How to Choose your Tour Operator Booking Software

By Mitch Bach•Published On: January 2nd, 2022•8 min read•

One of the biggest questions that new tour operators ask themselves is, which tour booking software should I use? It’s one of the most important and frequent questions we get as hundreds of our students work through our Start and Grow a Tour Business online course. There’s no simple, obvious answer, except: it depends!

And since many operators have recently had more time than they wish they had, people are asking whether they are using the best platform, or whether they should change. Ask the question what is the best platform to 10 operators, and you very well might get 15 different answers.

Booking software is only a relatively recent invention (the earliest incarnations are less than 20 years old), and it’s just really in the past decade in particular that reservation technology has been on the minds of tour operators, as 100+ companies have begun offering competing versions of software that all claims to be special and different. It leaves the small operator confused!

So let’s dive in to what it is, exactly, and list some example companies for you to explore. In a separate post, we’ll help you ask the question: how should I decide which software to use?

What do we mean by tour booking software?

Booking software is sometimes called reservation technology or ResTech if you’re hip. In very general terms, booking software:

is a cloud-based web service you sign up for, and integrates into your website through code or a plugin
allows you to accept online payments for your tour or activity business (charging you a card processing fee)
takes a commission and/or charges you a monthly fee for their general services (above and beyond the credit card fee, even if it’s combined)
lets you manage your tour schedule and bookings
often connects with OTAs (online travel agencies) like Viator and GetYourGuide and other sales channels, so sales on those websites automatically show up in your booking software, allowing you to keep track of bookings across multiple channels in one place.

Most booking software does a LOT more than that.

A few important notes about what booking software is not:

Booking software is what it says; it helps you with your bookings. There’s a lot of other software out there. It is not:

CRM software — like Hubspot or Pipedrive or Nutshell, that help you organize communication and sales with your clients. Some restech solutions are better at acting like a lite version of a CRM than others.
Email automation software — booking software will help you email your clients before and after a tour (transactional emails), but they won’t help you with advanced segmenting of your audiences and automating behavior-triggered marketing emails. You’ll need something like Drip or Mailerlite or Activecampaign for that. Booking tech does often connect via Zapier with your email solutions.
Travel Agent Software — if you search for travel software, you’ll get a lot of packages aimed at travel agents. Different set of features, although some overlap.
Itinerary planning software — solutions like Travefy and Proposify and Wetu help you craft custom itineraries and deliver proposals to clients. Some multi-day booking software does a version of this.
Full-Featured Tour Operator Software — consider this the difference, for example, between Peek Pro and Peak 15 (not related). Peek Pro does a great job of handling all the complex needs of your day tour business. Peak 15 presents itself as an all-in-one solution for your business needs, covering everything from trip planning, vendor contracting, operations, sales, accounting and more. Peek Pro charges a small percentage of a booking. Peak 15 starts at $200/month. Tour operator software might be just what you need, but it’s just as likely that it’s overkill.

How to get started choosing a platform?

Browse the company websites of the list below, to get a feel for what’s out there.
Explore fellow tour operator websites in your niche, and see what platforms they’re using. Try the checkout process for a tour, and ask yourself as a customer whether it feels natural and easy.
Explore the Meet the ResTech video interviews created by Shane Whaley of Tourpreneur. Shane interviews real tour operators + representatives of the tech companies as they demo the product.
Understand the landscape of day and multi-day tours by reading articles by Arival, like this one.
Finally, Make a list of the criteria you need. This is the most important step of all, and often the most neglected!

Do you need to use one of these services? Am I missing out? Are there alternatives?

Ok. Deep breath. Let’s start by saying: you absolutely do not need one, you’re not alone if you don’t use a service. In fact, the largest restech company, Fareharbor, claims 15,000 clients. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 500,000-1 million tour operators estimated by Arival.

You should use booking software they it makes running your business much smoother, and attracts customers by the ease of booking. However, there are a lot of small operators who don’t need to pay extra for the software, because some free or low-cost alternatives might work just fine.

Some operators use Wordpress plugins like Bookly (a one-time fee of $89), or Square Appointments, which only charges the cost of the credit card transaction. Where these plugins fall short is their feature set specifically for tour operators, and you might find a big difference in 3% fee charged by Square, and the 6% charged by Peek or Fareharbor, when it comes to the features that will make your life easier, especially as you grow.

List of some tour operator software companies:

If you’re new to tour booking software, start by exploring the websites of companies. Below is a list of reservation technology companies that specialize in tour operators. This is not exhaustive — there are over a hundred of them! These are in no particular order. There are certainly a lot more companies out there, but researching these will help you start to get a handle on the kinds of options you have.

Peek Pro – raised $80M in funding, they have a lot of features for adventure/activity operators in particular, but work with everyone.
Fareharbor – owned by Booking.com, largest customer base, offer a free basic website.
Bokun – owned by TripAdvisor, charges a monthly fee.
Rezdy – known for their extensive channel manager.
WeTravel – excellent for handling booking process for multi-day tours, which includes deposits, recurring payment plans and more.
YouLi – also for multi-day tours, handles creation passenger documents, too.
Origin – working to make guide scheduling easier for adventure operators
Bookingkit
Trekksoft
Checkfront
Xola
Bookeo
Orioly
Rezgo

(yes I know there are many many more, this is just a snapshot!)