Does your tour business face a dilemma when approached by OTAs wanting to resell your tours globally? At first, this may be an exciting growth opportunity for a tour operator, but the prospect raises concerns about managing increased demand, inventory, pricing, and technical integration. Dealing with all these different platforms and understanding technical terms like API integration and dynamic pricing can be overwhelming. You might wonder if managing all these extra tasks is worth it compared to the benefits. Read below to see how a channel management solution will streamline and give you the confidence to sell in new ways.
How do you know if a channel manager will improve your tour operations?
We suggest answering the following questions to assess your needs.
- Are you ready for the next step in maximising revenue and capacity that your current tech provider doesn’t support?
- Do you have two or more OTAs you are working with and trying to balance?
- Are you focused on yield management, desiring a pricing strategy for seasonality and events?
- Have you maxed out other marketing initiatives locally and want to try a broader reach?
- Is overbooking a concern that you need assistance with?
- Are you looking to reach new travel demographics and don’t know where to start?
- Have you designed a new tour that you want to sample in the market?
Features for tours & attractions working with channel managers
With a channel manager, there is no more manual updating of OTAs or other sellers. You will not have to guess where bookings will come from and risk under- or over-booking. All OTAs and sales points will be updated in real-time so that you can maximise revenue while also saving a lot of work. There is no emailing back and forth between OTAs or logging into individual portals; you can update everything in one location, and it will update all your resellers.
This centralisation also applies to reporting. Creating reports and tracking where sales come from is much easier when all the information is in one location in your channel management system.
In addition to maximising revenue through real-time booking updates, some channel managers, like TourCMS, offer dynamic pricing, which allows tour operators to maximise revenue by adjusting prices during peak demand.
Channel managers’ capabilities also include the convenience of assistance with troubleshooting and technical difficulties. You can have one point of contact with your channel manager provider, who can help with connectivity issues, once again saving you time and effort.
Tips for tour operators working with a channel manager
Here are a few things to do to prepare for working with a channel manager:
- List all of the sales channels you currently use and sales channels you hope to expand to, including online and offline channels.
- Write down all the reports that you currently run and what reports you would like to be able to make.
- Identify the type of support you hope to receive from a channel manager in sales and technical support and training.
This can help you identify the channel management solution that is best for your business and help the tech provider know how best to help you.
Case Studies for Channel Management
Turisme de Barcelona, a Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), started their search out of necessity to find a stable channel manager. Being a DMO, they have a private side of the organisation that maintains tourist information centres and runs campaigns. Revenues are vital to running their business and operating their tourism information centres. They have obligations from the public side, but they are also a consortium with a foundation built on third-party products, plus their own offerings. They distribute these products through connections, partnerships, OTAs, or anyone else interested in the products and offerings.
“I suggest to all the companies who have never thought about having a channel manager: do it! You will see improvements from the strategic, operational, and sales sides. You will only see improvements,” says Gianluca Camaggio, Sales Manager at Turisme de Barcelona.
We are the channel managers for Gray Line licensees; they use TourCMS to connect to OTAs and their preferred distribution channels, listing their tours and activities globally. We ensure all licensees are connected, listing individual products on their marketplace. Our Connectivity Team and Customer Success Managers encourage licensees to connect to outside and diverse distribution possibilities, resulting in increased sales and a wider reach, which is a win-win for all.
“When you have a connected distribution, skipping all the manual work is highly important in this business. Distribution is super important to have, as well as online bookings in general, and we are confident in the Palisis/ TourCMS system,” stated Gray Line President, Gudrun Thorisdottir.
If you missed our other articles on channel management, read through: