Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

This is article #4 in a 5 part Start up series for tour and activity travel businesses. In working with travel start ups a consistent theme I come across is the lofty sales expectations the founders place on themselves and their start up at launch. I believe this to be a huge mistake that reduces your overall chances of success. Money gets spent frivolously on activities that focus on attaining a large... Read More...

5 Tips to starting a successful tours and activity travel business. This is Tip #3. In the first two articles I wrote about how to partner and package to help your start up get business in the early stages. This third article is about implementing a simple distribution system so at launch you have other marketers and or marketplaces selling your tour and activity products. There are many new tour... Read More...

5 Tips to starting a successful tours and activity travel business. This is a series of 5 articles to help tours and activity entrepreneurs start a new business. I’ll post one new article each week here at T4. Tip #2: Partner with other travel suppliers in your destination to create a unique one-of-kind package for your tour and activity business. At the Travel Business Academy we teach entrepreneurs... Read More...

This is a series of 5 articles to help tours and activity entrepreneurs start a new business. I’ll post one new article each week here at T4. Tip #1: Introduce yourself and your company’s services to the established travel business owners and tour/activity operators in the destination you plan on starting your business. A simple way to build a new client base is to reach out and build relations... Read More...

For most small tour operators, the concept of creating a standardized set of XML messages for the distribution of tour and activity data probably sounds like gobbledegook.  For data geeks and standards enthusiasts like the team behind Rezgo, this is a huge milestone in the march towards making small businesses a more visible part of the travel landscape.  For over three years, Rezgo has been working... Read More...

In October at T4, I published, “Is the new, private-sale travel site business model the real deal? an in-depth look, into the new social e-commerce start-ups, their business model and how the deals get structured. As an active online travel business consultant in the new social e-commerce travel space (flash-travel sales), I am confirming, that yes, this new business model is the real deal and is... Read More...

As a tour and activity business, you are a perfect target customer for the likes of Groupon, Living Social, or any one of hundreds of other daily deal websites popping up on the Internet everyday. But be warned, the daily deals business can be a real nightmare for your company if you are not careful. I’ve written before about the problem with daily deals on Tnooz, a travel technology media... Read More...

Tnooz and the Open Travel Alliance are putting on THack Vegas, a gathering of developers and travel technology companies who want to collaborate and build some cool stuff to show off at the Open Travel Advisory Forum in late April. The concept behind THack is that developers will get access to some cool open and private APIs in order to build something that they can showcase in front of the audience... Read More...

Rezgo Sponsored Industry Research Estimates Tour & Activities at $27 Billion For as long as there have been tourists there have been tours, tour guides, and destination based activities.  Unlike the more commonly known travel segments like flights, hotels, car rentals, and cruise, the in-destination tour and activity segment is dominated by very small businesses.  According to research conducted... Read More...

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  When I first starting commenting on the tour and activity segment almost five years ago, it didn’t take long for me to see the opportunities with small tourism businesses.  It took me a little longer to identify the challenges however.  The tour and activity segment is truly one of the most fascinating travel segments to work with, both... Read More...