Connecting to third-party distributors, such as GetYourGuide or Viator, has become an important link in the sales process for tours and activity operators that needs to be managed efficiently
Third-party distribution is a group of sales channels that tour and experience operators must be on top of. Resellers provide early bookings and information that you now need to run your tours, such as your capacity. Now, many operators find such bookings essential and consider the commissions a marketing cost that is necessary to their business. Walk-ups are increasingly unnecessary for the tours and activities sector.
Online travel agencies (OTAs) are the main channel that operators want to work with. These include the large players, such as GetYourGuide, Viator, and Musement, and specialist channels for specific activities, such as Tiqets, or languages, such as Veltra. Other resellers could include city passes, coupon and voucher providers, and your contacts, such as travel agents, hotels and DMOs.
Rather than wait until they are in-destination, travellers are making plans and decisions before they travel, Eduard Marti says. “Once travellers were in the destination, they chose their activities,” he says. “I want to do this. I want to do that. Oh, look at this. They jumped in.
“Now people have information. They have this information in their hand. They have social media — they have input. Sometimes the activity or the experience is the main reason they go somewhere. So they book first, they want to see the Vatican and then see how to get there.”
Eduard Marti, CRO at Palisis
Palisis is a reservation system for the tours, activities and experiences sector, and our TourCMS system is a channel manager. These provide the tools and connections operators need to sell their products through resellers.
Channel managers, such as TourCMS, are the connections — the pipes between the operator’s system and GetYourGuide, for example. This is carried out using a system called an API. The business relationship, or contracting, is negotiated between the two parties, or in the case of OTAs and larger resellers, you accept the terms they provide.
Marti says: “We enable these connections and we do a lot of things for operators. Sometimes they don’t know they don’t have the right people, they don’t have resources. So we become part of their digital marketing teams.
“We do everything for them — we support them. We tell them what’s the best way to set up the tool in order to perform better, how to set up the products on the OTA side so that they can show off the tour better with the goal of selling more.”
Partnering with local businesses
Partnering with local businesses in the travel industry, such as hotels and travel agencies, has always been an important driver of business for tours and activities. This captures those travellers who are still deciding what experiences they should do.
A channel manager and reservation system, such as TourCMS and Palisis, will provide these connections so that much of the work is carried out automatically, without the need for phone calls, making notes and manual invoicing. The traveller can book their experience while in their hotel, and this will automatically appear in your manifest.
“We have solutions for everything that is happening once they’re in the destination,” Marti says. “We have hardware solutions, we have points-of-sale, we have several solutions for salespeople in front of a bus, in your shop or at your kiosk. Then we have local partnering solutions. These are platforms with a login password, where a concierge at a travel agency in-destination can book on our platform directly for the traveller.”
Finding new partners
Another aspect that operators need to consider is finding new partners to sell tours through. This might be to a larger player, such as HotelBeds who would distribute your products to guests in multiple hotels, or to an agency that you recently met at a conference. You can find new prospects through the TourCMS Marketplace, and also find products from other operators that you could sell to earn incremental revenue.
“To sell more activities you have to reach out to every single customer at every single moment of the journey. At home, once they are in-destination, maybe when the customers are on the way to the destination.
Eduard Marti, CRO at Palisis
“That’s why we call it we call Palisis and TourCMS a 360 solution. We can distribute your products through all the sales channels at every point of the customer’s journey.”