Hello everyone!
I am (was) running tour operator business (walking, bicycle, sometimes van tours) in nyc
pre-covid numbers were 350k rev, ~70k income.
Market is strongly hit by covid and since it's started we got only 2 bookings. And nobody shows any interest. (before we received bookings 1-3 months in advance)
Right now i am hesitating what to do.
On the one hand there are lots of things i can improve in business.
1. Operations.
2. Marketing
Now all sales are coming via PPC (google and bing) and i need to:
-add more quality content (i build high converting product pages with lots of photos, reviews, etc, but no content that people, influencers, bloggers would like to link to)
-make SEO work
-make OTAs work
-make FB work
3. New products
We several ideas for new tours / experiences that should help us stand out from competition.
To achieve those we will need to move to new platform, and it will cost plus minus $100k. (most of it will go to pay to developers, plus about ~20% for content, tours, photography).
Plus big time commitment from me, cause i will need to communicate to dev team, guides working on tours, writers, provide feedback, communicate design, etc.
If it won't be for covid i won't hesitate much, but now i am not sure. $100k is big investment for me, and with travel situation i am not sure how long it will take to get $ back,
and maybe it's better to invest this money and TIME somewhere else / try new venture. My strong skills are sales, design, marketing, ppc, SEO.
I like travel, like serving guests, they are nice people to work with. And i know our industry good. I have several ideas how possibly we can expand our offering (now we are serving only small portion) that's why i am trying to invest in automation, but i am not sure i what's decision to make.
I am (was) running tour operator business (walking, bicycle, sometimes van tours) in nyc
pre-covid numbers were 350k rev, ~70k income.
Market is strongly hit by covid and since it's started we got only 2 bookings. And nobody shows any interest. (before we received bookings 1-3 months in advance)
Right now i am hesitating what to do.
On the one hand there are lots of things i can improve in business.
1. Operations.
2. Marketing
Now all sales are coming via PPC (google and bing) and i need to:
-add more quality content (i build high converting product pages with lots of photos, reviews, etc, but no content that people, influencers, bloggers would like to link to)
-make SEO work
-make OTAs work
-make FB work
3. New products
We several ideas for new tours / experiences that should help us stand out from competition.
To achieve those we will need to move to new platform, and it will cost plus minus $100k. (most of it will go to pay to developers, plus about ~20% for content, tours, photography).
Plus big time commitment from me, cause i will need to communicate to dev team, guides working on tours, writers, provide feedback, communicate design, etc.
If it won't be for covid i won't hesitate much, but now i am not sure. $100k is big investment for me, and with travel situation i am not sure how long it will take to get $ back,
and maybe it's better to invest this money and TIME somewhere else / try new venture. My strong skills are sales, design, marketing, ppc, SEO.
I like travel, like serving guests, they are nice people to work with. And i know our industry good. I have several ideas how possibly we can expand our offering (now we are serving only small portion) that's why i am trying to invest in automation, but i am not sure i what's decision to make.
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited: