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8 Best BookingHound Alternatives: 2024 Comparison

BookingHound and Beyonk are UK-based sister brands with software solutions for tour operators and experience providers.

Beyonk is booking management software with tools to enable direct bookings, sell tours across OTAs, and create partnerships with other travel businesses. It appeals to tour companies and rental providers.
BookingHound contains most of the booking management features available in Beyonk, plus a suite of tools to manage high-volume ticket sales (e.g., capacity management, waitlisting, and options to sell memberships, season passes, and merchandise). This option typically appeals to attractions and event venues.

Both solutions offer robust toolsets and user-friendly features. However, some tour operators may look for alternatives because BookingHound and Beyonk charge 4% booking fees on all reservations — which is relatively high compared to competitors.

So we’ve compiled this guide of BookingHound alternatives that offer lower booking fees and better value for money so you can compare other highly-rated booking platforms.

We’ll start with our tour operator software, Bókun, and provide a quick overview of our platform’s features. We charge the lowest booking fees among competitors (1% to 1.5% on online bookings), and you can manage Viator and offline bookings in our system for free.

Best BookingHound Alternatives

Bókun
Rezdy (with honourable mentions, Checkfront & Regiondo)
Peek Pro
Xola
Palisis
bookingkit
Travelotopos
Travefy

Explore our platform and see how it compares to BookingHound with our 14-day free trial (no credit card required!). You can browse our Marketplace and OTA connections, design tour listings, connect with Tripadvisor and Viator, and test our booking management tools to see if we’re the right solution for your business.

1. Bókun

Customisable, scalable tour operator software — with budget-friendly pricing & the lowest fees in the market

We’re a Tripadvisor brand and Viator preferred partner (we’re also connectivity partners with GetYourGuide for bonus benefits) — and we’ve designed Bókun with everything tour and experience providers need to manage operations.

Our tour operator software lets you simplify the booking process, broaden your travel distribution network, improve the customer experience, oversee back-office tasks, and grow your business’s bottom line. It includes:

Online booking engine widget (and a user-friendly, one-click website builder for teams who still need to bring their brand online).
Channel management to sell across OTAs and centralise bookings — we also provide channel manager API for teams with an existing restech system that want to sell on OTAs and feed bookings to the central calendar.
Bókun Marketplace, home to 27K businesses in the travel and tourism industry, where you can connect with complementary businesses and establish partnerships to drive new bookings and revenue.
Customisable, centralised booking calendar where you can manage (all) bookings and availability — your Bókun calendar updates calendars across connected sales channels so they remain current. You can also assign tour guides from this calendar, and staff members can see their schedules.
User-friendly product builders so you can design listings for tours, travel experiences, or attractions; set pricing (and use advanced features like dynamic pricing to optimise rates); create availability rules per product. You can also offer add-ons, merchandise, or other passes.
Reporting dashboards so you can monitor bookings and revenue, measure sales channel performance, identify top-selling tours, and more.
Integrations with dozens of online payment processors (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Worldpay, Braintree, Raypd, Klarna, and more) so customers can pay securely online through their preferred method.
CRM and automated communications so you can store customer information effortlessly and schedule key emails. Our system can send standard emails like booking confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups after tours, but you can also use it for retargeting emails, abandoned cart nudges, and newsletters.
Customer portals so travellers can modify or cancel reservations at their convenience and without intervention from your team. Your calendar automatically updates when customers make changes (and Bókun automatically sends confirmation emails).
Mobile apps, mobile tickets, and ticket scanning to streamline traveller check-in.

In addition to our core features, we also provide the Bókun app store so you can customise Bókun to your use case. It includes extras like TipDirect, Wayop, Paxflow, and solutions for travel agents and resellers.

Our tour operator software automates back-office tasks and supports digital strategies so tour operators can effectively grow their business and increase profits — and it accommodates tour operators at all growth stages. (We can even lend consulting and design enterprise packages for teams scaling through Bókun.)

We’re a popular BookingHound alternative because we go toe-to-toe in terms of features and functionality — Bókun supports tour operator bookings and high-volume ticket sales — but our booking fees are substantially lower (1% to 1.5%), and we waive Bókun fees on Viator reservations and offline bookings.

Experience providers selling on Viator often use Bókun to manage bookings because it lets them keep costs low.

In the following sections, we’ll explain how our platform lets you achieve the core benefits discussed above, but you can also watch a brief introduction to Bókun here:

Simplify the booking process for travellers

Bókun makes the booking process more convenient by minimising drop-off points and creating one seamless booking flow — this alone helps tour operators see more business and last-minute bookings.

Our system supports a simple booking process by:

Enabling direct website bookings — you can create a booking website or embed the booking widget on your existing site. Then, travellers can make tour reservations from your site quickly and easily.
Allowing you to sell tours and experiences on the OTAs customers already use to research and book travel.
Updating calendars and availability across all connected sales channels — your site, OTAs, and partner sites. This way, travellers can only see your most current time slots (no matter where they find you).
Providing online payment options. Customers can not only browse tours and times but also confirm bookings and complete checkout.
Granting travellers the convenience to reschedule or cancel reservations directly from the booking confirmation email.

Travellers can find you, view your travel experiences and availability, and book with you online — all in one fell swoop. Bókun manages your calendar so customers only book approved times, and there’s no risk of double bookings (where you have to reschedule customers and risk losing their business).

You can also read more about how to sell tours online.

Broaden your travel distribution network

Bókun provides countless avenues to expand your distribution network and fill your booking calendar.

As mentioned above, we’re Viator and GetYourGuide partners, offering extra benefits to users who sell on those channels.

As a Viator preferred partner, we can waive Bókun booking fees and provide a number of free subscription checks each year (12, 24, or 48, depending on the plan you choose). Viator users can also auto-import products to Bókun and sell those experiences on their site without added setup steps.
Our connectivity partnership with GetYourGuide earns you better visibility, so your experiences are found more often on their site. Read more about managing GetYourGuide bookings here.

In addition to Viator and GetYourGuide, Bókun connects with popular sites like Trip.com, Expedia, Civitatis, Klook, Tiqets, TourRadar, Headout, Musement, Google Things to do, and more. Our OTA Marketplace also includes more industry-specific, niche OTAs so experience providers can learn about new sales channels that could benefit their business.

You can connect and sell across unlimited OTAs — we do not limit or charge fees per channel.

In addition to OTAs, our Marketplace contains an expansive network of travel businesses where tour operators can discover partners. Our network includes travel agents, DMOs, hotels, resorts, rental properties, car rental companies, attractions like theatres and theme parks, and more.

You can browse our network, reach out to businesses that offer similar experiences or complementary services, and propose partnerships. There are three common ways to go about this:

You can propose reseller partnerships in which others, like travel agents, promote your experiences and earn bookings on your behalf.
You can work as a reseller. Connect with suppliers and earn commission when you make bookings and earn business for them.
You can create tour or travel packages with partners. This offers a creative way of adding to your product line and providing more standout or convenient travel experiences.

Bókun includes communications and contract management tools; you can reach out to other businesses, store messages, propose and negotiate contracts, and save all contracts in a central repository.

Again, we do not limit the number of contracts you can create and manage in Bókun — one client leveraged our Marketplace to connect and create contracts with 100+ partners!

Improve the customer experience

Simplifying the booking process is one way to improve the customer experience, but Bókun also lends itself to customer relationship management with a native CRM, automated communications, and features to support a smooth check-in.

As mentioned, Bókun can automatically send standard emails like booking confirmations, tickets, waivers, reminders before tours, and follow-ups after tours conclude — but we also provide a gallery of email templates for you to customise and schedule various marketing emails to keep in touch with customers.

You could send monthly or quarterly newsletters about events or happenings in your area, review or referral requests, discount codes, details about new experiences, and more.

The automated communications tool ensures important emails reach travellers’ inboxes promptly and makes it easy to check in with customers and win repeat business.

You can also use this tool to retarget abandoned carts and win new customers.

Then Bókun supports customer check-in so arrival runs smoothly.

Our system emails tickets ahead of time so customers can save them on mobile devices (or print them out) so they’re readily available.
Bókun mobile apps include a ticket scanning feature so guides — even multiple guides — can quickly scan customers’ tickets to confirm arrival.

Bókun booking calendar also shows guides the full details of tours — including the number of attendees and who’s scheduled to arrive — so guides can check attendance, mark no-shows, and ensure they have all members with them throughout experiences.

After smoothening booking and check-in processes for travellers, all that’s left is delivering a five-star experience!

Manage back-office operations & grow your business’s bottom line

Bókun keeps teams organised, automates operational tasks, and frees up time for more value-added activities, like connecting with partners and managing those contracts. This means tour operators have time to work on the business instead of focusing (solely) on day-to-day tasks.

Bókun automatically centralises bookings from all sales channels so you can manage everything from one calendar. You can also update availability from this calendar so it auto-populates across OTAs and partner sites.

Our system also has tools to schedule staff for experiences so that you can manage bookings and guides from the central dashboard.

This calendar updates in real-time if travellers modify or cancel reservations, so no human intervention is required.

Staff can access this calendar from our desktop or mobile apps.

As mentioned, Bókun automates key communications, so in-office staff don’t have to field them manually. Our system ensures booking confirmations are sent promptly, and travellers have mobile tickets handy so they’re prepared for arrival.

In addition, Bókun includes a reporting dashboard so you can access key reports to track bookings and revenue, dig into where you earn business, and gather insights to steer growth strategies.

You can see which OTAs or partners bring in the most bookings, pinpoint which tours are booked most often, identify busy and slow seasons, learn more about who’s booking with you and your customer base, and more.

Then, you can use this data to test new OTAs, negotiate partner contracts, revamp your product line, prepare for slow seasons, and focus marketing efforts on ideal customer segments.

Again, our team can work with you as you drive bookings and fill your calendar in Bókun.

Getting started with Bókun tour operator software

Bókun is user-friendly, with intuitive navigation and features, so there’s no learning curve. Our solution works for one- or two-person teams and large experience providers alike, and we support businesses around the globe.

You can explore our booking management system for free, compare it to BookingHound, and decide if Bókun is the right solution. The free trial lets you build products, connect with Viator, browse the Marketplace and OTAs, add offline or in-person bookings, and manage Viator reservations.

If you like Bókun for your business, you can upgrade to one of our paid plans. All plans include our core features and Marketplace; you choose by business size and booking volume.

Remember, we charge the lowest booking fees (1% to 1.5%) and waive Bókun fees on Viator reservations. You can always add and manage offline bookings in our system for free.

Start your 14-day free trial of Bókun here!

In addition to our booking management platform, we offer the channel manager API for teams to access Bókun Marketplace, sell tours on OTAs, and manage bookings and availability in their existing restech system.

You can learn more about that solution by scheduling a free demo with our team.

2. Rezdy

Rezdy is a popular BookingHound alternative because it has a global presence — partnering with tour operators in the UK, North America, Australia, and Asia — a robust toolset and lower booking fees.

That said, Rezdy’s subscription fees are fairly higher than BookingHound’s, so depending on the price of your tours and booking volume, Rezdy may not offer significant cost savings.

Features

One-click website builder
Online booking engine
Connections with OTAs & channel management
Reseller network
Product management
Reservation management
Live availability
Automated customer communications
RezdyPay — Rezdy’s native payment gateway — and integrations with solutions like Stripe, PayPal, Google, and Apple Pay
Integrations & API
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

Rezdy offers three packages to support tour operators at various growth stages. All packages include guided onboarding and support.

Foundation ($49/month) is the starter plan with basic feature access (reservation management, channel management, OTA integrations, access to the reseller marketplace, and reporting). Rezdy charges 2% booking fees in this plan.
Accelerate ($99/month) is Rezdy’s upgraded package with more advanced features (automated customer communications, tour packages). Rezdy charges 1.9% booking fees in this plan.
Expansion ($249/month) is Rezdy’s top-tier package, notably more expensive than the other plans. This package is only necessary for teams that want access to webhooks and Rezdy’s API to make deeper customisations to the platform. Rezdy charges a 1.75% booking fee in this package.

For your consideration: Checkfront & Regiondo

Rezdy also merged with tour operator software brands Checkfront and Regiondo to further its reach and offer more conveniences for customers. If you’re interested in Rezdy, you might also consider Checkfront or Regiondo.

Checkfront is a US-based brand most popular with tour and activity providers in North America. It features 100+ tools to manage operations, OTA connections, and a reseller marketplace to grow your distribution network. Checkfront doesn’t charge subscription fees and only charges 3% booking fees.
Regiondo is a German brand most popular with UK-based teams. The system offers essential booking management features and channel management tools to fill your calendar. Reviews suggest they work with smaller businesses. They don’t disclose pricing online.

Read more:

3. Peek Pro

Peek Pro is another name to consider because it lets you manage tour bookings and high-volume ticket sales, sell memberships and season passes, upsell travellers with add-ons, and offer merchandise. In addition to the core booking management features, it also provides a suite of marketing tools to retarget customers, automate abandon cart emails, send promos and discounts, and optimise pricing.

The only caution with Peek Pro is pricing and booking fees. They don’t disclose rates online — instead, they offer custom pricing per client.

This means that each Peek Pro client has wiggle room to negotiate pricing and booking fees. Depending on your growth stage, inventory, and rates, you may be able to score booking fees lower than BookingHounds. However, we have heard Peek Pro’s fees can be as high as 6%, so it may not be the most cost-effective option for everyone.

Features

Online booking widgets
Customisable booking calendar
Reservation management
Product management
Integrations with OTAs & channel management tools
Availability & staff management
Options to sell memberships, add-ons, bundles, gift cards & vouchers
Marketing tools (including customer retargeting)
Dynamic pricing
Fast check-in features, including digital waivers, Kiosk mode, & ticket scanning
Customer portals
Peek reseller network
Peek Capital (to apply for loans)
Native POS
Integrations with online payment processors
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

As mentioned, Peek Pro does not disclose pricing. User feedback suggests they charge variable booking fees (as high as 6%) and a one-time set-up fee ($199). If you’re interested in this platform, we recommend contacting Peek Pro’s customer support team for more information on pricing.

4. Xola

Xola is another online booking system designed for experience providers and attractions — it has tools to manage tour bookings and high-volume ticket sales, and, like Peek Pro, it has a variety of native marketing tools to support your digital strategies and help you win new customers.

Xola boasts uniqueness by offering an optimised booking engine, carefully designed to encourage travellers through checkout and prevent them from dropping off. The catch is you must use Xola’s online payment processor in this checkout flow, and they charge travellers a transaction fee (1.9% + 30¢) when they book and pay online.

Xola is an appealing BookingHound alternative because transaction fees are still lower than the 4% booking fee, and transaction fees are passed to the customer. Plus, Xola does not charge subscription fees, so they can offer substantial savings.

Features

Website building service
Online booking widgets (for existing sites)
Channel management & connections with OTAs
Distribution network
Inventory management
Availability management
Staff management
Phone booking system to manage offline reservations
Native 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 share all pricing details online (they recommend contacting them for more info).

From what we can see, Xola does not charge tour operators subscription or booking fees — instead, they charge travellers a partner fee (1.9% + 30¢) to book and pay online. This fee is displayed at checkout, so even though this platform may be free to use, you risk travellers abandoning their cart if they don’t want to pay extra fees.

5. Palisis

Palisis is a UK-based brand and another nice BookingHound alternative because it offers an all-in-one solution for ticketing and reservation management, and it works with a variety of travel businesses (tour and activity operators, rental providers, event management groups, and popular attractions).

This solution provides an array of booking management tools, features to manage high-volume ticket sales, and options to create custom booking and checkout flows.

Palisis is available at budget-friendly pricing ($49/month), and they charge low booking fees (1.9%) that work for small teams and enterprises. That said, Palisis and its ticket management features tend to appeal to larger enterprises.

Palisis also makes our list because it has connectivity partnerships with various OTAs, including Viator, GetYourGuide, and Hotelbeds, to give tour operators better visibility on those sales channels.

Features

Online booking widget
Connections with OTAs & channel management
Reseller network
Customisable booking calendar
Tools to create a tailored booking flow
Ticketing tools (for high-volume ticket sales)
Native POS & integrations with payment processors
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

Palisis offers all core features for $49/month — you can access the booking widget, OTA connections, channel management, partner network, ticketing tools, and reporting. (This plan does not include integrations with payment processors or customisation options.)

They also offer enterprise packages with full platform access and integration options. Palisis provides custom quotes for this plan.

6. bookingkit

bookingkit is another UK-based BookingHound alternative — it works with both tour operators and attractions to manage bookings and ticketing, and they offer packages for all team sizes (though packages and pricing mostly appeal to larger attractions).

bookingkit charges lower booking fees than BookingHound and has a very competitive feature set, but subscription fees are still steep, so they aren’t the most affordable alternative.

That said, bookingkit’s top-tier plan includes a dedicated account manager who can answer software questions or guide growth strategies, so your subscription includes that consulting piece (another reason why bookingkit appeals to enterprises).

Features

Online booking widget
Centralised booking calendar
Channel management & OTA connections
B2B reseller platform
Product management
Availability management
Resource management
Integrations with payment processors (e.g., Google Pay and Apple Pay)
Email campaign manager
Options to sell gift cards & vouchers
Ticket scanning for fast check-in
Mobile apps

Pricing

bookingkit offers three plans; however, we suggest choosing the Businesskit (at minimum) because the starter plan does not include OTA connections or channel management — and these are essential tour operator tools.

bookingkit pricing is as follows:

Starterkit — available as an annual subscription at $53/month — is the entry-level plan with tools to enable direct bookings. bookingkit also charges a 3% booking fee, a 3% transaction fee, and a 60¢ ticket fee per reservation in this plan.
Businesskit — available at $130/month or $1297/year — is the recommended plan as it includes all core features to centralise bookings, grow your distribution network, and manage operations. bookingkit also charges 3% booking fees, 2% transaction fees, and a 60¢ ticket fee per reservation in this plan.
Prokit — custom pricing — is bookingkit’s enterprise plan. This package offers flexibility to create bespoke booking software and comes with a dedicated account manager. This plan also grants you early access to new features.

7. Travelotopos

Travelotopos is another brand founded in the UK, popular amongst European tour operators. We include them on our list of BookingHound alternatives because they charge lower booking fees (3% for online bookings, 1.5% on agent or reseller reservations) and, instead of subscription fees, only charge a one-time set-up fee of $270. You pay more upfront but save more in the long run.

Travelotopos is a popular tour operator software because it includes core booking management features, OTA connections, a reseller marketplace, partnerships with hotel chains, and a preferred partnership with GetYourGuide. It also offers multilingual capabilities to support teams around the world.

Features

Online booking engine
Connections with OTAs & channel management
Preferred partnership with GetYourGuide
Booking calendar (with offline reservation management)
B2B reseller marketplace (+ integrations with hotel reservation systems to broaden your reach)
Resource management
Multilingual capabilities to sell tours globally (supports six languages)
Integrations with online payment gateways
Integrations with other business applications like ERPs
Options to offer coupon codes, promotions, & vouchers
Reporting
Mobile apps

Pricing

Travelotopos charges a one-time set-up fee of $270 to get started. After, you pay 3% booking fees for online reservations (from your website or OTAs) and 1.5% fees on agent or reseller bookings.

8. Travefy

The last option on our list, Travefy, is unique in that it supports tour operators who design bespoke experiences. Travefy software provides the tools to build a website and portfolio, manage new leads, maintain client relationships, and build custom proposals for each client you work with. You can easily plan vacations with unique itineraries and coordinate each aspect of customers’ travel (transportation, lodging, dining, activities, etc.).

Besides tour operators, Travefy also appeals to travel agents, DMOs, and tourism boards.

Travefy does not charge booking fees, and monthly fees are $39.

Travefy differs from BookingHound in that it appeals to tour operators and travel agents rather than attractions. We wouldn’t recommend this for high-volume booking or ticket management.

Features

Custom website builder & domain — create a portfolio of past experiences so customers can see your offerings
A suite of marketing tools to promote your brand and experiences on social media
Custom form builders to accept new requests and collect details about the experiences customers want to book
CRM to manage new leads
Itinerary management tools to plan travel packages
Custom proposal builder — add colours, brand elements, images, videos, maps, and more
Templates to build proposals in half the time; you can save templates from past trips to easily redesign future proposals
Mobile apps (with messengers to chat with clients)
Invoicing tools
Online payment processing

Pricing

Travefy’s monthly subscription costs $39 — though you can receive discounts by paying quarterly or annually. Travefy also offers a 10-day free trial for new customers to test the platform before committing to a subscription.

Bókun is a popular BookingHound alternative because it combines everything tour operators need to manage bookings, inventory, staff, and back-office operations. We offer various avenues to drive new bookings, increase revenue, and grow your bottom line. Start a 14-day free trial to explore our booking management system.

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