In this episode of the Tour Operator Start-Up Series, Sita, Ripley, and Danielle Desir discuss how to build a podcast to expand your brand. They break down the basics of creating a podcast and how Tour Operators can use it to generate passive income. They brainstorm how Sita and Ripley can go back to their brand’s roots to develop podcast content aligned with their company’s mission and values. They also consider the different characteristics that make a great podcast and the importance of cultivating a community around content.

Tourpreneur

Expanding Your Tour Brand through Podcasting with Danielle Desir

In part 5 of our blogging for tour operators guide, tourism marketing expert Dorene Wharton joins us to share her secrets to writing successful SEO-friendly blog posts. She explains why Google keeps changing its algorithms. She discusses how tour operators can successfully navigate Google’s E-A-T guidelines and shares her best practices for keyword researching. She offers advice for writing the best titles for blog posts and her favorite SEO tools. Check out Dorene's SEO for tour operators Checklist Dorene also highlights how bloggers can leverage external and internal links to get higher page rankings and underscores the importance of building trust and credibility in blog posts.

SEO Tips for Tour Operators with Dorene Wharton

Trish Higgins bought Cap’n Fish’s cruises in idyllic Boothbay Harbor, Maine: known for its puffins, whale-watching, and picturesque lighthouses. So what could go wrong? For starters, she signed the docs for her new tour business just days before the COVID-19 epidemic shut down most of the country, adding a totally new and unforeseen obstacle to tour operations, planning, and staff communication. But needless to say, Trish was determined to make the best of it and help the team at Cap’n Fish - a family-run business that had been around since the 1930’s - to reach their full potential. And we’re all about tackling challenges head first, and sharing those experiences when we live to tell the tale. So if you’re curious how Trish managed to help Cap’n Fish thrive, even during a pandemic, here are some of her key takeaways. She shared some first-hand tips for anyone who might consider purchasing (or selling) a tour business of their own.

First-hand tips for buying or selling a tour business with Trish Higgins

In this episode of the Tour Operator Start-Up Series, Sita, Ripley, and Nancy  discuss how She Shapes History Tours can leverage social media as marketing tools to attract attention. They explore how Sita and Ripley can use their values and advocacy for social media to create content that will engage their demographic audience. They discuss different ways to brainstorm for social media content and how they can manage time between running digital marketing and the other aspects of She Shapes History. Sita and Ripley also describe what they learned from the success of their launch and share the next steps they plan to take for She Shapes History.  

How to leverage social media as marketing tools to attract attention for your tours

Tour Operator Tom Barclay Matchett reveals how he went about growing a bespoke private tour business and provides his insight into the creative side of engaging business and guests through storytelling. He walks us through the genesis of The London Storyteller tour business and how he designs his different bespoke tours, with themes ranging from 007 to Winston Churchill. He explains how his years of working in different environments came together to inform his business operations. Tom also shares the three major lessons/value bombs he learned about growing a tour business and underscores the value of trusting your creative instinct.

Bond, Churchill, and the Royals: Growing a Bespoke Private Tour Experience

Arival 360 2021 postponed to January 2022 - The Tourpreneur Take. Shane shares the sad news that Arival has been postponed to January 2022. He walks you through what this means for those of us who are registered.  Shane also shares more about upcoming episodes and why you should join the Tourpreneur community if you are looking to create, launch and/or grow your tour business.

Arival 360 2021 postponed to January 2022 - The Tourpreneur Take

How to start a tour company - our guests Sita and Ripley are back on the Tourpreneur Podcast to share their experience leading their first tour and the feedback, insights, and lessons they learned from it. They describe how the test tour did not go as smoothly as they had envisioned it and discuss one important aspect they need to include in their next test tours. They explain the most surprising comment they received after getting feedback. They also highlight the importance of long-term strategic planning in business and underscore what it means to be a “COVID-friendly” business.

What happened leading our first test tour - The Tour Operator Start Up (157

In part 4 of our blogging for tour operators guide, marketing expert Dorene Wharton returns to share her favorite copywriting tips for tour operator bloggers.

More Copywriting Tips for Tour Operators Who Blog! (155)

Host Shane Whaley is joined by Fat Tire Tours and bike tour business owner Emilie to discuss Fat Tire Tours’ initiative to create a community and booking platform for bike tour operators worldwide. Our guests reveal what inspired the company to start the project and share what they learned about the bike tour industry during COVID-19. They highlight Fat Tire Tours’ strategies for helping bike tour operators grow within the community. They describe the company’s history and explain how they plan to market bike tours globally. They also discuss the core pillars of their project and underscore the importance of collaboration over competition. Our guests are grilled by Bike Tour Operator and regular contributor to Tourpreneur., Emilie Pelletier.

Creating a booking platform and community for Bike Tour Operators with Fat Tire Bike Tours (154)

The Tour Operator Start-Up is back. We take you behind the scenes of a tour business start up - each month we check in with She Shapes History hosted by Nikki Padilla Rivera. Each month you can join your host, tourism expert Nikki Padilla Rivera as we explore how Sita and Ripley went from the world of academia to building their own tourism company in Canberra, Australia. They share why they chose to focus on female stories and the importance of exploring the diverse histories that are often not taught in school. They discuss their partnership, the benefits of working as a team and the tools they are using to build their company. They also outline their steps for marketing and fine-tuning their tours as they approach their launch date.

Starting a Tour Business with She Shapes History: Embracing Diverse Histories with Local Tourism

The Tourpreneur Tour Operator Podcast host Shane Whaley announces an upcoming new line up and features for Tourpreneur listeners. Tourpreneur will be back in July. 

Ch-Ch-Changes - Tourpreneur to launch 2 new series for tour operators (152)

John Coupland joins me today to share how he leveraged his previous experiences as an entrepreneur when starting his tour company and the challenges he faced as a new tour operator. We discuss how he designed his most popular guided tour, The Crown Film Locations & Royal Secrets Tour. John shares why it’s critical for tour operators to have the ability to ‘read’ their guest’s body language and how it helps you deliver outstanding tour experiences. John also reveals the three key lessons he has learned about building a successful tour operation, creating exceptional experiences, and achieving outstanding customer reviews.

How John Coupland designed his most popular guided tour, The Crown Film Locations & Royal Secrets Tour.

In part 3 of our blogging for tour operators guide, marketing expert Dorene Wharton returns to discuss the benefits of repurposing your content into fresh, new pieces for different platforms. We discuss what it means to repurpose content and the benefits of breathing new life into your existing content. Dorene shares her tips on breaking up your content into multiple pieces for different mediums and how thinking about ways to repurpose your content while you’re creating it can help save time and inspire new ideas. We discuss the pros and cons of releasing short videos versus long ones and how breaking your longer videos into bite-sized, shorter video clips can appeal to a broader audience. We discuss the value of creating share-worthy content and tips for encouraging your audience to share your content with others. Dorene also shares tips and strategies that tour operators can use to become more efficient with repurposing your content for multiple mediums and platforms and the tools and platforms you can use to repost your content and attract new audiences.

Repurposing Content - How It Can Help You Expand Your Audience and Reach

Today Otehlia and I dive into the world of Instagram marketing for tour operators and strategies to help grow your tour business. Otehlia offers insights into how Instagram can work for tour operators and which tools to use to maximize your reach. She shares her personal approach to Instagram and why creating an Instagram community is integral to publicizing your tour business. We discuss the unique role that Instagram can play in marketing tours and why it shouldn’t be your main point of sale application. She also shares her process of trial and error when maneuvering algorithms in Instagram and offers a few tips for getting more views.

Tour Operator Reveals How She Uses Instagram to Grow Her Tour Business. With Othelia Cassidy of Madison Eats Food Tours (148)

Tourpreneur host and founder Shane Whaley shares why he has decided to join Redeam.com as VP of Sales and why this is good news for Tourpreneur listeners. Passionate sales leader known for implementing global business development, growth, and strategies focused on driving revenue and increasing market share joins rapidly growing travel technology company   Broomfield, CO (May 3, 2021) – Redeam, the leading and only independent global connectivity stack with digitized channel management and touchless voucher redemption/reconciliation solutions for the Experiences and Things To Do industry, today announced that highly respected, long-time travel industry veteran and Tourpreneur publisher Shane Whaley will be joining the company as VP Sales. Whaley, a personal brand unto his own right, brings a deep, nearly 20-year legacy of selling digital travel solutions, for online hotel booking and online travel agency (OTA) websites, most recently with GetYourGuide before embarking on his own entrepreneurial endeavor with Tourpreneur. Whaley, known for his success building sales teams and his personalized problem-solving approach, joins Redeam to help operators grow sales and improve operational efficiencies through Redeam’s middleware SaaS solutions. Whaley will continue to nurture and publish Tourpreneur as its own independent business. “I love what I have built with Tourpreneur, but I miss the camaraderie of a team,” said Whaley. “What I so admire about Redeam and am excited to join is the thriving culture Redeam’s CEO Melanie Meador has built. I’ve watched Redeam’s product evolution and see the kind of industry problems they’re solving. Redeam is making a real difference in the Experiences industry, and I can’t wait to contribute directly to that.” “I honestly could not pass up an opportunity to work more directly with Shane, whose work and spirit I so admire,” said Redeam CEO Meador. “Shane understands the struggles of small and large operators alike, the fragmented nature of our industry sector, and the value Redeam’s connectivity, distribution, and improved customer experience brings. Shane is going to achieve great things here at Redeam, and we all welcome him with open arms.” To learn more about how tour, attraction, and activity operators rely on Redeam to easily automate their businesses so that they can sell more tickets around the world, visit the Redeam website.

Why I decided to join Redeam and why it's good news for Tourpreneur

Travel industry veteran Shane Whaley talks with tour/activities business owners and managers. He uncovers their personal stories on how they got started, dealt with challenges and achieved success. Tourpreneurs open up and share their tips, insights, morning routines, resources, inspiration and success stories with you. We even talk about nightmare situations and how they were overcome. If you operate a tour business or plan on starting one, this podcast is for you.

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