Throughout the pandemic, many tour operators and experience providers have been severely hit, both emotionally and financially. With things starting to open up again across the world, many are worried about how they can attract customers on limited budgets. 

Well today, to help the many operators in this situation, I am announcing something that no other marketing agency in our sector offers. TMA now provides a free WordPress website for your tourism business with every marketing package we offer… even our entry level package.

The Benefits of a WordPress Website for Tour Operators

While we are offering these websites for free, they do not use some second-rate template. 

On the contrary, the template we use provides a fantastic platform to better showcase your tours and activities, your brand, and your team, as well as providing a better platform for SEO. 

Not only that, it can either integrate with many widgets from existing reservation systems or you can use the website’s own internal booking and availability calendar for seamless sales.

We have seen many reservation and booking systems offer free websites, but you do not own them. If you decide to move to a new booking platform, you can’t take the site with you. We always want tour providers to maintain control over their businesses and to have more say in their own success.

With our solution, you fully own the website and we are happy to show you how everything works, giving you even more control over the aesthetics and functionality of your own business (if you’d like to learn).

And even if you decide to leave TMA — for whatever reason — the website is yours to keep. While you are with us, we can host, maintain, and provide support on an ongoing basis. If you ever leave, we can continue to host your site for a fee or you can choose to take your site and hosting elsewhere. It’s all in your control!

Example Websites

Why are we offering a free website?

On top of the financial situation many tour operators face due to the pandemic, we have noticed a troubling trend with many operators’ websites. We have had many operators come to us for help with marketing, but their websites are in such a sorry state that they are unfit to use as a platform from which to market tours and activities. 

We refuse to spend any operator’s hard earned cash on marketing if their website is not up to the task. However, many operators do not have the means to rebuild their site, so they are left in a state of limbo. They’re unable to effectively attract customers with the site they have and cannot capture the bookings they are looking for to increase their revenue.

Our ethos has always been to help the tours and activities industry grow, helping as many operators as possible. Today’s announcement is an extension of this ethos.

We have all been left devastated with the covid pandemic and we are all looking for ways to dust ourselves off and fight for the sector we love. With this shift in our marketing options, it is, in some small way, our way to offer additional help.

If you want more details or are interested in this offer, please do get in touch and we will be happy to help.

The post A Free Tour Operator Website Offering You Full Control appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The team at TMA is extremely excited to announce the launch of our new website!

This new website better highlights how we can help tour and activity providers market themselves more effectively. We also showcase many new case studies that highlight our successes, even during a global pandemic. So much has changed for us over the last few years, and this new site better represents who we are and what we are capable of. 

Complete Transparency

We have always been upfront and transparent with the operators we help, and today we are taking this one step further. Our new website now details the packages we offer and all our prices. Compared with many other agencies, we charge very competitive rates while providing a comprehensive list of services.

Success Stories

Our new success stories section better highlights some of the operators we have helped. We made a conscious decision to mostly highlight recent successes so that you can see how effective the Tourism Marketing Agency can be — even during the devastating effects of the last 18 months. Our recent success is a credit to the hard work and expertise of the team here at TMA. More stories to come shortly.

And to all the operators that stood by us during these uncertain times, we all thank you for your belief in us. It truly means a lot.

The Digital Tourism Show

With the new website comes a better platform to showcase The Digital Tourism Show, the podcast series created and run by our founder, Chris Torres. Up-to-date with all episodes, you can now filter these episodes to find the topic that best suits your needs. We also have a site search function that will help you find what you need.

New Content to Inspire and Educate

As some of you will already know, Chris has made it his personal mission to educate the tours and activities sector in all-things branding and marketing, often with free access to meaningful content, advice, and guides. Our new website will serve as the platform for lots of new articles, videos, and advice that Chris and the team at TMA are working on. Expect a huge library of content and research to be uploaded in the coming weeks and months.

If you have any questions or would like to become part of our family here at TMA, please do get in touch.

The post TMA’s New Site Launch appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The Glasgow Travel Massive aims to provide a supportive and welcoming community where travel enthusiasts and professionals can get together to discuss travel trends, improve skills and build meaningful relationships in a fun and inclusive environment. 

Our regular events are open to anyone involved in, and passionate about travel and tourism including individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs, bloggers, vloggers, photographers, media, travel brands, industry enthusiasts, tour operators, hospitality professionals and PRs.

Join our community and gain access to attend our confirmed upcoming free events in 2020…

Tuesday 25th February 2020

Vikki Bruce, MacLean & Bruce – Creating Tailor Made, Luxury Whisky Tours for International and Royal Guests

Joshua Ryan-Saha, University of Edinburgh – How Data, Big or Small, Can Help Grow your Tourism Business

Register for this event.

Tuesday 31st March 2020

Emma Jamieson, The Edinburgh Dungeon – How The Edinburgh Dungeon Had Kept Scaring Visitors For 20 Years

Jessica Gregory, Arival – Tours, Activities & Attractions: Ten Trends for 2020 and Beyond

Register for this event.

Tuesday 21st April 2020

Chris Newlands, Spelfie – How Taking Selfie’s from Space has Grown my Business to Stratospheric Heights

Peter Syme, Disrupt Travel – Startup Scene inTours and Activities. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Register for the event here.

Tuesday 26th May 2020

Chris Wain, Unique Adventure Tours Scotland – Starting a New Tour Business in Scotland… the Pitfalls, Challenges and Successes

Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Visit Scotland – Digital Marketing Dundamentals… be Visible in Those Right Moments.

Register for this event.

Tuesday 30th June 2020

Peter Trowles, Cultural Perspectives – The Cultural Rebirth of Glasgow and How it’s Perceived Internationally

Paul Semple, General Manager of Waverley Excursions Ltd – What it Took to Preserve The Waverley, the World’s Last Seagoing Paddle Steame

Register for this event.

Tuesday 28th July 2020

Cat Leaver, Brand Scotland – How Brand Scotland are Shaping the Destination in 2020 and Beyond

Gemma Armit, Two Scots Abroad Travel Guides + Make Traffic Happen – The Art of Public Speaking and How it Can Help Grow Your Tourism Business

Register for this event.

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Join the Travel Massive Glasgow Community appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

At TMA, it’s our on-going ambition as a specialist tourism marketing agency (it’s in the name) to innovate in our field, but also to share our expertise with the wider tourism community. It’s why we put a lot of work into running the Glasgow Chapter of Travel Massive, and it’s why our founder, Chris Torres, has been giving workshops and lectures in colleges and organisations around the world. Recently, Chris gave a workshop in Barcelona, and he gave a similar workshop this week closer to home, at City of Glasgow College. Speaking to 17 and 18-year-old students studying various disciplines relating to tourism, Chris discussed the important of video to the tourism marketing sphere.

Looking at how to use video in tourism marketing

At the talk, Chris explored the importance of using video effectively in tourism marketing. He showed examples from various different sources and of people using several different kinds of hardware. Showing footage captured on iPhones and professional cameras alike, Chris explored why different kinds of videos can be successful marketing tools for the tourism industry, and that it’s not always about 4K, ultra-crisp visuals.

Chris also looked at footage captured by customers on tours and experiences; this kind of video has its own marketing purposes and can be a very powerful tool if leveraged correctly. While a room full of young, aspiring marketers no doubt appreciated the importance of video marketing on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, it was a good opportunity for them to learn from someone who has been working in the industry for almost 20 years. 

How to create content ideas from skills within a business

Chris also acknowledged that the quality of the video means very little if you don’t have a good concept to back it up. Drawing from some of the lessons in his book, Lookers into Bookers, Chris taught the students how they can generate a powerful list of content ideas from the skills you already have within your business. In fact, in his book, Chris explains how you can create 100 different content opportunities from one video and he covered this topic in his workshop with the City of Glasgow College students. 

So, how did the lecture go?

The students seemed engaged throughout, and there were plenty of questions at the end. Chris said it was a pleasure to be able to give a talk in his home town of Glasgow, and that he was pleased to see a lot of very promising talent that will be moving into Glasgow’s tourism marketing sphere within the next few years. But perhaps the best metric for judging the success of the lecture is to look at the number of people who signed up to the Glasgow Chapter of Travel Massive! Chris suggested, in passing, that they should sign up, and over 20 students had joined within an hour! We’ll be glad for the fresh faces at the next Travel Massive event in January at the Radisson Red on Finnieston Quay. It’s completely free to sign up and attend the event, so please come along if you’re interested.

If you’d like to invite Chris to give a lecture at your organisation, or if you’d like to work with Chris and the rest of the team here at the Tourism Marketing Agency, then please feel free to get in touch. The new year could be the start of your new marketing campaign, and we can help ensure 2020 gets off to a flying start!

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post TMA Giving a Lecture at City of Glasgow College appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The Glasgow Chapter is growing every month and we are extremely pleased to announce that we have climbed to 6^th place in the global travel massive rankings, putting us just below New York and above Dublin, San Francisco, Edinburgh, and Bangkok. We’re putting our success down to the dedication of our members who attend every month and the quality of our quest speakers — and September’s speakers were two of the best yet: we listened to (and questioned) Wes Beard from Total Chatbots and David Bulloch from Travelport!

Debunking Myths About Chatbots — Wes Beard from Total Chatbots

The first speaker of the evening was Wes Beard, the Sales Director at Total Chatbots — a chatbot specialist company based in Clockwise Offices on Renfrew Street. It was fantastic to get Wes in to talk to us about chatbots as it’s an undeniably relevant topic for the tourism industry and it was extremely useful for our members to be able to ask practical questions and receive practical answers.

Wes gave a presentation with the intention of debunking the myths about chatbots, and the first thing he did was recognise that many people have had frustrating experiences with ‘bad’ chatbots, and he explained that good chatbots really do exist and that they are extremely useful. Wes went on to explain why chatbots are such a powerful tool for modern businesses:

• They’re available 24/7
• They don’t take days off work
• They can manage several conversations at the same time
• They maintain brand consistency
• They can integrate across multiple channels (website, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc)

Wes explained many of the key principles of good chatbot design, which included understanding your customers’ objectives (and your own business objectives), designing good conversation flow, creating good A.I, using good data, and imbuing your chatbot’s language with plenty of on-brand personality. Wes also explained the recent stats that showed chat and text-based interactions were on the same current level as social media and that they are predicted to overtake social media within the next two years.

He also gave us recent stats that illustrated how receptive younger audiences are to chatbots — how they actually prefer the medium to having a conversation over the phone. Wes explained how businesses can use chatbots as a marketing tool and he made this especially relevant to the tourism sector. It was great having Wes in to talk to us, and we’re sure that by the end of his presentation everyone was significantly more convinced about the application and usefulness of chatbots.

Connecting and Promoting your Products Through Global Travel Agencies — David Bulloch from Travelport

The second speaker of the evening was David Bulloch from Travelport, who had come in to take part in an informal Q&A with Chris Torres, our Travel Massive chapter leader and the founder of TMA. Chris asked David a range of questions about Travelport’s extensive collection of tourism-centric tools and services. Travelport is a huge company — the biggest we’ve had here at Travel Massive Glasgow, so it was great for our members to get a little more insight into how the big players work.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with Travelport, it might interest you to know that they work with 400 airlines, 650K hotels, and 37K car hire companies. We suggest checking out their website (link above). Travelport works across every aspect of travel, but usually for larger companies who need bespoke tools and services. A large part of their work involves connecting mutually supporting services — which involves identifying what kinds of services customers need at different points into their holiday-planning process. If someone has booked flights, what other services are they still looking for? Car rental? Accommodation? Day tours? At what point in the customer’s buyer journey should you put these other travel services in front of them? It’s these kinds of concerns that David addressed in the Q&A. 

David answered many of Chris’s questions and some astute questions from the Travel Massive audience. We covered the various tools and ideas Travelport uses and we also delved into the world of destination marketing. In relation to tourism marketing, David mirrored Sumner Redstone’s old adage that ‘Content is King’ — an idea that has fully permeated the SEO industry. There was far too much to cover with David in such a short period, so the Q&A felt a little more like a teaser into the illustrious world of high-end travel technologies. Perhaps we can tempt David back in the future and go into a little more depth about a specific topic.

November’s Travel Massive Glasgow Event

Unfortunately, Chris Torres and Jess Gregory are away at Arival’s big Orlando in-destination tourism event at the end of October, so we aren’t meeting in October. That means that the next big meet-up for Travel Massive Glasgow is in November. We are meeting at the Radisson Red on Finneston Quay where we’ll hear from Lee McGregor from Mitchell MacGregor Public Relations and Matt Smith from Primal Adventures. Register for November’s event here.  We’re looking forward to November, but please don’t wait until then to get in touch if you have any questions — either about Travel Massive or about TMA working with you to improve your digital marketing potential. 

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Travel Massive Glasgow’s September Event appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

I’ve written this blog to help inform anyone thinking about going to one of Arival’s events. My advice is to get your finger out and just do it — you won’t regret it. For me and the Tourism Marketing Agency team, Arival is, hands down, the best event dedicated to tours and activities.

What is Arival?

Some of you may be asking “What is Arival?”.  Arival is the brainchild of Alex Kremer, Douglas Quinby and Bruce Rosard who have over 50 years’ industry experience behind them. Alex is the co-founder or Redeam, a channel manager serving activities and attraction operators, Douglas was the Senior Vice President of research at Phocuswright, and Bruce was also at Phocuswright collaborating with Douglas as well as managing his own successful tour business.

These guys have lived and breathed the tour and activity sector and felt it was time that someone created an event/convention dedicated to the best part of travel. If you’re interested, you should read more about Arival’s mission on the website.

Conventions Made Specifically for Tour Operators

For those of us who travel the event circuit, visiting the likes of WTM, ITB, Fitur, and many others, it is abundantly clear that the tour and activity sector is more of an afterthought at these events. They are more focused on destinations than on individual suppliers. Arival flips this on its head by providing talks with key industry figures like Dermot Halpin of TripAdvisor, Christian Watts of Magpie Travel, and Jason Morehouse of Checkfront, and by organising many other expert speakers from a wide range of niches and technology platforms. 

Everything Arival includes in its events is all done to help guests understand what’s happening in the tours and activities market and how they can grow their tour business.

I personally love the event as I get to help and advise business owners either face-to-face or through workshops — and I love finding out months later that my advice has helped some businesses on their journey. This is the reason that the upcoming event in Orlando will be our third time at Arival.

I understand that the cost of getting there, accommodation, and entry may seem like a lot — especially when you combine this with the time you ‘lose’ managing your business. But I guarantee you will gain far more back from Arival in terms of advice, growth, development and business connections.

Understanding Tour Operators

My own business has helped many who have attended past Arival events and we have been lucky enough to count some other guest companies as partners. Arival has helped us grow and better understand the pain points that tour operators and suppliers face. It is why we are already planning our visit to Arival Berlin next March— which happens to be over my 45 birthday, so extra special celebrations will be on hand.

If you are going to Arival, or are thinking about it, please feel free to book in a chat with me and/or Jessica. We’re happy to meet and chat before, during, or after the event. Register your interest here.

If you want to register for Arival, you can do so here.

Both Jessica and I look forward to meeting you there!

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Why you will love Arival as much as we do appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The turnout was great and we had two great speakers and plenty of lively discussion. For those who missed it, we’d like to summarise some of what the speakers said last night and to reflect on the evening — hopefully encouraging a few readers to attend August’s TMG event, which will be held on the 25^thof August, at Cathedral House at 6.30pm.

A Wee Note About Everyman Glasgow

Everyone who turned up for last night’s event was suitably impressed with the venue. It is a specialist cinema on the ground floor of Princes Square, on Buchanan St. The food was great and the general atmosphere was a perfect fit for our event. There was plenty of conversation and debate in the bar before we went into the luxurious cinema screen room. The manager told us about Everyman and opened up a short Q&A to the ever-curious Travel Massive members. You can read more about Everyman and decide whether you want to organise a corporate event there, a big birthday party, or just attend a film screening. 

Chris Torres — An Effective Facebook Ad Funnel (Driving awareness and leads on a budget)

Anyone who has attended one or two Travel Massive Glasgow events knows that Chris is the chapter leader. Chris usually introduces the speakers, leads the Q&A sessions with guests, and records everything to share it online at a later date. However, Chris has recently written a book titled How to Turn Your Online Lookers into Bookers and he decided it would be a great idea to adapt a chapter of the book into a practical guide to using Facebook Ads to make an effective ad funnel. Lookers into Bookers is the first book of its kind as it is focused purely on marketing for the tours and activities sector. You can find out more about Lookers into Bookers by clicking the link.

Chris began his presentation by stating the purpose of his ad funnel: to build up email lists, traffic to the site, and Facebook followers. Chris then went into the process in a lot of detail, explaining each stage as he went along. He emphasised how important it is that tour operators using Facebook Ads don’t take their ads down after a few days when it seems like they aren’t working. This is because Facebook has a learning phase where its sophisticated algorithm takes a while to figure out the exact audience in which to show your ad to. Of course, the better you set up the ad, the quicker it starts to work, but it is important to be patient even when it seems like the ad simply isn’t going to work. 

Chris also emphasised the importance of soft selling on Facebook and he explained how and why it is always a better angle to take on Facebook and in the tours and activities sector in general. Then, when the presentation had finished, Chris opened it up to the floor and answered quite a few questions. The Travel Massive Glasgow chapter is wonderful mixed bag of business owners, professionals, journalists, and bloggers, so they never fail to ask the right questions to stimulate a good conversation.

If anything discussed in the blog has inspired you to start working on your digital marketing and you’d like to work with the Tourism Marketing Agency, then we encourage you get in touch; we are always happy to hear from new businesses. 

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post An Effective Facebook Ad Funnel at Travel Massive appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The turnout was great and we had two great speakers and plenty of lively discussion. For those who missed it, we’d like to summarise some of what the speakers said last night and to reflect on the evening — hopefully encouraging a few readers to attend August’s TMG event, which will be held on the 25^thof August, at Cathedral House at 6.30pm.

A Wee Note About Everyman Glasgow

Everyone who turned up for last night’s event was suitably impressed with the venue. It is a specialist cinema on the ground floor of Princes Square, on Buchanan St. The food was great and the general atmosphere was a perfect fit for our event. There was plenty of conversation and debate in the bar before we went into the luxurious cinema screen room. The manager told us about Everyman and opened up a short Q&A to the ever-curious Travel Massive members. You can read more about Everyman and decide whether you want to organise a corporate event there, a big birthday party, or just attend a film screening. 

Andy McCluskey — How to Grow a Successful Campervan Rental Business in Scotland

After Chris’s presentation, it was a nice change of format to have a Q&A with our next guest: Andy McCluskey. Andy is the founder and owner of Open Road Scotland, one of the leading campervan, motorhome, and motorcycle rental services in Scotland. Despite the company’s fleet of 19 campervans and motorhomes, it is a very small team, with Andy overseeing most of the work himself. It’s a business model that makes the most sense when run by the owner, so it was fascinating to get Andy in to answer a few questions.

As Chris was a little under the weather, our other chapter leader, Jessica (Jess) Gregory, asked Andy about his business. Open Road Scotland has been running for 13 years now and Jess asked if there was a secret to its success. Andy explained that the biggest contributing factor to the business’s success has been the company’s personal touch. While he doesn’t have a lot of employees, there are a lot of freelance and temporary staff and the personal touch ethos is passed along the chain, at every step of the customer’s journey. 

There were several other motorhome and campervan hire business owners there and Andy’s advice to them was to work with other companies that you might see as competitors as you can help each other out if you’re at capacity or have breakdown and need another vehicle at a moment’s notice. Andy also emphasised how important it had been for Open road Scotland that he never stood still — that he was always looking for ways to improve the service, to add a new feature or vehicle, and to improve his website. 

Andy discussed his marketing efforts and how he dedicated his budget and his efforts purely to digital marketing. He explained that delegating most of that work to the Tourism Marketing Agency has been very successful as he realised he just doesn’t have the time or the knowledge to take every aspect of digital marketing on while also trying to run the company.

After a lengthy chat with Jess, Andy opened himself to questions from the floor and a healthy chat ensued for another 20 minutes of so. Andy knew his business inside and out and the knowledge and astute observations of the Travel Massive members really came to the fore. 

That’s all we have time for today. We hope we’ve helped a few members who missed the event get caught up (and that you regret missing it…) and we hope we’ve encouraged even more people to attend next month’s event. In August, you can look forward to Deborah Macken, whose Q&A will be about ‘Growing a Successful Accommodation Business with Sustainability in Mind’ and Laura McKenzie, who will discuss ‘Rebuilding Trust: Trials & tribulations of purchasing a hotel with a bad reputation’.  Sign-up to the event today and stick it in your Google calendars so that you don’t forget! 

If anything discussed in the blog has inspired you to start working on your digital marketing and you’d like to work with the Tourism Marketing Agency, then we encourage you get in touch; we are always happy to hear from new businesses. 

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Travel Massive Glasgow’s July Event with Andy McCluskey appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Sean explained how his experience in banking and recruitment had proved very successful, but he was looking for a better, more fulfilling job. Then, a holiday of a lifetime in Sicily with Sicilian friends showed him that he never wanted to go on another packaged holiday ever again… When he got back from the holiday, he saw that position was going to Tours by Locals and he seized the opportunity. Over a year and a half later and Sean is has risen to the Experience Coordinator position!

As the Experience Coordinator, Sean needs to think long and hard about tours and what makes them so worthwhile. He explained that “Consistency is so important, as reviews are vital in the industry.” Sean also explained that Tours by Locals is uniquely qualified to establish consistently high tour experiences as, unlike pretty much all big OTAs, it doesn’t have any stakeholders. This means that it isn’t doing everything it can each quarter to maximise profits; this allows the company to focus on quality and consistency without having to answer to stakeholders.

“Everyone has profits in front of them,” Sean said, “and that gets in the way of the quality of the experience.”

In the last year, Tours by Locals has doubled its guides from 2,000 worldwide, to approximately 4,000 — with around 100 guides working in Scotland. Sean puts this recent growth down to the talented people they recruit to work as guides. Sean explained that Tours by Locals have a strong emphasis on tour guides being personable, having extensive subject knowledge, and having great storytelling skills: “The best guides aren’t the people with qualifications coming out of their ears. They’re the people who have lived in a wee town for 30 years and know all the hidden gems.”

Lastly, Sean emphasised that Tours by Locals really cares about its guides and that this is also a key ingredient to their success. This kind of socially responsible business practice isn’t the most common model out there and it was heartening to hear him talk about helping guides in Cuba who are suffering because of new tourism sanctions from the US.

The first speaker of the evening was Sean Galloway, the Tour Experience Coordinator at Tours by Locals. The talk consisted of a Q&A between Sean and Chris Torres, but we won’t document each specific question and answer here.

Sean explained how his experience in banking and recruitment had proved very successful, but he was looking for a better, more fulfilling job. Then, a holiday of a lifetime in Sicily with Sicilian friends showed him that he never wanted to go on another packaged holiday ever again… When he got back from the holiday, he saw that position was going to Tours by Locals and he seized the opportunity. Over a year and a half later and Sean is has risen to the Experience Coordinator position!

As the Experience Coordinator, Sean needs to think long and hard about tours and what makes them so worthwhile. He explained that “Consistency is so important, as reviews are vital in the industry.” Sean also explained that Tours by Locals is uniquely qualified to establish consistently high tour experiences as, unlike pretty much all big OTAs, it doesn’t have any stakeholders. This means that it isn’t doing everything it can each quarter to maximise profits; this allows the company to focus on quality and consistency without having to answer to stakeholders.

“Everyone has profits in front of them,” Sean said, “and that gets in the way of the quality of the experience.”

In the last year, Tours by Locals has doubled its guides from 2,000 worldwide, to approximately 4,000 — with around 100 guides working in Scotland. Sean puts this recent growth down to the talented people they recruit to work as guides. Sean explained that Tours by Locals have a strong emphasis on tour guides being personable, having the extensive subject knowledge, and having great storytelling skills: “The best guides aren’t the people with qualifications coming out of their ears. They’re the people who have lived in a wee town for 30 years and know all the hidden gems.”

Lastly, Sean emphasised that Tours by Locals really cares about its guides and that this is also a key ingredient to their success. This kind of socially responsible business practice isn’t the most common model out there and it was heartening to hear him talk about helping guides in Cuba who are suffering because of new tourism sanctions from the US.

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post What Makes an Attractive Tour appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Zakia Moulaoui is the founder of Invisible Cities – a social enterprise dedicated to helping homeless people by training them to be tour guides. We were extremely lucky to have Zakia at our Travel Massive event and we hope the other members enjoyed listening to her story as much as we did.

Zakia is from the South of France and she started her career in Scotland 12 years ago. She got the idea for Invisible Cities when she worked for The Homeless World Cup – a huge sporting event combining football with an awareness campaign for homelessness. The Homeless World Cup inspired Zakia to help people struggling with homelessness and it showed her that it can be paired with football or some other kind of mainstream interest. Then, when Zakia went on a trip to Greece, she discovered that lots of street venders selling the Greek equivalent of The Big Issue were also giving tours in Athens. The idea implanted itself into Zakia’s head and she established Invisible Cities a while later, when she got back to Scotland. Invisible Cities has been running for three years now, and Zakia/Invisible Cities recently won the Tour Company of the Year Award from Women in Tourism and Hospitality.

Zakia stressed how important it was that Invisible Cities is not a charity; it is a social enterprise. This is important because it means that the company is not reliant on government or public funding. Governments change, after all. The professional, money-making aspect of the company also helps to encourage the guides to be professional. However, it is a social enterprise, so all profits made are then reinvested in the company and the tour guides who work for it.

Invisible Cities works with other big homeless organisations — such as Social Bite, Crisis, The Big Issue, etc — when recruiting its guides. While it wants to help homeless people, it takes the quality of its tours very seriously, and this is where the lengthy training process comes in. Many of the people trained to go on to become tour guides, but not all of them do. For some, the training helps them build confidence and it gives them support and a range of skills to pursue other avenues. What was really interesting to hear was that Invisible Cities take training so seriously that they don’t initially ask for money for tours; they ask for feedback so that they can improve their tours (and their tour guide’s skills). Then, when the tour is up to the right quality, they begin charging. This shows the mindset and method of Invisible Cities: it’s not a race to make money, but a slow and sustainable progression. Zakia emphasised the importance of this model as Invisible Cities works with vulnerable people and it needs to ensure it isn’t setting anyone up to fail.

When asked about the best way to support Invisible Cities, Zakia said that we should attend the tours in the different cities and encourage our friends and families to do the same. By taking the tours, leaving reviews, and paying for their products, we are supporting the entire social enterprise, and we’re also getting great tours of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, and York — with more cities to be added to the list in the future. Zakia even organised a special tour for the Glasgow Travel Massive: Crimes & Punishment in the Merchant City. The tours takes place this Saturday (29^th of June).

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