As a tour operator, finding new ways to improve your customer's experience while also increasing profitability for your business should always be top of mind. A great way to attract more customers and increase your tour bookings is to offer tour packages. 

By creating and selling travel packages, you’re addressing the needs of a specific type of traveler, one who is looking for a fuller travel experience with the added benefits of convenience and savings.

Today we’ll be discussing the benefits of tour packages, how to effectively create and sell your own travel package, and how Rezgo’s tour packaging system can help.

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What Are Tour Packages?

Tour packages are a combination of separate (but typically related) tourism products that are presented and sold as one. Customers pay for all the components of a tour package and receive details of their itinerary prior to travel. A typical tour package example is one that includes travel to and from the destination, accommodation, meal arrangements, and activities or excursions. 

As with this example, when people think of tour packages, they often think of packages that include services from multiple vendors. Tour packages can, however, consist of offerings from a single tour provider. Yekrinaweb has details to help you create and promote travel packages of your own tour products but also offers resellers the option to package services from multiple tour businesses as well.

Growth Strategy
Tourism businesses, small and large, can gain a competitive advantage by working with partners to create irresistible travel packages. These partners can include businesses that help to distribute your product like online travel agents, retailers and wholesalers, and other local businesses.
Working with other local businesses to create a new package is a strategy to create increased appeal for your ideal customer and to make it easier for your potential guests to understand more about the experiences in your destination and ultimately to commit to your destination and book with you.

The package should be designed to improve the customer experience, increase customer spend and length of stay, and increase revenue.

Packaging is not a new concept, is available to all sizes and types of tourism businesses and thanks to the digital age is a strategy that can be more easily implemented by using the resources available on the internet.

In this post, we’ll explain the basics of creating travel packages to improve your product appeal and conversion and to benefit your local partners and your destination.

Creating travel packages can be defined as a combination of two or more products, presented as a single sale, so the customer gains an advantage compared with buying the items separately.

You do this by partnering up with another business or businesses to develop a package.  The package must be designed around your customers’ needs and interests so that it is instantly appealing to them.  By this we mean you’ll need to create a package that is people and market-oriented.  It could be accommodation and a restaurant deal, a tour with an added bonus of an attraction visit, or discount accommodation pre or post-event combined with event tickets.

The opportunities are only limited by the product available and your imagination.

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What are the steps involved?

Firstly, identify what your business needs are, for example, you need more weeknight bookings, longer stays, and more low-season tour sales.  Be clear about what the business driver is for you?

Start by writing down a list of businesses that can help you do that.  It might be an activity, a transfer, or even a business in a neighboring region.

Use the internet and your personal networks to source potential partner businesses. Do your research online and find the components you’re interested in.

Your aim is to produce a better experience for the customer and the business arrangement needs to be mutually beneficial for it to succeed, so you may need to soft-sell the concept to the other party and you’ll need to spell out benefits for each party (What’s in it for ‘me’?)