Booking tours and activities online?!

Let’s face it: currently most of the bookings for tours and activities are done in destination and most of them in offices of travel agencies or trough agency representatives.

But why? How come people have no problem booking a hotel or a flight online, but are opting to book tours in offices rather than choosing to do it online?

Here are the top reasons for not choosing to book tours and activities online:

1. Tours are optional -> you definitely need transportation to get to a destination and you need some place to sleep, but tours, no, you can take them or not, depending on your preference
2. Tours are a kind of service that needs to be presented to the guests rather than guests searching for it. If you stumble upon a nice tour you might decide to buy it right there but you will not try to find it yourself
3. People never had a guided tour and/or think that it’s a waste of money, that you can have an even better and cheaper tour using a rent-a-car and a travel booklet.
4. Travelers have no idea that there are online services like happytovisit.com that let you view hundreds of tours from multiple agencies in one place (much like you view accommodation offers in one place).

So what is the future of online sales? Well, one should be an oracle to know for sure, but reviewing the benefits of online tour purchases and the historical facts about what turning businesses online has done to the whole market, there is no doubt in our minds that it can go only forward.

The key benefits that you have when purchasing tours online are:

1. View the offers of multiple travel agents in one place (if you book in a travel agency office you will see only one offer)
2. Read and compare reviews from other travels before making a decision (learn what tours people liked and what are they saying to look out for)
3. Book whenever you want, and not only during the office hours of an agent (like for example: the night before after you return from the city and plan the following day)
4. Feel safe when making a booking knowing that someone else reviewed every touroperator before they placed their offer online (you have no idea how many sites are there offering daily tours and no one will answer a phone when you call)

So is this “i’m not buying tours online” going to change? We certainly hope so 🙂