Simba Sea Trips

Thailand’s award-winning boat tour operator, Simba Sea Trips, has achieved their most significant revenue boost through direct online bookings and the partnerships made through Bókun. Nearly 50% of Simba Sea Trips’ bookings come from Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) through their strategic partnership with Bókun.

Winner of Phuket’s Best Boat Tour Operator award in 2022, the company has used Bókun’s Resource Management feature to coordinate operations across 30 marketplace connections, while maintaining its reputation for premium, small-group experiences to the Phi Phi Islands and Phang Nga Bay.

Key results:

• Consistent 20% year-on-year revenue growth
• 47.8% of sales came from direct online bookings
• 44.29% of sales came from OTAs, including 34% from Viator and 9% from GetYourGuide
• 30 Bókun Marketplace connections
• Streamlined resource management across multiple boats, guides, and staff

A veteran in the travel industry, Simba Sea Trips faced challenges transitioning from a direct-bookings model to integrating OTAs and third-party platforms. After trialling multiple booking systems, they chose Bókun and have been working with us for the past two years.

“Bókun is the third booking engine we’ve used. The Marketplace initially attracted us, connecting us with a wider group of agents and helping us manage our sales channels more effectively.” – Paul Chappell, CEO of Simba Sea Trips.

Having witnessed the evolution of the tourism industry over two decades—including the impact of COVID-19—Simba Sea Trips had to adapt quickly to the new technologies and shifting customer behaviours.

“We adopted Bókun coming out of COVID, when the main challenge was getting people back into travelling and booking again. We came from the pre-COVID era of almost entirely direct bookings to today’s growing trend of users wanting to use super apps to manage their lives, including booking trips.”

Paul Chappell realised that his business needed to connect with multiple OTAs, like Viator or GetYourGuide, through one unified platform.

Like any new system, onboarding presented some challenges, but Simba Sea Trips found the Bókun implementation process efficient and well-supported.

“We have a lot of duplicate products and combo connections. It’s great that Bókun has those features built in,” says Paul. “I’d also say the help support page is really good; you can usually find the answer to whatever problem you have.”

In fact, even while building a custom API-connected website, Simba Sea Trips experienced strong support from Bókun’s team:

“We tried using Bókun in a more advanced way and needed to connect a custom website via API. That platform connected quickly, and their technical team was very responsive.” – Paul Chappell, CEO of Simba Sea Trips. 

The personalised support also stood out as a key differentiator from previous booking engines:

“I had one-on-one meetings with their developers to understand the system, something we never got with other booking engines. Usually, you’re handed the API docs and left to figure it out.”

Since joining Bókun, Simba Sea Trips has seen clear and measurable improvements. They’ve connected with 30 resellers on Marketplace, with 44.29% of bookings now coming from OTAs like Viator and GetYourGuide. Total revenue has seen consistent 20% year-on-year growth, with 47.8% of sales coming from direct online bookings via the “Book Now” button on the website.

“Bókun gave us confidence we didn’t have before. It’s easy to use, and we can track things in real time. That’s contributed to our sales growth.” – Paul Chappell, CEO of Simba Sea Trips.

Bókun also helped Simba Sea Trips to improve their internal operations, including resource allocation and financial tracking.

“The platform has maximised our use of assets. We’ve integrated PaxFlow for messaging, and Bókun connects with our accounting software, which really helps,” says Paul.  

Other Key Operational Improvements: 

• The direct online sales button on the website significantly increased bookings and accounts for nearly half of sales. 
• Streamlined business operations by integrating sales data, resource management, and financial tracking into one platform.  
• The booking engine automates the process of filtering unnecessary customer service queries with its automated customer messages. 

Simba Sea Trips fully uses Bókun’s suite of tools, from Marketplace and the Channel Manager to integrations like PaxFlow and the Combo feature.

“We started using PaxFlow for HTML-based messaging. It makes our emails look more polished. It’s great for marketing and upselling.” – Paul Chappell, CEO of Simba Sea Trips.

They also lean heavily on the Combo feature to manage high-season demand and yield management. 

“We can duplicate products, then wind back higher-commission channels during high season to reserve capacity for direct customers. That flexibility is a major improvement over our previous booking engines.” – Paul Chappell, CEO of Simba Sea Trips.

Resource Management 

Helps manage freelance guides and charter boat services so the business runs efficiently, especially during high season. 

Bókun App Store Partners (PaxFlow)

Apps like automated customer messaging and PaxFlow remove the back and forth between customers and the company, automating communications more efficiently. 

Combo Feature 

Makes managing tours easier, especially during high season when tours are in demand, as products can be duplicated and managed when there are a lot of bookings.

Working with Bókun has helped Simba Sea Trips learn the importance of diversifying and modernising their business operations.

“Marketplace has made it easy to diversify our sales channels,” says Paul, “We work with agents big and small—around the world—and know the bookings are live and ready to go.” 

Perhaps the most transformative lesson was seeing how shifting from manual bookings to a fully integrated system up-scaled and simplified their business.

”Going from Excel spreadsheets to a proper booking engine was a leap. But Bókun makes it logical, and you’ll definitely see an increase in your conversion rate. Customers now book private charters for $1,500–$2,000 without any direct contact with us or any questions: they just see it and book. You can’t have that kind of efficiency without having all that technology to do that. Anyone not using a booking engine really needs to look at what it can offer,” concludes Paul.

Simba Sea Trips has not only increased bookings and revenue, but it’s also built the infrastructure needed to scale efficiently. Bókun helped discover new OTA opportunities while simplifying back-office tasks like accounting, messaging, and resource scheduling. The tour company now has a business ready for high demand without compromising on quality, and a partnership that’s more than just about using the booking technology but about growth.

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.