How an Online Business Platform Can Help Tour Operators Learn how to increase your opportunities for growth

Your tour operator business may be running like a charm -- you've lined up excellent tours of interesting places and hired the perfect staff to help run the show. Still, challenges are afoot: namely, how to attract and grow new business.

It's a challenge every tour operator faces, and it's one that can be resolved with the help of a robust online business platform.

If your tour operator business's online presence lies in a simple homepage or basic website, you could be limiting your opportunities for growth. On the other hand, an online business platform allows you to expand your business, reach new clients and connect with existing ones, and ultimately, increase revenue.

To start, a proper online business platform will grant your business a visually stunning homepage, with high-quality images and powerful written text. Having a professional main page helps build trust among potential clients. The backend of the platform will also be optimized for SEO, so search engines like Google and Bing can find it, and it will be also optimized across different browsers, and mobile devices and tablets.

Your online platform will also solidify customer engagement, which is critical for any tour operation, and offer powerful analytics so you can track the success of of your engagement as well as the effectiveness of your advertising channels. The platform also includes CRM and B2B co-marketing abilities.

Once potential customers decide to book one of your tours, an online business platform helps you capture their business with appointment scheduling tools, which will also send them reminders after they've booked. Another important facet for a tour operator may be obtaining digital signatures on contracts, which the platform also allows you to do.

An online business platform can also prove invaluable in the social media realm. Tour operators know that being active on social media can be a core driver of business. A platform can offer tools for managing social media, as well as a blog and newsletter feature to help boost SEO and build relationships with your clients. Another way to gain clients' trust is to feature reviews from sites like TripAdvisor; a platform also allows for clean integration of your positive reviews.

Finally, you need to get paid, right? A robust online business platform offers payment options that are reliable and also allow you to incorporate discounts, or to accept various forms of payment, such as gift cards.

To get set up with an online business platform that features all the bells and whistles, tour operators can try to go it alone with DIY website builders, though these typically prove tricky for folks with little to no experience building websites. In that case, it's also possible to hire a website developer to do the work, but that can be costly and time consuming.

A smart alternative lies in utilizing platform tools like Tour Operator Solutions from Ocoos. With this type of solution, you'll have access to a wealth of features, including all of the ones mentioned above. Plus, a concierge service will actually work with you and build your website for you, integrating solutions and tools that best meet your unique business needs. Once it's built, you'll have the ability to update and manage the site, and have access to 24-hour, US-based support.