Sailing Windermere

Sailing Windermere offers customers a two-hour sailing experience for up to four people on a chartered and skippered yacht on Lake Windermere in the UK’s Lake District. Their tours are seasonal, running from March to October, but they also run a 4×4 Land Rover experience that offers off-road experiences year-round in the Lake District area. 

The company was created when founder Ian Doig moved up from London after a career in financial services and took over a bed and breakfast in the Lake District, learned to sail, bought a boat, and now offers sailing experiences. Gradually, he built up a business where he shows people how to sail in an informal, hands-on way on Lake Windermere. 

With Bókun, Sailing Windermere implemented a booking system that helped them attract customers from various OTAs (online travel agencies), like Viator and GetYourGuide.

Key results:

• Increased bookings, with 35% coming from OTAs like GetYourGuide and Viator in the past year alone. 
• 14 Marketplace connections with companies like Expedia, Civitatis, TourDesk, and English Lake Tours. 

Embracing the exciting challenge of a new venture, Sailing Windermere was eager to expand their reach to global customers. Their primary focus became finding and attracting the perfect customers for their distinctive tour offerings.

The boutique tour operator turned first to Airbnb experiences and their own website to get more bookings, as well as selling directly to people staying in their guest house.

“We also used a site called ‘Free to Book,’ which was basically a channel manager [for hotels and accommodation] so I could get bookings from Airbnb, booking.com, and hotels.com. Then, it would be a one-size-fits-all calendar where all my bookings would come in. But I knew I wanted one that was the equivalent for experiences,” says Ian Doig, founder of the tour company.

As Ian Doig wanted to expand his business and had bought a second boat, which allowed him to take up to eight people an hour, he needed a platform that could handle larger bookings and didn’t have the restrictions of the booking platforms he was using and allowed him to have more than one experience running at a time. 

“I was Googling companies and looked at Bókun’s website; I had a couple of calls with people at Bókun, and it sounded like there was support and the pricing worked well,” Ian Doig adds. The partnership with Bókun proved to be a turning point in effectively connecting with customers and scaling their business.

Like with any new software, Ian Doig needed a little adjustment to get used to the new platform, but he got considerable support from Bókun. 

“You can have a phone call with Bókun; they can help you with a problem you have, and sometimes they’ll even do the work behind the scenes for you, which is really helpful. ” – Ian Doig, Founder of Sailing Windermere

With the Bókun platform, Sailing Windermere doesn’t have to work hard to find new sales channels and reach new customers. They can connect quickly within Bókun to new distribution partners, with all bookings consolidated into one calendar.

“For example, on Viator, you get it linked through Bókun, so people can book through Viator, which is good. The good thing for me is to put my product in as many places as possible, and the more people we can partner with, and the more places that my products can be seen, the better,” shares Ian Doig.

Bókun helped the tour company to expand their reseller options, thanks to partnerships with several OTAs, and it allows them to keep top of their operations in one place.

“I can do what I need to do, and the website looks like I want it to, and the bookings are being booked the way I want them to be,” adds the founder of the tour operator.

Sailing Windermere, is a small, but growing company. Thanks to being bookable online, and having a secure distribution network, the company has a slight edge on their competition who are still using traditional booking methods.

“People just go in and book with us and don’t need to wait for an email to come back or wait for availability; it’s all there on our site. Also, the hotels I’ve been working with now look at my website, and they can see my calendar and refer customers,” shares the founder of Sailing Windermere.

The tour operator pulled in 35% of their total bookings in the past 12 months from reseller bookings alone. Being visible on OTA sites increases the tour operator’s reach to a wider audience, leading to more bookings from customers who might not have found them otherwise. The 35% of total bookings coming from reseller bookings demonstrates the significant impact of this increased visibility.

“Everything looks good from a front end; it looks good from the customer’s point of view. It’s easy for them to book. I don’t have to have many conversations with customers; even if they do send me an email or text message. I don’t really have to do much, and it’s all quite hands-off and on our website. I can go to sleep in the morning, wake up, and there are bookings.” – Ian Doig, Founder of Sailing Windermere

Linking reviews from Tripadvisor with bookings via Bókun provides additional benefits for the sailing company. The tour operator appreciates this feature, recognising the importance of visible reviews in customers’ booking decisions. 

With the time saved through Bókun’s efficient system, the founder of the tour company can now focus on expanding his business. He’s launching a second boat and building a flexible team of sailors to increase tour capacities. This growth allows him to delegate more of the hands-on work, freeing him to focus on business development and further exploration of Bókun’s features.

Other Key Operational Improvements: 

• Integration with OTAs led to 35% of total bookings coming from online sales, significantly expanding the company’s digital reach.
• The platform’s automation features have reduced the need for manual communication. 
• Time saved through Bókun’s efficient system allowed for expansion, including the addition of a second boat and a flexible team of sailing staff.
• The tour company gained a competitive edge in the local market by leveraging Bókun’s advanced booking infrastructure.

After using a few features, like the gift cards and the discount code, Sailing Windermere saw the benefit in offering special deals and also more flexibility in selling tours in low season. The company founder shared that the booking widgets and the interface remain the best parts of using Bókun.

Booking Widgets
The booking widgets embedded on the website helped increase online sales and put the tour operator ahead of the competition by offering an easy and straightforward booking service.

Gift Cards 
Gift cards offer Sailing Windermere the chance to earn an income even in off-season times and while the company is not running tours.

Promo Codes 
Discounts can be given to loyal customers, customers booking multiple trips, or as a special promotion. These incentivise them to book more experiences.

“I would say the best thing about Bókun would be just the customer interface, and the ease of making a book and also the opportunity to go through different distribution partners like Tripadvisor, Viator, and the marketplace,” Ian Doig, Sailing Windermere 

Sailing Windermere also expanded its listings with 14 Marketplace connections. Now, 35% of their bookings come from various OTAs. All the bookings via Bókun are connected to large OTAs like Viator, Get Your Guide, and Tripadvisor, making it easier for potential customers to find and book these unique tours. 

Working with Bókun and observing other local companies using more complicated and hands-on methods for booking trips, Sailing Windermere founder noticed that having a modern and easy-to-use booking system benefits his business in multiple ways. 

“I never worry that if I’m sending people to my website, the bookings won’t go through,” he says, “I know it’ll always work,  bookings come through nicely. I get a notification when bookings come in and I can use the calendar for a better overview. So that makes things easier, especially once I started running tours seven days a week and we now have two different products, slowly the business starts getting quite big.” 

Ultimately, the platform has opened up new opportunities and access to an audience of customers from all over the world.

Sailing Windermere, has grown from humble beginnings, with the founder Ian Doig, turning his passion for sailing into a successful tour operation. The operator has been able to expand on their product offerings to make the most out of seasonal travel trends.

Bókun has helped the founder improve the booking process for his tour company and scale up his business so that larger groups can book with Sailing Windermere.

Bókun’s mission is to help your tour and activity business generate more bookings with less work. Start your free 14-day trial today to explore our software can help you save time and grow your business.