How does Explorates make it easier to book tours and excursions?
When you're a tour guide, you have to juggle scheduled tours, requests for the coming weeks and payments. It's a complex, time-consuming and laborious task, but essential to the smooth running of your business. Explorates makes your life easier: our reservation system lets you manage your bookings automatically!You don't need to be a geek to use Explorates! Simply log in to your account on our platform and enter your tour schedule:
- The name of your tour. You can add a short and a long description if you wish.
- The maximum number of customers for each tour.
- The days and times of each tour. The system is particularly flexible, as you can decide that one tour takes place every Monday from 3 to 5 p.m., while another only once a month from 9 a.m. to noon.
- The price of your visit. You can, of course, distinguish different age categories and apply different rates for children.
- How you want to receive your tickets. Choose between sending digital tickets, printable tickets or a simple customer list that you can check on the day.
- Photos to illustrate your guided tours.
- What is included in your package. You can add any additional information you may need, from disabled access to minimum age requirements for guided tours and excursions.
With Explorates, your guided tours will be available for booking on your website 24/7, without any intervention on your part. The availability of each tour will be updated automatically as sales progress.
Of course, you retain complete control over the sales and marketing of your guided tours and excursions. For example, you can choose whether you want to validate each booking request one by one, or whether the system is open and allows customers to register directly online, with payment on the spot. You can also close or open time slots and modify all parameters in real time, according to your needs. You can also define your cancellation policy, which is then automatically applied to all reservations.
Once you've entered your tour catalog on Explorates, all you have to do is install the booking module on your site and wait for your first sales. Explorates takes care of everything! Your customers will be able to book your tours directly on your site, by paying you online, without any intervention on your part. Availability will be updated in real time, and as soon as the maximum number of places is reached for a guided tour, it will become unavailable for sale.
Your customers will receive the confirmation in the form you define. You can fully customize the messages sent to your customers, with all the necessary information. Even better, Explorates lets you set up an automatic e-mail system to remind your customers of the date of their guided tour. Explorates can even schedule a message to be sent via WhatsApp if you wish, and if your customers have given their prior consent at the time of booking!
Explorates lets you expand the distribution of your guided tours and excursions
If you want to find new customers and maximize your group fill-ups, you have the opportunity to distribute your guided tours on the platforms of major online travel agencies, and not just on your own website. Once again, Explorates is here to help!Explorates enables you to make your guided tour catalog available on Viator, Get Your Guide and Vizitoo. A great way to reach millions of potential customers in Europe and around the world! Other platforms are gradually being added to Explorates...
And here, too, you won't have to do a thing! Viator, Get Your Guide, Vizitoo and all other online travel agencies rely on the data you've entered in Explorates. Example: if a Get Your Guide customer books 4 tickets for a guided tour on July 10 at 2pm, the 4 tickets will be immediately withdrawn from the stock available on your site and on all other platforms. And the Get Your Guide customer will of course receive your confirmation as soon as payment has been made.
Contact us for a demonstration and to ask any questions you may have! We'll also be happy to give you some examples of tour guides around the world who are already using Explorates to manage their reservations.
How much does the booking system for guided tours and excursions cost?
Explorates offers a range of rates that can be adapted to suit individual needs and requirements. For a tour guide working alone, or employing a few affiliated guides, we recommend our BASIC package, without subscription. With this formula, you'll only be billed if a reservation is made. The reservation system won't cost you anything if you're on vacation and no activity is booked.The reservation fee is 3% of the net amount of each reservation. Example: on a guided tour ticket priced at €25 incl. VAT, the Explorates reservation fee is €0.75 excl. tax. Payment of these booking fees is made directly by direct debit upon payment by the customer.
