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8 Best Alternatives to TripWorks: 2024 Comparison Guide | Bókun

TripWorks is a popular tour operator and booking management software because it offers a robust feature set to support bookings and high-volume ticket sales.

However, most people’s biggest issue with TripWorks is pricing. While they don’t charge subscription fees, their booking fees are among the highest in the industry — 6%!

Historically, TripWorks required users to process $5K in monthly sales (or they were charged a $47 inactivity fee) and worked primarily with enterprises. They’ve updated pricing to market their solution to smaller teams, but the expensive booking fees still make TripWorks costly.

So, we’ve compiled this guide of TripWorks alternatives that offer more budget-friendly, accessible pricing. These solutions are often recommended for smaller and mid-size businesses, but all systems offer customisable enterprise plans to support your business requirements as you scale.

Best TripWorks Alternatives

Bókun (our tour operator software)
Xola
Checkfront
Bookeo
Beyonk & BookingHound
FareHarbor
TRYTN
The Flybook

We also offer a 14-day free trial (no credit card required!) so you can explore Bókun and see if we’re the right solution for your business. Start your free trial here.

1. Bókun

Flexible tour operator software with the industry’s lowest booking fees

We’re part of the Tripadvisor family and offer premier partnerships with leading OTAs Viator and GetYourGuide. Our system, Bókun, receives a 4.7-star rating on Capterra and is frequently highlighted in software guides for its ease of use, vast feature set, and low booking fees — 1% to 1.5%.

We’ve been working with tour and experience providers for ten years, refining our software and adding new features to support all aspects of team operations. It includes booking and availability management, resource management, staff scheduling, CRM to manage and automate customer communications, and more.

We offer tiered packages and custom plans to support tour operators at different growth stages. Our starting plan includes all core features and is suitable for most operators. However, you may upgrade to the PLUS or PREMIUM plan to access Zapier integrations, sub-vendor management, and travel agent solutions.

We’ll review our core features in the following sections, but you can also start a free trial to explore the platform.

Centralised booking calendar

Teams invest in booking software primarily to better manage their calendars, staff schedules, and availability.

If you sell tours on multiple channels — perhaps you sell tours on Viator, take booking requests from your site, and accept walk-ups — it can be difficult to consolidate bookings and keep your calendar current.

So Bókun offers channel management and a real-time, centralised booking calendar to automatically manage all reservations and update your availability.

You can connect all the channels you sell on — your website, OTAs, partner sites — and route all bookings to this calendar. This calendar will then feed availability to these channels as you receive reservations. So if somebody books on your site, those changes will reflect on OTAs and partner sites.

Our Daily Departure calendar also includes staff scheduling tools to assign guides to experiences easily. You can use resource management tools to proactively assign guides to different experience types or departure times. Or, from the central calendar, you can select tours and assign guides. (More on resource management later.)

Note: we also offer a channel management API for teams that already have a restech system but want to sell across OTAs and centralise bookings. Our API is an intermediary between your site and OTAs to consolidate bookings and update availability.

You can learn more about this solution by scheduling a free demo.

Features to drive bookings & fill your calendar

Bókun helps tour operators drive bookings with tools to enable direct bookings, connect OTAs, and source partnerships.

While this is especially useful for small teams exploring strategies to increase tour reservations, enterprises often choose Bókun because we have a robust partner marketplace to continuously expand your distribution network and test new opportunities.

See how REDRIB Experiences leveraged Bókun to grow from a startup to a five-star business with 89% direct bookings.

Online booking system & one-click website builder

Bókun provides booking engine widgets and a one-click website builder to help teams bring their business online and accept bookings through their website — 24/7.

If you already have a website, you can embed our booking engine widget and streamline the booking process in a few clicks. Website visitors can browse your tours and experiences, see availability, and instantly book and checkout online.

If you don’t already have a website, you can create one quickly and easily with our website builder and templates. Add custom colours, logos, and other brand elements; include background about your brand and experiences; and link Tripadvisor to feed traveller reviews direct to your site.

We cover charges to secure your website domain and bring your site live, all within your subscription costs.

OTA connections

As mentioned, Bókun has premium partnerships with Viator and GetYourGuide, but we also connect with dozens of global OTAs so tour operators can sell experiences to travellers around the world.

In addition to Viator and GetYourGuide, our site connects with Expedia, Headout, Klook, Civitatis, Tiqets, TourRadar, Trip.com, and more. You can also link with and set up Google things to do via Bókun.

Our platform also integrates with many niche-specific OTAs so tour operators can identify more targeted opportunities to test.

Our OTA partnerships earn our customers unique benefits:

Viator Preferred Partnership

Viator users can connect with Bókun and auto-import tour listings directly to our platform. Then, tour operators can sell those experiences on their websites without recreating listings.
We waive Bókun booking fees on Viator reservations, so you can drive bookings through this channel and keep costs low.
To reduce operational costs, we offer a number of free submission checks (12, 24, or 48) each year.

GetYourGuide Premium Connectivity Partnership

Our GetYourGuide integration offers the strongest API performance, so the platforms communicate in real time with zero lag. It also earns you access to the latest feature releases and makes it easy to manage GetYourGuide bookings in a central calendar.

Bókun Marketplace

The Bókun Marketplace includes more than just our OTA integrations — our network comprises over 27K business partners in the travel and tourism industry.

All tour operators are added to this network when they start a Bókun subscription (which means you can work with other tour and experience providers who use Bókun!). However, you can also partner with travel agencies, DMOs, hotel and resort companies, and rental providers. You can also partner with universities and attractions like theatres and theme parks.

We provide all the tools to establish these connections, arrange partnerships, and store partner contracts and documentation.

There are three common ways to use our network:

You can source resellers who will promote your experiences and secure bookings on your behalf.
You can work as a reseller and connect with suppliers; you earn a commission for the bookings you earn for partners.
You can create tour or travel packages with partners. You may partner with another activity provider to create a combo experience, or you can make convenient travel packages by partnering with hotels or car rental companies and covering other aspects of customers’ travel.

Learn more about driving new bookings through Bókun in our guides below:

Product management

Bókun offers user-friendly product builders to design and manage tour listings. These walk you through everything to include in listings — itineraries, duration, location, pictures, and videos — and provide dozens of fields so you can get as detailed or creative as you wish.

Our product builder also lets you offer add-ons with tours and activities to increase revenue and enhance travellers’ experiences.

After adding details, you can set pricing, availability, and resources for experiences.

Create pricing categories, private tour rates, and bulk discounts, or charge one flat rate. Bókun also includes dynamic pricing, which adjusts rates automatically based on set rules or conditions.
Choose how teams book — if they reserve a specific slot or buy a pass. Select the specific days and departure times, specify start and close-out dates, and set booking cutoffs. You can also create availability rules so they populate your calendar.
Assign required resources to experiences — such as bikes for bike tours, ATVs for offroading experiences, boats and captains for boat charters, helicopters and pilots for helicopter tours, and more. Our resource management tool lets you leverage a variety of allocation rules to proactively assign equipment and guides and better manage tour availability. You can also assign resources manually or adjust them on the fly.

You can access all tour listings and edit them anytime in the Experiences dashboard.

Back-office tools

Bókun includes everything tour and activity operators need to manage their business and staff. In addition to our booking and product management tools discussed above, Bókun also includes:

Integrations with online payment processing systems (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Worldpay, PayPal, Braintree, Raypd, Klarna, etc.) so you can offer customers a variety of payment options and secure their business.

Native CRM to automatically store customer contact information, automate important emails like booking confirmations, and assist with customer retargeting.

Automated communications to, as mentioned, send essential communications like booking confirmations and mobile tickets. You can also use automation to schedule other types of emails, like abandoned cart reminders, marketing newsletters, promotional emails, and more. We provide a template gallery for you to customise and schedule.

Portals for travellers to view, modify, or cancel reservations without contacting your team for help.

A reporting dashboard to monitor bookings, track revenue, and learn more about who’s booking with you. You can also access performance reports to see which sales channels and partners earn the most business for you. Then, you can use these insights to guide growth strategies and invest in the right opportunities to scale your business.

We also offer mobile apps (for iOS and Android) so you can access Bókun’s booking calendar and back-office tools on the go.

Getting started with the Bókun booking system

If you want to learn more about our tour operator software and its features, start a free trial here.

After the trial period, you can upgrade to one of our paid packages or continue in the limited free plan.

Our starting package, including all the above features, is $49/month. We charge 1.5% booking fees for website, OTA, and partner bookings.

Although 1.5% is our highest booking fee, it’s still the lowest among competitors. Most competitors booking fees are between 3% and 6%.

We also offer two upgraded packages — Plus and Premium — where you can access more advanced tools to customise Bókun and enjoy our lowest booking fee (1%).

2. Xola

Xola is a common TripWorks alternative because it offers many of the same advanced features but significantly lower fees. Xola does not charge subscription or booking fees — customers pay a 1.9% + 30¢ fee when they book and checkout online.

They differentiate themselves from competitors with an innovative booking engine carefully developed to encourage travellers through the checkout flow, prevent abandoned carts, and improve the booking experience. TripWorks also boasts retargeting tools to help you win the business of customers who do drop off before completing their bookings.

Xola’s feature set typically appeals to small and growing teams looking to increase direct bookings or earn new business via digital marketing strategies.

Features

Website building service
Online booking widgets (for existing sites)
Channel management & OTA connections
Distribution network
Inventory management
Availability management
Staff management
Phone booking system to manage offline reservations
Native point-of-sale (POS)
CRM
Marketing tools to promote your tours & retarget customers
Digital waiver solution
Customisable tickets (and ticket scanning tools for convenient check-in)
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

Xola does not charge subscription or booking fees. Instead, it charges customers a “partner fee” (1.9% + 30¢) when they book and checkout online.

Xola does not disclose full pricing details on the site; you must contact them for a demo to learn more.

3. Checkfront

Checkfront is another more affordable TripWorks alternative — its booking fees are half of TripWorks, at 3%.

Checkfront is a highly-rated booking system because they have a wide swath (100+) features to manage bookings, staff, and back-office operations. The brand also recently merged with Rezdy, an industry leader, to expand its reach and offer additional benefits for tour operators.

Despite its large feature set, Checkfront is user-friendly and intuitive and doesn’t require a long learning curve. The notable downside for larger teams is that Checkfront doesn’t have the most expansive partner network. They connect with dozens of OTAs but only recently (mid 2024) began offering a partner network to connect with other travel and tourism businesses.

While Checkfront might be popular for small teams because of its pricing and ease of use, larger teams may find it doesn’t offer as many avenues for growth.

Features

The Checkfront platform includes 100+ features — here are some of the most notable ones:

Online booking widget
Centralised booking calendar
Channel management & OTA connections
Availability management
Inventory management
Partner Accounts to establish partnerships
Checkfront payments and online payment options — Checkfront integrates with Stripe, connects with your POS, and lets you send custom invoices or offer a “Buy Now Pay Later” option
Digital waiver solution
Integrations and developer API
Reporting and ROI tracking
Mobile apps

Pricing

Checkfront charges a 3% booking fee with every online reservation. Tour operators can absorb these or pass them to the customer.

Checkfront may appeal to smaller teams because it does not charge subscription fees.

As mentioned, Checkfront — and Regiondo, another popular booking software — recently merged with Rezdy. However, due to pricing and booking fees, we don’t typically recommend Regiondo or Rezdy for smaller teams.

You can learn more about Rezdy and its competitors in our guide here.

4. Bookeo

Tour operators looking for a TripWorks alternative should also consider Bookeo because it does not charge booking fees but rather one flat monthly fee. This might be popular for seasonal businesses or businesses with expensive tours or activities — like yachts or boat charters — who don’t want to pay costly fees (or ask customers to pay booking fees on top of tour pricing).

Bookeo offers many of the booking management essentials to help teams keep a central, current calendar and oversee operations. However, like Checkfront, Bookeo lacks features to promote growth. While they integrate with dozens of OTAs, Bookeo does not offer a partner network to explore those opportunities.

Bookeo subscription fees are moderate; most teams find the Standard package at $39.95/month suitable.

Features

Online booking widget
Customisable booking management calendar
Channel management & OTA connections
Product management
Availability management
Staff management
Native POS
Integrations with online payment processors (e.g., Stripe)
Automated customer communications
Customer portals
Waitlisting tools
Upselling tools
Options to sell merchandise, gift cards & vouchers
Reporting

Pricing

Bookeo offers three packages — based on team size and booking volume:

The Standard plan — $39.95/month — supports 20 product listings, 20 staff logins, and 1,000 bookings per month.
The Large plan — $79.95/month — supports 40 product listings, 40 staff logins, and 2,000 bookings per month.
The X-large plan — $199.95/month — supports 60 products, 60 staff logins, and 3,000 bookings per month.

5. Beyonk & BookingHound

Sister brands Beyonk and BookingHound are two TripWorks alternatives popular among UK-based businesses. They offer two solutions: one for managing bookings and the other for high-volume ticket sales.

Beyonk is the recommended solution for tour and experience providers managing bookings.
BookingHound is the recommended solution for attractions managing high-volume ticket sales.

Both solutions offer a wide range of features to maintain an organised calendar and drive new business; for example, the platform connects with OTAs and offers a reseller marketplace to grow your online distribution network.

They also offer conveniences like a native CMS, digital marketing tools, and an analytics dashboard with insights on social media and search engine performance.

Both solutions charge lower booking fees than TripWorks — only 4%. Beyonk does not charge subscription fees and is an all-around more affordable solution. BookingHound charges $38/month for platform access, but depending on your experiences and pricing, it could be more cost-effective than TripWorks.

Features

Online booking widget
Custom checkout workflows
Channel management & OTA connections
Reseller marketplace
Tools to manage online or in-person payments
Options to cross-sell products & offer add-ons
Options to sell gift cards & issue discount codes
Dynamic pricing
Options to offer free events
Automated customer communications
Content management system (CMS)
Affiliate codes
Reporting
Analytics tools from Meta and Google

Also available in Beyonk:

ePOS system
Staff & schedule management
Zapier integrations

Only available in BookingHound:

Online ticketing tools
Capacity management system & waitlisting tools
Options to sell memberships or season tickets
Options to sell merchandise
Customer self-service portals
Questionnaires
Abandoned cart retargeting

Pricing

Beyonk does not charge subscription fees — instead, it charges a 4% booking fee for each reservation. Tour operators can cover this or pass it to travellers.
BookingHound is available for $38/month. This plan still charges 4% booking fees but includes access to more advanced ticketing management tools.

6. FareHarbor

Next is FareHarbor — we include this solution because it’s featured in many “top software” guides. However, FareHarbor is not our first recommendation because it charges variable booking fees, which can be as high as TripWorks’s 6%.

FareHarbor competes with TripWorks’ feature set and is appealing to smaller teams because it offers a website-building service (its customer support team uses the one-click website builder to create a site and save you time). In addition, like TripWorks, FareHarbor doesn’t charge subscription fees.

However, FareHarbor booking fees vary based on your experiences, location, and pricing. They range between 3% and 6% but are often on the higher end.

Plus, FareHarbor passes fees to the customer where they can be seen at checkout, and extra fees could deter customers from completing their booking.

You’ll have to consider your brand and offerings to determine if FareHarbor could be a viable TripWorks alternative for your team.

Features

Website-building services
Online booking widget
Customisable booking calendar
Channel management & OTA connections
Reseller network
Product management
Availability management
Staff management
Native POS
Integrations with Stripe
Customer portals
Fast check-in features & online waiver tools
Options to sell memberships
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

FareHarbor charges variable booking fees (up to 6%) on each online reservation. FareHarbor passes these fees to customers at checkout, so the platform remains free for tour operators.

The catch is that extra fees — especially higher fees — can negatively impact booking conversions.

Like TripWorks, FareHarbor (along with Peek Pro, which is not mentioned on this list) charges some of the highest booking fees in the category.

7. TRYTN

TRYTN is another top-rated online reservation system for tour and experience providers. It’s unique from the other names on our list because it offers website development services in addition to its booking management platform.

Small teams learning to market their tour guide business or sell tours online may like TRYTN because it offers the consulting needed to establish their online presence and create a stunning site.

Teams also like TRYTN because it includes essentials for managing bookings and operations and several features to support growth: the platform offers advanced marketing tools for managing online advertising campaigns, a detailed reporting dashboard, and features for supporting multi-location teams.

That said, TRYTN does not offer a reseller network to earn partnerships through the platform, so scalability is somewhat limited here.

We should note: TRYTN (and The Flybook below) don’t share pricing on their sites, but we include them in our list because user reviews suggest they work primarily with small teams — with less than 50 employees — and offer appropriate pricing for their requirements.

Features

Custom website development services (the TRYTN team will also manage, update, and maintain your site to prevent downtime and other technical issues)
Online booking engine
Reservation management
Channel management & OTA connections
Product management
Features to offer add-ons & upsell customers during the booking experience
Staff management to track availability & assign guides to tours
Inventory management
POS to manage online & in-person payments
Multi-location support
Multi-currency & multi-language support
Marketing analytics tools to see how many customers you receive from PPC ads & other online channels
Reporting

Pricing

TRYTN doesn’t disclose pricing online; they offer custom quotes based on your requirements. However, user reviews suggest they work with smaller teams.

8. The Flybook

The last option on our list, The Flybook, is a booking management platform marketed for adventure or excursion-based tour providers (e.g., fishing tours, bike tours, zipline operators, etc.). In addition, The Flybook works with adventure parks, ski resorts, lodging providers, and professionals who run camps and outdoor classes.

Beyond The Flybook’s core features to manage bookings and operations, the platform offers unique features to support outdoor experiences and activities, such as Land Use Reporting tools, rental and inventory management, and digital waivers.

The Flybook brand also has a unique backstory: its founder initially designed the platform to assist with managing his fishing tour operation. He developed it with the outdoor industry in mind and has been working with tour and experience providers since 2006.

The potential downsides with The Flybook are a clunky UX and a long learning curve. Some users have said the features and interface are outdated, and the software can initially be tricky to navigate.

Features

Online booking engine — this platform does not include a website-building tool
Reservation management
Availability management
Connections with OTAs & channel management
Rental management, with tools to list rental equipment and sell reservations online
Staff & resource management
Automated customer communications
Tools to sell gift cards & memberships and offer promo codes & bundle deals
Smartwaivers
Kiosk mode — where walk-ups can book reservations & sign waivers
Payment management (with tools like Rain Checks)
Integrations
Reporting
Land Use reporting tools — unique to Flybook
Mobile apps

Pricing

Like TRYTN, The Flybook’s site does not share pricing details — you must contact their team to schedule a demo and receive a quote.

Start a free trial of Bókun to explore our platform features, OTA connections, and Marketplace, and begin selling through Bókun today!

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