Tourpreneur Tour Business Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this quick episode, Tourpreneur partners Peter Syme and Chris Torres dive into the latest buzz around Airbnb's third attempt to amplify their experiences offering.

Despite previous failures, Airbnb is pushing hard again, proclaiming that experiences represent a massive market opportunity. But can they succeed this time? Peter and Chris weigh in on the challenges Airbnb faces, from curating high-quality experiences to ensuring sustainable pricing for operators.

They discuss the potential pitfalls of relying on non-professional hosts and the importance of integrating API connectivity for seamless bookings. Will Airbnb's powerful brand and vast resources finally turn the tide? Tune in as our hosts dissect the prospects of Airbnb becoming a major player in the experiences sector and share insights on what needs to change for this ambitious venture to thrive.

For more, visit tourpreneur.com

Mitch Bach interviews three tour guides and operators who have become extremely popular on TikTok:

• Megan Marod (@themegandaily)
• David Harry (@the_london_spy)
• John O'Sullivan (@oneminutetours)

These guides have all harnessed the power of TikTok in different ways that suits their personality, goals, and markets. But they have one thing in common: they say the key to success is showing up authentically.

In this episode they tell their story and share their tips and strategies on a variety of topics:

• What videos of theirs had viral success
• How to build authenticity and develop your own unique style
• Batch creation and other tips to streamline the creation process
• How to engage with your audience (and handle negative comments)
• Their experience with the Creator Fund and its monetization potential
• Whether and how to develop brand partnerships
• Collaborating with content creators
• Should you show up as a brand or an individual?
• How they measure success on the platform

If you're interested in working with content creators, Tourpreneur has a new short course from an experienced creator on how to pitch and negotiate with creators, and criteria to look for when deciding who to partner with. Available to anyone with a Professional Membership.

Show notes & more on tourpreneur.com!

Mitch Bach talks with Brian Jewell, the Vice President and Executive Editor of Group Travel Leader, a media company representing tens of thousands of tour operators, travel agents, trip planners, many of whom have been in business for decades. Brian provides endless free resources for his community of small travel provider, and has learned countless lessons from decades in the industry.

There's a whole community of small, outbound multi-day tour operators who have been in business since the years and decades after WWII, since the beginning of the explosive growth of mass tourism. Those operators are at the ends of their careers, and the companies they've built offer a huge opportunity for acquisition, and also have learned lessons about finding niche markets and solidifying their business through personal relationships.

• Show notes
• Visit Group Travel Leader
• Brian on LinkedIn

The Tour Operator Start Up series is back, Simon Burke joins Nikki Padilla Rivera today to discuss starting a tour business, in fact, a sidecar motorcycle tour company during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He explains the hoops, logistics, and licenses when starting a tour vehicle business in Paris. He describes how Brexit and the pandemic impacted his start-up and explains how he came up with the concept of Txango Tours.

Simon also underscores the value of taking yourself out of your comfort zone and highlights the role of passion in running a tour company.

Ryan O'Grady, the founder of Fotaflo joins us today to share how we can increase tour bookings and reviews with guest photos, which he calls 'memory marketing.'

Ryan explains how tour businesses can leverage photo memories to market and create advocates for their business. He outlines the benefits of offering photo memories of the tour as a free value-add rather than a paid service.

Ryan also underscores how strategically sending previous clients photos of their experiences can maintain a connection between the brand, its customers, and the wider market.

Today's guest shares with us some of her lessons from 30 years of running a tour business. We cover a lot of ground including marketing tours, dealing with journalists, websites, hiring and managing tour guides and chatbots! 

Lauren Hefferon joins us to discuss how she started, developed, and expanded the bike tour business Ciclismo Classico.

She explains the significance of Ciclismo Classico’s website for booking and why she is keen on talking directly with her customers before they book.

She shares how she made use of the Zoom culture to hold virtual events during the COVID pandemic.

Lauren also highlights the power of event marketing and offers advice for cultivating effective public relations.

Jamie Robinson joins us today, he divulges his tactics to effective, authentic marketing on a budget. He describes his journey to being a tourpreneur and explains how an episode of the show, Top Gear, inspired him to start his experiences business based around two iconic cars, a London Cab and an Indian Taxi.

He explains how to engage with a community without sounding like a pushy salesperson and discusses how he uses social media to promote his business.

Jamie also explains why Tourpreneurs shouldn’t be afraid to give away free experiences or services and underscores the importance of remembering your mission in business.

From Navy cryptographer to successful tour business owner.  Renee Ventrice of Cork and Keg Tours joins us today to discuss how she built a luxury winery and brewery tours business. 

She walks us through how she created local partnerships with breweries and wineries and outlines how she designed her tour business from the ground up.

Renee also discusses why evaluating and reevaluating friction points in our tour business’s process is key to growth.

She describes how community partnerships and nonprofits could be tour businesses' best marketing allies.

Renee highlights the importance of executing detailed market research and underscores the value of differentiating and elevating yourself from other tour operators.

Today we hear from 3 tour operators who attended the in-person Arival San Diego event, they share what they learned and experienced.

I was keen to hear what first-time attendees of Arival thought of the event, so today we are joined by Brian Cain of Crawl New Orleans and Jarrod Riddle of Sprit of Arizona Tours.  We also invited Heather Fortes of Sactown Bites to our tour business round table discussion. 

Arival San Diego is Heather's second Arival event, she shares how she had set up her Sacramento food tour business just a few weeks before attending Arival Orlando in 2019.

Our guests share three takeaways each and reveal what they are going to implement in their tour business as a result of attending Arival San Diego.

We also run the rule over the OTA and res tech sessions that are always a big draw at Arival but did they deliver what our tourpreneurs were looking for?

Brian Cain also disclosed more about working with Viator accelerate, he was a beta partner with the OTA's new program.

Tourpreneur and our guests commend the Arival team for putting on such an excellent event in trying circumstances.

We all hope to see you at Arival Las Vegas later this year and who knows, there is talk of a European Arival to be held this summer. 

Thank you to our guests, Brian, Heather, and Jarrod for their candor during this episode of Tourpreneur. I look forward to digging into your story and tour business journey on a later episode.

What did you think about Arival San Diego? What did you learn that you will implement in your tour business? Let us know in our Tourpreneur Facebook Group.

We are receiving more and more questions from tour operators who want to learn Instagram Reels but are unsure where to start.

These questions have inspired Shane to dig into Instagram Reels for Tour Operators starting next week where he will try an experiment at Arival San Diego to see if he can learn Instagram Reels (and overcome his camera nerves!)

Shane's plan is to record a quick Instagram Reel after every session/workshop, he will share his #1 learning from each session. Follow Tourpreneur Instagram to watch Shane's insights from Arival and feel free to give him feedback on the reels, #AlwaysBeLearning right?

In 2022 we will be bringing you lots more content and Instagram reels tips for tour operators.