5 Functions of a tour operator: How to perform efficiently?
The tour operator industry keeps changing. The thing once a competitive advantage can become obsolete. Applying technology certainly benefits tour companies
With the negative impact of COVID-19, many tour operators have suffered from huge financial losses. As the world population is recovering, the industry is looking for new opportunities to thrive again. Utilizing technology advancement is one of the most common ways to enhance the tour operators’ performances, especially in terms of software solutions. Each tour operator software serves as an assistant for the staff to implement a specific set of tasks. Let’s take a look:
Create Itineraries Within Minutes
Making multiple bookings for your clients is the oldest task in the book for a tour operator service. It is traditionally started with the tour operator making some phone calls to place his/her orders. The supplier receives the information and places the orders onto their system. If there are any changes regarding the number of visitors, the upgrade request, or any species of change, the importance of tour operators will have to collect from time to time and make the same phone calls to update the supplier. The process goes on-and-on that it may take days to complete.
The traditional process is so lengthy. For the last five years, as the developers stepped in to provide solutions, itinerary creation has become much more convenient. These software solutions are designed to optimize the process and boost productivity for tour operators since many steps now occur automatically. Tourism professionals can now create itineraries in minutes with five main categories included in the software development process: accommodation, activity, transportation, fees and insurance, destination information. You can also use single software for hotel reservations or travel booking system.
Some main features include client proposal supporting, booking request sending, flexible quotation making, client-tour operator easy sharing, etc. In the software market, there are some names to consider when you want to reform your business to be a travel tech company: Minim, VacationLabs, Travefy, and TripCreator.
Build A Price Proposal That Is Always Up-to-date
Pricing from your suppliers can regularly change due to seasonal changes or market fluctuations. Therefore, it is wise to keep yourself up to date with all the new quotations. Traditionally, while you have to directly meet or ask for quotes every time you place an order, in the software sector, things are more straightforward — directly open the software/application.
This real-time price update feature serves as an assistant for travel agencies and tour operators to efficiently build a price proposal without taking too much time checking with suppliers. It saves time calling or emailing and provides an advantage of time-effectiveness and price accuracy for your company. Clients will see your company as a reliable and smart tour operator that they can trust with your money.
Here are some software suggestions (the pricing update feature works quite well) for your own choice: Travefy, My Tours, Tourplan, Peak 15.
Manage Suppliers Efficiently
Besides pricing, you also need to control all payments and bookings with your suppliers. The best tour companies have thousands of bookings per month. As a result, there is a high chance of your staff making mistakes when processing payment and booking with suppliers. A platform such as a specialized custom software will centralize information and make it more transparent for all related parties to see. This way, you can reduce human errors and also can act in a timely manner if unwanted incidents happen.
The above software suggestions all include this feature. You might want to try 3–4 demos before deciding what works and what does not work for your company.
Develop An Effective CRM System
As some software can be the tour booking platform itself for customers, it is necessary to exploit this channel to legitimately dig for customer’s data legitimately. For the customer side, it is inevitable that speed, accuracy, and frequency are three of the most important factors influencing your relationships. With speed, when the software sees the behavior pattern of a customer keeps searching for a specific thing, it can come up with immediate suggestions for appropriate reactions. Accuracy and frequency also can be improved with the machine-learning feature.
Some tour operator software solution will support you in storing customers’ data securely and provide you with valuable insights to maintain close relationships. You can have a custom-made software to serve your own needs in taking care of your customers.
The most popular CRM software solution are HubSpot, Salesforce, ITours.
Generate a Smart Business Report
Like every business, a tour operator company has weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual reports to reflect the company’s performance. These reports usually take time to generate with the burden of collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing data by hand. Going through this not only kills the company productivity but also prevents the tour companies from keeping up with the market. Developing software is a perfect alternative solution with data collected every day and reports generated whenever you want. They can give you accurate insights and recommendations so that you can take action immediately within the platform.
Conclusion
In the era of technology innovation and in the midst of COVID-19, it is essential for tour operators to keep learning and following with the most updated tools to develop powerful businesses. In each step, there will always be a “better” way of conducting work, and new tour operator software is there to help you achieve your goals. Take it into consideration, check it with your current situation, and apply it to the working process.
