Content is easy to think about.

Let me rephrase that. Content is really easy to think about.

And since the advent of internet, there is no shortage of it anywhere online. One of the easiest things to do when establishing your brand is to fill up a website with some words and pretty visuals. And frankly, it's a lot of fun.

It's also very noisy and with all of that content floating around, it can be hard to stand out. Especially when it comes to selling something. 

Let me ask you this: Do you know how your sales and marketing efforts are translating into actual bookings and profits for your company? Can you tell me which marketing channels are bringing in the most results? How are you measuring your performance? Do you know what your numbers are telling you?

At the end of the day, you can't manage what you don't measure. 

Regardless of how you're tracking your monthly bookings and sales, you need to make time each month to review your numbers to get an overview of your performance. 

To make life a little easier, we've created a system to help you keep track of your monthly performance. 

Each customer has their own idea of what their trip should look like. Today's traveler is looking for an experience that feels authentic and one of a kind. One of the best ways a tour or activity provider can do this is by offering a customizable tour. 

But that's a lot of work. Building standard offers to fit your existing audience is challenging enough, without adding custom requests into the mix. It can be a lot of paperwork, and several hours spent planning over Excel sheets, your calendar, and every productivity tool you can get your hands on. 

But there's a simpler way. In this article we'll talk about how TrekkSoft can help you create the tailor-fitted tours your customers are looking for.

There are many aspects to growing a tour and activity business. Your tours or activities are just one part of it. There's also other parts to your business like operations, logistics, marketing and distribution to consider. One area you need to constantly work on is distribution and promotion. 

Working on your distribution channels and figuring out which works for your market and trips is key to taking your business to the next level. 

Here are 10 channels you should think about promoting your tours on:

It doesn't matter which industry you're in, if you're selling something a sale is always a practical way to drive more business. It's especially useful in the seasons when consumers are expecting to find good deals. For most industries, this usually happens at the end of a season.  

This is why at the end of summer, for example, you'll always find discounts on services and merchandise. It's a smart way for businesses to squeeze the last bit of revenue out of their most popular seasons and prepare for the new ones ahead. A popular model, especially in online marketing, is to have a flash sale.  

Working with agents and resellers can be good for your business, especially since its their job to sell the right trips to the right customers. Plus, they can help you secure more last-minute bookings from travellers already in your destination.

On the other hand, it can tricky when you work with multiple agents and resellers, from a hotel concierge down the road to a large travel retailer on the other side of the planet. It can be difficult to keep track of all the moving parts in your business like the number of bookings made by each agent, customer information collected, commission that needs to be paid out, and so on. 

To make this business relationship more profitable for both parties, here are some tips and tricks to help you out. 

This is a guest post by Samantha Scott, Content Director from Stride Travel, the world’s largest search & reviews site for tours and adventure trips.. 

“Hey let’s try that new restaurant - they say they’re great, and I trust them because they’re a business.” Said no one ever.

“Hey, my friend recommended this place, we should check it out.” Say a lot of people.

Humans are hardwired to take the word of their friends over that of a business entity, and nowhere is this propensity more obvious than the present day.

With the popularity of sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, the word of the “common, regular, person” has become easier to find and is exponentially more powerful. What has been realized as these sources gain popularity, is that users value the third party aspect.

Since the majority of businesses in the tourism industry are business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, they need to advertise more. Which means most of them can forget about LinkedIn since it’s almost exclusively a business-to-business (B2B) platform.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still have a presence there.

You know that it’s great to meet your peers at trade shows and conferences to let people know you exist. You attend them maybe once or twice a year, right? Well, your LinkedIn activity can get your name and business in front of the right eyes on a weekly basis. To do this, you have to remain active, so here are six ways you can do it.

The biggest challenge tour and activity operators face to maintain profitability is seasonality. In the high season, profits come easily while in the low season, most companies barely get by, some even close their doors till the following high season. 

This means that operators need to squeeze out as much as they can over the high season to see themselves through the slower months. One way to do this is by implementing yield management, a clever pricing strategy that makes the most of your fluctuating demand.

But what is yield management and how can it help tour and activity operators? Let's find out. 

In the tour and activity sector, it is common for companies to work together to deliver a more fulfilling experience to travellers.

For example, a surf camp may work with a transfer company to pick up passengers from the airport and send them to the camp site. At the same time, camp organisers can also promote day tours run by external operators to give customers more activities to do when they're not by the sea. 

From that example alone, you can see how different businesses tend to work together to provide customers with a variety of experiences throughout their holiday.