has proven equally useful for a business running complex pricing across the same core products. Multiple price points, including small group rates, private tour rates, and language-specific rates, can all be managed within a single experience rather than as separate products.

“We really appreciate that we don’t have to create a separate experience to have five or six different price points for the same product,” says Talya. “That flexibility is a huge plus.”

Automated email functionality has also driven results with minimal effort. By including promotional codes in Bókun-powered booking reminders, Connecting France found that customers were returning to book additional experiences, a cross-selling mechanism that required no manual outreach.

Other Operational Improvements:

• The updated Bókun calendar consolidates all booking details, departure information, and operational notes into a single view, cutting the number of clicks required to manage daily operations.
• Centralised offline booking management reflects Connecting France’s reality: 65% of bookings arrive through direct offline channels, all now handled within the same platform.

Connecting France draws on a broad suite of Bókun’s features, each addressing a distinct aspect of running a complex, multi-guide operation in one of Europe’s busiest tourism markets.

Resource Management

The Resource Management Centre is the backbone of Connecting France’s daily operations, enabling guide assignment and capacity management across 50+ tour guides and multiple small-group departures without the manual monitoring their previous system required.

Marketplace Distribution

Bókun’s Marketplace has helped Connecting France break free from single-channel OTA reliance, with 9 reseller contracts now active and new combo sales partnerships expanding their reach across Paris.

Rate Flexibility

Managing small groups, private tours, and language-specific pricing within a single product, rather than creating separate experiences, has considerably simplified Connecting France’s product management.

Automated Email Marketing

Bókun’s automated reminder emails have given Connecting France a hands-off channel for cross-promotion, with promotional codes generating additional bookings from existing customers.

Offline Bookings

With the majority of bookings coming through direct offline channels, Bókun’s centralised system keeps the team aligned on availability across phone, email, and walk-in reservations.

Booking Widgets

Bókun’s booking widgets are embedded directly on connectingfrance.fr, enabling direct online reservations with real-time availability syncing across all channels.

Connecting France’s experience reflects a truth that fast-growing operators often encounter: the platform that worked for the business in its infancy won’t necessarily work at scale. Getting ahead of growth rather than waiting for the old system to become a bottleneck is always the right call, even when the transition takes time to settle.

“Whenever we have a problem, there is a solution,” says Elvan. “And that’s how we discovered that Bókun has a lot to offer.”

For new users, both Elvan and Talya recommend leaning on the support team early and investing in understanding the platform whenever the calendar allows. “Once it is understood,” says Elvan, “it is marvellous.”

Connecting France is a young business that needed a platform capable of keeping pace with serious growth, and they found the tools they needed with Bókun. With 50+ tour guides coordinated through the Resource Management Centre, 9 Marketplace partnerships established, and a booking channel mix that is no longer dependent on a single OTA, the foundations are firmly in place for the next chapter of growth in Paris and beyond.

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Bókun’s mission is to help your tour and activity business generate more bookings with less work. Start your free 14-day trial today to explore how our software can help you save time and grow your business.

Bókun’s mission is to help your tour and activity business generate more bookings with less work. Start your free 14-day trial today to explore our software can help you save time and grow your business.