5 Reasons Tour Operators Need Their Own Websites Discover the Benefits of an Online Business Platform

Tour operators must constantly drum up new business, attracting new clientele and promoting their tour offerings. Traditional marketing can be costly and time-consuming, but a website with a full-service suite of features and tools can lift much of the burden.

Most tour operators understand the value of a website, but few are leveraging the power of an online business platform to grow their business. While an investment in a truly expansive website will offer visible ROI, creating one doesn't have to be an expensive or tedious process.

Below, we've detailed five reasons tour operators need their own websites.

1. Build Awareness and Attract New Clients

Most people interested in booking a tour do their research online, often using mobile devices. With this in mind, tour operators should consider their website their "front door." In fact, it offers new clients a first impression of your business.

Having a professionally designed website with well-written, SEO-friendly text and high quality images is critical. Having a website that is search engine optimized will allow your website -- and your business -- to reach more eyes, as it shows up in search results.

Additionally, because more and more people are searching the web from mobile devices, it's also important to have a mobile optimized website, that remains usable from a variety of devices.

2) Make Booking Tours and Payment Easy for Customers

Obviously, your business relies on customers booking your tours and paying for them. This process can be made as easy as possible with a website that incorporates both booking tools, with automatic reminders, as well as an easy-to-use payment management system that accepts a variety of payment types and can incorporate discounts or coupons.

3) Engage Clients With CRM and Contact Management

Once a client has booked a tour on your website, it's important that you capture their information with a contact management system. This includes gathering their name, email address, and phone number.

Moreover, a smart customer relationship management (CRM) system will allow you to track user behavior on your website and create targeted marketing campaigns geared toward select customers. You can reach these customers using the information gathered by your contact management system.

4) Optimize Advertising Campaigns

If you have decided to spend money on online advertising campaigns, you can easily figure out how successful the endeavors have been with website tools that track and analyze your campaigns. If the ROI is weak, you'll have the opportunity to adjust your campaigns as needed.

5) Manage Social Media Engagement

Tour operators, like all business owners, must engage their clients on social media. Having a website that allows for social media management takes what could be a time-consuming task and makes it much simpler.

Additionally, a website that incorporates positive review integration from websites like TripAdvisor, gives your business an appearance of trustworthiness.

Creating an online business platform that incorporates these features and tools does not have to be an overwhelming experience for tour operators. While DIY website building tools exist, they are often difficult to use for people without technical backgrounds. It's also possible to hire web developers to do the work, but this can be a very expensive solution.