The travel industry is constantly evolving. Knowing what's moving and shaking the industry is essential to stay ahead of your competition.
There are always new trends, tips and tricks. But, endless information available on the internet makes it difficult to filter what's relevant to you.
That's why we created a collection of the best online resources for tour and activity operators. The list has been divided into three categories: podcasts, news sources, and marketing resources.
Top Podcasts for Tour Operators
From marketing tips to stories of tourism operators, the Tourpreneur podcasts focus on the needs of small tour operators. Founded by Shane Waley in 2019, Tourprenuer has now grown into a community of 3500+ travel professionals. Today it's run by industry veterans Peter Syme, Mitch Bach, and Chris Torres.
Tourpreneur, through their podcasts, shares real-life stories and strategies for success. Their goal is to flatten the learning curve for tour operators trying to grow their experience business.
Tourpreneur is not just focused on podcasts. They have a vibrant Facebook community, weekly newsletter, and many other learning opportunities, including courses, in-person meetups, and small group masterminds.
As you may already know, Skift is one of the largest travel industry intelligence platforms providing media, insights, and marketing to crucial travel sectors. Skift brands publish four different podcasts throughout the week.
- Skift Daily Briefing: Daily insight into the business of travel
- The Skift Travel Podcast: Exclusive conversations with travel leaders and Skift's own in-house editors and analysts.
- Airline Weekly Lounge: Insightful analysis and new ideas about the global airline industry
- Event Manager Podcast: Online resource for event professionals around the world.
Tour and activity operators can bookmark Skift Daily Briefing and The Skift Travel Podcast as it revolves around their topics of interest.
You get to hear candid conversations with industry leaders and visionaries about today's challenges and opportunities facing the travel and tourism industry.
These podcasts are not the typical tips and tricks kind of content. Instead, these podcasts dive deeper into the tourism industry, helping you gain insights. The talks are more focused on sustainable tourism, meaningful stakeholder engagement, managing crisis, and destination marketing.
For example, an episode on destination management and sustainable tourism talks about how Matthew Price, executive director of the Huntingdon County Visitors Bureau, brought together stakeholders to develop sustainable recreational projects and events in their corner of the world. In another episode, Leonard Hoops, President & CEO at Visit Indy, shares his proprietary model for sustainable business success: the “3-4-5 model.”
The Folo is a weekly flagship podcast from Travel Weekly that focuses on the biggest travel news or trend of the moment. (The word folo is a journalism shorthand that means to write a follow-up story with more facts and content.)
Folo by Travel Weekly offers travel insight and analysis with its Managing editor Rebecca Tobin, editors, reporters, and special guests to discuss the latest happenings in the industry.
AAMP, which stands for Adventure Activity Marketing Pros, is a marketing agency for the adventure tours and activities market. They have a podcast where they talk about the travel industry, cool tech, software, and everything in between. They talk shop with some of the biggest tour operators and also voice their ideas and opinions on the travel industry.
Blogs for Tourism Marketing Tips
Blend Travel marketing is a full-service marketing agency passionate about helping tour & activity businesses grow. Their blog—named Tourism Insights on their website—talks about advertising, SEO, conversions, customer experience, and more. Here are a few examples from their collection:
- When and How to Use Outdoor Advertising for Tours, Activities, & Attractions
- How Content Can Grow Your Traffic – A 360 CHICAGO Example
- How To Create a Tourism Marketing Plan That Works
Tourism Tiger’s Blog is an excellent online resource for Tour Operators. Since they focus more on web design packages for tourism companies, they have more write-ups on website designs and layouts. Blog categories are easily identified across the top of the page, making it easy to navigate. A few must-reads from their blogs:
- Choosing the Right Colours for Your Website
- Downloadable Resources For Your Tourism Website
- How Maps Can Benefit Your Tour Website
The Tourism Marketing Agency is an international digital tourism agency helping tour operators through the many challenges of promoting a tourism business online. Their blog section covers everything from social media, websites, videos, and experiential marketing. Here are some highlights:
- Most of you will have Google GA4 Analytics set-up wrong (If at all)!
- Fundamentals of a Good Website For Tour and Activity Operators
- 10 tips for recording video for your tour and travel business
Tourism eSchool, founded in 2012, is a micro tourism consultancy dedicated to the Australian tourism industry. They have blogs offering expert tips and tricks. Here is a sneak peek into their blog topics:
- Understanding your DMO's Role in Destination Branding
- 15 Ways to Evolve Your Destination Visitor Guide in 2022
- A Complete Guide to TikTok for Tourism Businesses and Destinations
They help tourism brands create purpose-driven marketing strategies and plans and make a profit. Their blogs have plenty of valuable content for you, like these:
- 12 Tourism Pricing Problems And How To Avoid Them
- Marketing During A Crisis: What Should I Do?
- 10 Tips For Better Tourism Website Copywriting
Resources for Keeping Up to Date with Industry News
As one of the leading travel news outlets, the Skift team provides pivotal media insights on key travel sectors through news, research, conferences, exclusive interviews, strategic sector-focused newsletters, and more.
They cover most industry sectors, including travel technology, tours and activities, consumer habits, and hospitality. You can subscribe to the Skift newsletter to be up to date with the ever-evolving transformation of the travel industry.
Arival can be an excellent source to get in-destination insights and news. It covers and analyzes the most important developments in the industry. Arrival also has events for sellers of tours, activities, attractions, and experiences to share knowledge and build connections. Sign up for the Arival weekly newsletter to receive the latest articles, industry news, and updates about Arival events.
PhocusWire is a comprehensive daily news companion for the industry, powered by Phocuswright, the travel research authority and events brand. PhocusWire provides daily exposure to sought-after research, valuable industry data, and expert analysis.
Since 2002, TravelPulse has been publishing industry news, in-depth editorial, dynamic video content and important destination information. The TravelPulse Daily Newsletter provides timely and relevant content to keep you informed and on top of the news.
Travel Weekly delivers all the late-breaking news, analysis, and research that travel professionals need to succeed. They cover every business sector, including airline, car rental, cruise, destination, hotel and tour operators, technology, economic and governmental issues, helping you gain a global perspective.
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