Independent Tour Operators Have BIG Advantages

Online travel is a huge, multi-billion dollar industry, and is composed of tens of thousands of travel agencies, with hundreds of thousands of small tour operators selling their tours through these agencies and independently. As a small tour provider, you have the opportunity to sell direct to your customers over the internet, taking the middle man out of the equation, and increasing your profits. You are also considerably more nimble than your average travel agency.

You can market directly to your target market. Do you provide mountain bike tours? By marketing directly to mountain bikers through community involvement, blogging about the sport, and participating in your local community, you raise awareness of your business. Network with the local bike shops. Provide the opportunity to book your tours online, and become the destination for your demographic.

You can dictate your reseller terms. Most travel agencies rely on a collection of Goods Distribution Systems (GDS) to gain access to tours, flights, and accommodations, which they then resell. In order to be resold by the GDS, you must comply with their terms. This can mean waiting months to be paid, and having refunds applied against you without your input.

One of the biggest advantages that you have over Travel Resellers is this: you can accept payments online without outlaying large cash bonds to secure a merchant account. This makes your overhead that much lower. You can provide quality tours for reasonable prices, and make a tidy profit.

You will need the following to accept your bookings online, and be approved for a Virtual Terminal (your online credit card processing account):

1) A decently designed website.
2) A booking engine that is designed to accept credit card payments, and supports 256 bit security.
3) A section on your website that addresses your terms of service, refund policy, and website usage terms.

Once you have these in place, you can apply for your online merchant account.

The next step will be setting up your online tour inventory, and marketing your site with the same zeal that you bring to your offline marketing. Get out there and get blogging! Your customers are online; go and get them. Setup a Facebook account for your tours, and connect to your current and future customers.

Now you have the opportunity to sell direct, keeping your costs low so that you can pass those savings onto your customers, while provide more comprehensive services for less then your resold counterparts. You have also just increased your online respectability by accepting the most widely used online payment method, and pre-qualified your customers by accepting payment in advance for your tours.

And that makes you 3 large steps ahead of your average travel agency.