Blog Layout
Why reducing your cut-off time will result in more bookings
Erin Gunnuscio • Mar 12, 2020
Reducing cutoff time led to 32% increase in last-minute bookings
There’s nothing that today’s traveler appreciates more than flexibility. Now more than ever, travelers are choosing to wait until the last minute to book their tours and activities. And they’re doing it on their mobile phones, sometimes before they board their flights or once they’ve arrived in their destination.
So, how can you make this last-minute booking trend work for you? By lowering your booking cutoff time — the amount of time a traveler can book before an experience actually begins. Consider taking bookings right up until the start time of your experience.
You may have heard that we recently adjusted the default booking cutoff time for all experiences on Bókun to four hours. Why did we make this change? We analyzed buying trends and saw the demand for last-minute tours and activities was only increasing. We then looked at what was most realistic for our partners and determined that four hours was the booking cutoff time with the best increase in conversion rate with the least impact on suppliers’ business operations.
Within two weeks of making this change, we saw a 32% increase in last-minute bookings and a 6% increase in overall bookings
for tours and activities that reduced their booking cutoff time to less than four hours.
A cutoff time of four hours or less gives you the ability to attract travelers who are shopping for last-minute activities. The shorter cutoff time you require, the more nimble your business becomes. Whether it’s peak season and you’re at your busiest, or it’s a time of uncertainty and bookings are in flux like today, a lower cutoff time gives you more potential for bookings.
To adjust booking cutoff time, log in to your Bókun account, select the Experience you want to change, then select Availability > Booking cutoff in the left-hand navigation. Need help adjusting multiple products? Contact us at support@bokun.io, and we can help.
Share this article
Read More:
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
Our post reviews five top-rated charter boat booking software in 2024 — including Bókun, FareHarbor, & more. Compare software solutions to find the right one.
Our guide reviews ten strategies to expand your reach & book more tour reservations. We also cover our best practices to support business as you get busier.
Within their first year of working with Bókun, Railbiking in Greece doubled their sales as they turned their website into a bookable one. Their unique outdoor tours, which take travellers to disused railway lines in Greece with specially designed bicycles, frequently sell out–even after increasing prices–allowing Railbiking in Greece to focus on curating their experiences and growth while Bókun handles the bookings.
We know tours & activities
Online Booking Engine • Channel Management
Inventory & Resource Management
B2B Marketplace • Reporting • Websites
Reykjavík • Needham • Singapore • Oxford
Quick links & Resources
