Blog Layout
Top-of-mind for travelers post-COVID
Jolyn Ng • Jun 23, 2020
Prepare your business to meet new travel needs
Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard many positive news about market reopenings and signs of travel returning. Your customers are raring to go out and experience a destination again, with 63% already planning and researching their potential trip
according to a recent survey of Tripadvisor travelers. But are things going to return to where they were before? Would it be a simple pick-up-from-where-it-left-off? The answer is a resounding no.
While your customers are excited to travel again, it comes with a whole new set of considerations before they book a trip. For instance, they’d want to avoid COVID hot spots and crowded places, preferring destinations that follow strict health and safety protocols. Even the type of travel, the flexibility in terms of booking and cancellation, as well as booking methods are some areas of tourism that could change overnight, based on a whitepaper conducted by Tripadvisor.
Travel after the pandemic will definitely look different for all sectors of the industry. Airlines have put in place enhanced hygiene measures and cancellation/refund policy. Hotels have looked into contactless service and cleaning robots as precautions. And as tours and activities operators, it’s time for you to adapt to meet the new travel needs too.
We’ve listed a few action items in our earlier post
that you can add to your to-do list. This includes arming your team with protective equipment, implementing a cleaning and disinfecting policy, and even adjusting your business operations accordingly. Read more for a full checklist.
As you have those measures in place, do not forget to communicate that with your customers and give them a peace of mind when booking with you. Update your Bókun account with all of the new changes and information.
- Product description: When potential customers are researching and comparison shopping, you need to help them feel confident and safe about your business. Use your product descriptions to add details about safety measures you have in place.
- Availability: The benefit of using Bókun is you only need to update your availability in one place — your Bókun account. But that means it is crucial that the availability listed in your Bókun account is accurate. It will be reflected across everywhere you’re connected to and selling, be that OTAs like Viator or Expedia or your website.
- Pricing: If you are amending your products to be private tours, you may want to consider adjusting pricing accordingly.
- Capacity: Make sure to factor social distancing and other local requirements into your capacity allowance.
- Cancellation policy: Travelers will look for a more flexible cancellation/refund policy before they book, so consider modifying that accordingly.
Tours and activities operators may now have the added responsibility to ensure your travelers obey local public health requirements. But if done right, this would be an opportunity for you to bring back your customers again.
Share this article
Read More:
Our guide reviews 7 popular tour operator software for small teams. We cover Bókun, Regiondo, Checkfront, FareHarbor, and more. Compare 2024's top options.
Our guide reviews eight popular Regiondo alternatives, with options for tour operators at all growth stages. We review Bókun, Travelotopos, Trekksoft, & more.
Our guide reviews five top-rated wine tour booking software, including Bókun, Vintrail, Rezdy & more. We also discuss what to look for when comparing options.
Our post reviews 8 top-rated Trekksoft alternatives, including tour operator software like Bókun, Peek Pro, Rezdy & more. Compare 2024's popular options.
Our guide reviews the steps and best practices to create tour packages — and the software you need to connect with partners & manage packages effectively.
We have just released a new feature to take the hard work out of mass updates and unplanned changes to tours, saving time and allowing operators to focus on growing their business. Departure management is a powerful tool that allows operators to disrupt entire tour bookings at once and keep customers informed of changes. It includes mass mail, disruption management, customer portals and mass cancellation - all within the Bókun booking calendar.
Our guide reviews 10 digital strategies to market your tour company. We include a mix of free & paid tips, with advice on how to keep costs low as you grow.
Venice Tours offers local experiences in Venice and is one of Bókun’s key accounts. Their main goal when they contacted us was to increase the sales of their tours significantly. They took advantage of Bókun’s features to connect to a vast network of resellers and Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). In this case study, we review how Venice Tours’ sales success was achieved through Bókun’s Channel Manager API. We will detail how with the help of Technology Partner, Datagest, Venice Tours was able to connect via API without any cost to resources on their side.
Our post walks through the steps to sell tours on Viator. We also discuss our Viator partnership and the perks of using Viator + Bókun as complementary tools.
The innate urge to search for new and unique experiences is one of the biggest trends among travellers in 2024, with 89% admitting that they want to visit a destination they have never been to. However, in the wake of social media, it feels like no stone has been left unturned, being showcased online and coined as a “hidden gem” for either TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. Currently, more than 180,000 posts exist under the tag #HiddenGem on TikTok. Whilst the TikTok tag is helping to bring attention to some of the lesser-travelled destinations, it can often be hard for travellers to plan an entire trip around a single viral video. To help travellers make the jump from their phones to the real world, Bókun is sharing the best localised hidden gems worldwide based on real consumer reviews. The study analysed over 1,000 destinations on Tripadvisor, where consumers referred to a location as a ‘hidden gem’ to reveal what and where these secret travel gems are around the world. England revealed as the world's biggest hidden gem hoarder
We know tours & activities
Online Booking Engine • Channel Management
Inventory & Resource Management
B2B Marketplace • Reporting • Websites
Reykjavík • Needham • Singapore • Oxford
Quick links & Resources
