How to Get Started with Process Automation for Tours and Activities

Modern companies are saving time and money, plus human resources by applying process automation in their businesses. Tours and activities operators are no exception.

And for any forward-thinking company, it’s a matter of when and not if.

If you have not yet automated routine processes in your tour company or are looking to learn more about process automation, then you are in the right place.

In this article, we’ll discuss process automation for tours and activities at length. Starting from the definition to the benefits and uses of process automation. Finally, we’ll guide you on how to automate your processes with Regiondo.

What is Process Automation?

Process automation refers to running certain repeatable business functions using technology.

But not just any process in your tours or activities company can be automated. Process automation is best implemented for functions that:

  • Are repeatable
  • Require consistency
  • Need to be error-free
  • A machine can perform better than humans

Automation improves overall operational efficiency by making the processes more time-efficient, cost-efficient, and error-free. Let us then look at these and other benefits of process automation for tours and activities.

Why You Need Process Automation

1. More and faster sales

Apart from affordable costs, one thing customers value from service providers is speed. If your tours or activities business can offer fast feedback and solutions to travelers, then you increase your chances of beating your competition.

Travel and tourism management software enables your tour company to respond to inquiries from potential clients automatically. This means potential customers can be served 24/7 and not just during business hours. In addition, software can gather and present information requested much faster and in a streamlined manner.

With an ideal process automation system, tours and activities can handle all booking processes seamlessly, including creating tour packages or group packages when necessary.

Invoice generation and processing is another area where automation helps to save time when serving customers.

With all these efficiencies when using process automation, tours and activities are in a position to increase sales in the long run.

2. Cost-efficiency

Did you know that intelligent process automation can save your business between 40-75 percent in expenses?

The fact that process automation can handle repetitive daily tasks quickly allows employees time to assess the company’s performance and come up with ways of improving the business. Automation also helps save the company costs due to errors and inaccuracies.

3. Risks and error reduction

When it comes to bookings and invoicing, humans can easily miss some details. You can end up with things like overbooking which could result in unhappy customers.

While such kinds of human error is expected and understandable, it can cost your tour or activities company a lot (depending on the extent of the error).

Automated systems can streamline your booking processes and ensure accuracy at all times.

4. Good customer experience

A seamless booking experience fosters customer satisfaction and sets the right tone ahead of the actual tour. Having automated systems for your business makes it possible to offer freedom and a smooth booking journey.

For example, customers can book their activities on their mobile phones without the need to speak to an agent. Invoicing and payments can also be made online using various payment options thanks to the modern business software available today.

The privacy and security that come with process automation also serve to increase customer satisfaction by boosting their trust in your business.

What’s more, you can get client feedback through automated emailing to find out what they liked the most and what your business needs to improve on.

5 Process Automation Uses for Tours and Activities

There are a number of ways that traditional tours and activities providers can use technology to increase revenue, improve operations, reduce costs, and customize their processes. Here are some of the common functions in which automation can be implemented.

1. Pricing

The tourism industry is quite competitive, especially in online marketplaces. How you price your services matters since there are travelers who are keen on finding the best experiences at competitive prices. More to that, offers and promotions can also help your tour or activities company to stand out.

But finding the sweet spot when it comes to pricing your offerings is not that easy. You need a strategy where you’ll factor in your competitor’s prices while strategically creating your own. This takes time and involves a lot of research and analysis. This is where automated price tracking software comes in.

This software automates the whole process of tracking your competitors’ prices, gaining market intelligence, and setting your business’s dynamic pricing.

2. Booking and reservation

In the digital era that we currently live in, most travelers are comfortable booking their tours and travel online on their own.

It, therefore, goes without saying that tours and activities operators need to have an automated booking system for their businesses.

An ideal booking software should be intuitive and user-friendly to avoid obstacles that may lead to cart abandonment by customers.

3. Accounting

For any business, having an accounting software is a must-have. Automating your accounting processes ensures efficiency and makes this rather complex process much easier to manage.

An efficient accounting software includes invoicing tools to ensure invoice creation and generation are automatically done after travelers make a booking.

Another feature that’s vital in accounting software is data security. Customers need to know that their information and personal details are safe whenever they make bookings on your site.

4. Marketing

Automating your marketing processes is one of the effective ways of boosting traffic to your tour website and potentially increasing sales. For example, you can set up automatic social media posts for each new blog post you publish on your website.

Your tours or activities business can also greatly benefit from automated emailing to reach potential customers.

5. Analytics

For tours or activities with high volume (e.g amusement parks and zoos), it’s vital to track and monitor the business’s performance. But the traditional way requires a lot of human resources to sort through the data, clean it up, and present the findings to various departments.

Using analytics software is what your business needs in this case. By automating all these processes, tracking and analyzing your organization’s inputs into instant reports and spreadsheets makes work much easier. All departments can therefore easily access the information and factor it into their decision-making process.

How to Automate Your Processes with Regiondo

Regiondo is an all-in-one booking system for tours and activities. With our different features, you can automate various processes for your tours or activities business including:

Another important and effective feature available with Regiondo is the online marketing aspect that can be implemented through various channels including our Zapier integration.

So, what is Zapier?

Zapier is an app that connects different tools with each other in order to make your business processes easier.

You can create a zap between your Regiondo system and other services. For example, a zap between Regiondo and Gmail can enable you to seamlessly and automatically connect these to services for the efficient functioning of your business. For example, you can have a zap whereby for every new booking, an email from your Gmail account is automatically sent to the customer for confirmation.

Another zap that you can set up is between Regiondo and Google Calendar. You can integrate these two such that, when you get a new booking on Regiondo, automatically a new event is created on your Google Calendar.

With these and many more integration options available on Zapier, your tour business can handle a myriad of functions on autopilot and stand a better chance of experiencing success.

Conclusion

Automating your business processes comes with many benefits. From garnering more sales at a faster rate to making your processes more cost-efficient to reducing errors, and creating better customer experiences. These are enough reasons why you should embrace process automation.

Some of the most common process automation uses for tours and activities include:

  • Pricing
  • Booking and reservation
  • Accounting
  • Marketing
  • Analytics

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