Hub for advice, resources and updates regarding the impact of COVID-19 on tour operators
Google My Business: 10 Key Optimizations for Tour and Activity Operators
Industry Event: Tour Operator Throwdown
- Access to Capital
- Best Practices
- Advice from Industry Veterans
- Examples of Operators Adapting
- Stay Updated and Connected
- Appeal to Your Local Community
- Webinar Recordings
Access to Capital
PPP Loan Forgiveness Guidance: What You Need to Know Now
Read the SBA’s long-awaited instructions on how PPP loan forgiveness should be calculated, and how to claim forgiveness of your own PPP loan. Plus, brush up on the latest updates of this federal aid with SBA FAQ here. [US operators only]
Hourly Job Alternative: Become a Driver & Deliver with DoorDash
With furloughs becoming the norm across industries, help staff, friends, or family find flexible, convenient earnings opportunities through Peek’s initiative with DoorDash. DoorDash is currently looking for drivers across hundreds of cities – get started now here.
Google's $800M+ Aid to Support Businesses and Crisis Response
Read Google’s announcement to provide aid to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Its commitment includes a $200M investment fund to help provide small businesses with access to capital, $340M in Google Ad credits for SMBs, and more.
$100M in Cash Grants and Ad Credits from Facebook
Browse the aid Facebook is providing for up to 30,000 eligible small businesses in over 30 countries. Apply here.
Best Practices
How to Use Facebook Asset Customization to Tailor Your Ad Placements
Learn how to use the asset customization tool to adjust one video or image for use in ad placements across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
LinkedIn Strategies for Tourism Professionals with Sally Davis Berry
Join Tourism industry expert Sally Davis Berry and LinkedIn consultant Louise Brogan on August 6, 11 a.m. EST, to learn how to optimize your profile, build your network with a strategy, and take actions that will help your profile stand out from the competition.
The Sunshine Tribe’s Online Program: Local Market Recovery
Our friends at the Sunshine Tribe are offering an uncomplicated, step-by-step system to help you reposition your experiences and start selling to totally new customers within a month. Use the coupon codes STARTER-COUPON and ACCELERATOR-COUPON to trigger a $200 discount for the respective training sessions.
Why Tours Might Be the Way to Go Moving Forward
Jenny Cagle, President of Elm Grove Travel, argues that operators’ commitment to travelers’ health and safety will provide travelers with a sense of security they may not have if traveling independently.
How to Create Effective Facebook Lead Ads: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
Want to collect more leads using Facebook? Learn which lead gen form options to use, how to add custom questions and fields to your form, and more key tips on creating effective Facebook lead ads.
Tourism Tiger Offers Major Sale on Website Builds
Tourism Tiger websites are known for helping tour operators sell more tours; now, they’re more attainable than ever, with a 40% off sale for July.
Is Profit Possible for Live Events With Social Distancing?
Take a look at the impact of health and safety measures on budgets, the effect of social distancing and a reduced capacity on revenue, and the role virtual engagement will play in moving the needle towards a viable ROI.
How to Convert More Instagram Traffic: 3 Tips
Looking for ways to improve your conversions from Instagram? Discover three tips to improve the chances that people on Instagram will convert into customers on your website.
How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business
Learn how to create buyer personas for your business so that you can identify your ideal customers, direct your efforts toward qualified prospects, and guide product development to suit their needs based on data and research.
Your Intelligent Reopening Checklist
Learn best practices and tips to help you reopen in today’s “new normal” with an easy checklist that will help you get back to business as quickly and safely as possible.
5 Tips On How to Pivot Into Local Marketing for Tour Operators
Marica Brewster of the Von Mack Agency, a digital marketing agency that specializes in the tours and activities industry, covers the 5 strategies you need to use now to target your new demographic.
How to Improve Instagram Post Engagement: 4 Tips
Discover how to design and deliver the types of Instagram posts that boost brand awareness and improve engagement on Instagram.
The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Pack
Video marketing can be a powerful channel for business growth, but there are a lot of questions on how to get started. Learn what equipment you'll need, where you'll find talent, tips for writing video scripts, and more.
Refunds Reserve: Easy, Automated Refunds in Peek Pro
We’ve added key automations to our new refunds process, to allow a smoother and more streamlined experience. Learn how it can help your business deal with refunds quicker and create a better guest experience.
Advice from Industry Veterans
Running a Tour Business in Hong Kong with Amy Overy
Amy Overy of Hong Kong Greeters shares how she grew her tour business in Hong Kong and how her team has coped with the double whammy of mass political protests and COVID-19.
The Importance Of a Diverse Tour Guide Team
Tour guide trainer Nikki Padilla Rivera outlines why having a diverse group of guides means a richer customer experience and an added boost for your entire team.
Giving Our First Tour Since Lockdown with ViaNissa’s Robert Levitt
Learn how a French tour operator pivoted to offer tours in Nice to locals and how they overcame tough French social distancing regulations.
Don’t Miss This Seminal Moment for Racial Justice, Travel Industry
With mass protests of gross racial inequalities spanning the U.S. and abroad, Skift covers what this could mean for the travel industry and issues a call to action.
Three Ways Tour Operators Can Grow During the COVID-19 Crisis
Milwaukee Food Tours share the actionable steps they took to pivot to sustain operations and payroll as they faced zero revenue during the lockdown.
Industry Experts Offering One-on-One, Free Consulting Help
Leading tour industry players have come together through Tourmaggeddon to volunteer free consulting sessions for others in our industry. Set up a session with the link above.
Wildebeest's Essential Marketing Advice for Tour & Activity Operators
Read about the actionable steps operators can take to mitigate the damage caused by today’s COVID crisis and prepare for the industry’s eventual recovery.
Navigating a Crisis: Arival's 5-Step Action Plan for Tour Operators
Read the industry giant’s advice on minimizing unnecessary expenses, creating a cash flow forecast, diversifying current and future revenue-generating activities, and more.
'Attracting Tourists After Troubled Times' Blog
Regroup and prepare your business for when the dust settles and bookings ramp up with the tips and insights from Stephanie Fiero of Tourism Tiger in this guest blog.
Examples of Operators Adapting
Beyond COVID-19 – The Road to Recovery for Tour Operators
On Episode 101 of the Tourpreneur Podcast, 3 tourpreneurs from different parts of the world come together to discuss the recent TripAdvisor White Paper.
Dubai Food Tour Company Gifts Almost 3,000 Meals to Crisis-Hit Families
The plan is being called ‘a lifeline’ for many in the community who would otherwise struggle to put food on their plates, while also helping to keep hard-hit local restaurants afloat.
Successful Pivots: How to Not Go Out of Business
Four operators discuss their process to re-think their business and develop the strategies to help them manage the COVID crisis, while building new business models for future success.
Virtual Food and Drink Experiences
Our recent favorites: The Table Less Traveled’s live cooking classes with featured chefs and home cooks via Zoom; Boutique events company EETTAFEL’s online cooking and wine classes, featuring conversations with a life coach; Avital’s Remote Culinary Teambuilding, Virtual Chefinars, and Virtual Mixologist classes.
Virtual Yoga Classes
Sup Yo, which usually offers paddleboard yoga classes, hiking excursions, and retreats, is engaging customers with online yoga classes. Namaste in Nature has adapted similarly, switching up its former mediation and yoga hikes with online meditation and yoga classes on YouTube.
Online Escape Room Experience
Trap’t Escape Room Adventures has created an at-home puzzle hunt to bring the escape room experience right to customers’ living rooms.
Other Adapted Activities
Browse a wide range of adapted activities across the industry, including everything from virtual tours to “Shelter-in Style” kits to “Food Tours in a Box.
Collaborations with Community Foundations
Check out how our partner ‘Your Biker Gang’ has teamed up with the Austin Community Foundation to help raise the funds needed to protect local businesses feeling the effects of the virus.
Adapted Refund Policies
Keep track of how the industry is adapting their refund policies in response to COVID-19 with this travel company refund tracker.
Stay Updated and Connected
New Association Aims to Support Small Destination Experience Operators
A new global association has been founded to unite and support small, independent Destination Experience Operators (DEOs) from around the world, including providers of local tours.
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Unveils New Insurance Guidelines
The new guidelines are intended to rebuild global consumer confidence to help encourage the return of traveling.
US Travelers Pull Back on Travel Plans Even as Restrictions Lift: Skift’s New Travel Tracker Survey
With 33% of Americans taking at least one trip last month, June tells a promising story of reopening. However, according to Skift, that might be a very short-lived sign of promise.
Should Anyone in the U.S. Be Traveling Right Now? Industry Trade Group Responds
As cases surge in the US - and show no sign of slowing down in several states - should anyone be advocating for travel at all? Read what the US Travel Association has to say.
New Booking Data Shows Lopsided Global Recovery Frustrating Travel Outfits
“After a strong initial restart, we have seen a dip in North America,” said Matthew Webb of Travelport. Webb chalked up the issue to shaky traveler confidence.
United Airlines Warns 36,000 Workers They Could Be Laid Off or Furloughed
Since March, United Airlines has been the first U.S. carrier to sound the alarm on almost every major issue facing the airline industry. That is also the case here. Look for other global network airlines to make similar announcements in the coming weeks.
GetYourGuide Survey: How and When Americans Will Resume Exploring the World
US respondents plan to travel more—and spend more money on experiences—in 2021 vs. 2019; check out which age groups are most eager to resume traveling, what their top travel motivators are, and other trends to keep an eye on now.
U.K. To Allow Quarantine-Free Travel For 75 Countries: Air Bridge Idea Scrapped
The U.K. government is set to release a list of 75 countries with whom travel will be allowed, quarantine-free, and to lift the foreign office ban on non-essential travel to many countries.
Rethinking Skift’s 2020 Travel Megatrends in a Pandemic World
Skift has gone back and looked at this year’s defining travel trends through the prism of the pandemic. Check out how things have changed.
US Travel Spending Not Expected to Recover to Pre-COVID Numbers Until 2024
In response to the forecast, the US Travel Association is underlining its call for more fiscal relief efforts to be passed to benefit and assist travel industry companies.
COVID-19 Marketing and Sales Benchmark Data for Tour and Activity Operators
Keep up on week-over-week benchmark data for core business metrics, split by region, company size, and industry cuts. You can find the data with the 'Learn More' button below and more context on the dataset and sources here.
Travel’s Reopening: A Global Timeline
Stay up-to-date on the reopening of various travel sectors around the world, in order to better understand the when and the where of how the reopening and potential recovery of travel goes from here.
Tourmageddon: A COVID-19 Resource and Advice Hub
Find more resources, top tips, recovery plans, and more, edited by industry experts, Alex Bainbridge (Autoura / DestinationCTO), Peter Syme and Chris Torres. Sign up to receive email updates or follow them on Twitter @TourmageddonH.
Facebook Forums for Tour Operators
Join the groups Tour Operators United, Tourpreneur for Tour Operators/Tour Professionals, andTour Strategy if you haven’t already for discussion, advice, and support.
Appeal to Your Local Community
'Driving Community Support' Blog
Learn tips on how to help your community best support your business. We’ve also included email templates and social media posts in this blog to help you get these campaigns up and running, without having to start from scratch.
11 Ways Your Community Can Help Travel Companies
See examples of how your community can help businesses like yours in this article by Linsey Stevens from Travel Awaits.
Webinar Recordings
Arival Webinar Recording: Guide and Staff Training for Health and Safety
Listen as Veteran tour guide and guide trainer Nikki Padilla Rivera walks you through how to train your guides and staff on all things health and safety as travel and tours reopen.
Rentals Roundtable: Webinar Recording
Listen as our panelists discuss the changes they’ve made to their businesses, today’s tighter hygiene regulations, specific cleaning chemicals, correct customer messaging, and more.
Intelligent Reopening Webinar Recording
Learn best practices and tips to help you reopen in today’s “new normal” with Jon Peahl, safety & hygiene expert and founder of SanSee Systems. Plus check out even more helpful resources from the webinar slides here.
Arival: How to In-House Your SEO
829 Studios’ co-founder Peter Ross delves into the search essentials every operator should be doing now. Learn how to manage it all in-house without spending a dime.
International Tour Operator Roundtable Webinar
Listen as leading industry players from around the globe discuss how COVID has affected their businesses, how markets have responded to virtual activities, and which areas are starting to open up to tourism.
How to Design, Launch and Sell Online Tours & Experiences
Gain a practical guide to creating and selling online products and services with Kelsey Tonner and Ingo Albrecht from Be a Better Guide & Online Tourism Academy.
Workshop + Q&A: How to Take Your Experiences Online
Learn how to set up a virtual tour from scratch, which aspects are likely to make it successful, and more with Junket (a virtual tour software provider).
Tour Operator Roundtable I & II
Delve into some of today’s crucial questions: how to access capital, how to adapt tours or activities, how to best communicate with customers, and more. Access the recording of Part I with the 'Learn More' button below and of Part II here.
'Planning for Recovery: Essential Marketing Advice' Webinar
Listen as the co-founders of Wildebeest discuss how to market your business in these extreme circumstances, prepare your operations for recovery, and more.