Running a tour business means managing a lot of moving parts every single day. You’ve got bookings coming in, guides to schedule, equipment to track, customers asking questions, and payments to process — all while making sure every tour actually goes off without a hitch.

Most tour operators juggle these operations across several key areas:

  • Bookings and availability — Syncing bookings and availability across sales channels, keeping an accurate, up-to-date calendar, preventing double bookings, and managing last-minute changes.
  • Staff scheduling — Assigning guides to tours, communicating schedules and details, and handling callouts or staffing changes.
  • Tour logistics and coordination — Confirming transport and meeting points, sharing headcounts with guides, and keeping everything on schedule.
  • Equipment and inventory — Tracking your inventory and how it’s used, assigning equipment to tours, and managing closeouts for maintenance.
  • Customer communications — Sending confirmations and reminders, collecting waivers, answering questions, and handling booking changes.
  • Guest experiences — Supporting guides in the field, handling day-of issues, and collecting reviews.
  • Payments and financials — Processing payments and refunds, tracking daily revenue, and generating financial reports.
  • Reporting and analytics — Measuring bookings (by channel, product, time period), tracking revenue over time, and understanding overall business health.

When you’re managing all of this manually — bouncing between booking calendars, spreadsheets, CRM, email, and separate payment tools — things tend to get messy fast and details slip through the cracks. You’re constantly switching between systems just to answer basic questions like, “How many people are scheduled for tomorrow’s 2 pm kayak tour?” “Who’s guiding it?” or “Do we have enough kayaks for it?”

That’s where tour operator software comes in. Platforms like Bókun bring all these operational pieces together in one place, so you can manage bookings, schedules, inventory, communications, and payments in a single system — instead of juggling five different tools.

This guide walks through each area of tour operations management and how to handle it with the right systems and processes.

If you’d like to learn more about how Bókun centralises and supports business operations, you can start a 14-day free trial (no credit card required).

Quick note: If you’re still in the planning stages and need help with the startup basics — branding, determining which types of tours to offer, understanding target markets, pricing strategies, and acquiring permits — check out our guide on starting a tour guide business first. This post assumes you’re already operating and focuses purely on managing daily operations.

1. Keeping your booking calendar accurate (& avoiding double bookings)

Your booking calendar is your central command centre for all daily operations. It’s where you can see your and your staff’s schedules for the day, week, and months ahead.

If it’s not accurate, everything else falls apart — you miss bookings or end up overbooked, you don’t have guides assigned to tours, you don’t have the proper equipment or supplies available, you don’t have the details you need to prepare for tours.

Staying on top of your booking calendar is usually pretty easy when you manage new booking requests yourself, or you’re only selling on your website. It can become a disorganised mess as you expand into more sales channels and sell tours across a variety of sites.

Syncing availability across all your sales channels

When you sell through multiple channels — your website, OTAs like Viator and GetYourGuide, partners like travel agents — you need a system that updates availability across all channels whenever a booking comes in.

Here’s what you need to do:

  • Set your tour schedule and availability in one central calendar
  • Connect all your sales channels to pull from that central calendar
  • Make sure new bookings trigger immediate availability updates across all other channels
  • Monitor for errors or delays that could lead to overbooking

Tour operator software like Bókun handles this automatically with a central booking calendar that connects to all your sales channels. When an online booking comes in — from any channel — the system pulls it into your central calendar and sends updated availability back out to every connected channel. Travellers see accurate, real-time availability no matter where they find your tours.

Managing cancellations and last-minute changes

When cancellations happen, you need to get those spots back on the market fast so you can rebook them.

When you process a cancellation in a centralised system, that spot automatically opens up across all your sales channels. You’re not manually updating availability in five different places or dealing with your website showing “sold out” when you actually have space available.

It’s also helpful to track cancellation patterns to identify issues (weather-related, specific tours, seasonal trends) to understand why people are cancelling. Are primary reasons things out of your control? Or is there anything you can do to retain these lost bookings?

Building and maintaining customer manifests with special requests

Before each tour, you need an accurate manifest with customer details and special requirements. Your manifest should include:

  • Number of participants (adults, children, specific age ranges if relevant)
  • Booking confirmation numbers
  • Customer names and contact information
  • Special requests (dietary restrictions, accessibility needs, celebration details)
  • Any pre-tour requirements completed (waivers signed, payments collected)

A good booking software captures all these details when a tour is booked and stores them with the reservation. Your guides can pull up the day’s manifest and see exactly who’s coming and what they need to know before the tour starts — without digging through emails or spreadsheets to double-check every small detail.

2. Scheduling guides & getting everyone on the same page

Scheduling tour guides becomes more complex as your team, product line, and bookings grow. You need to assign the right guides to the right tours, make sure everyone knows where they need to be and when, handle last-minute callouts, and get tour details to your team before they head out.

Assigning the right guides to the right tours

Not every guide can lead every tour. Some guides specialise in certain experiences, some are better with kids, some speak multiple languages, and some are only available on certain days.

Here’s what you need to track for effective guide scheduling:

  • Which guides are qualified or certified for which tours
  • Guide availability (who’s working which days, time-off requests)
  • Languages spoken and special skills
  • Maximum tours per guide per day (to avoid burnout)

When you’re scheduling manually, you’re constantly cross-referencing spreadsheets to check availability and hoping you don’t accidentally double-book someone or assign a tour to someone who has the day off.

Tour operator software with staff management tools lets you assign guides directly in your booking calendar. You can see who’s available, who’s already scheduled, and assign guides to specific tours. Then guides can see their schedules — what tours and times they’re assigned to — from the booking calendar. As you make changes, guides can see the updates in real time.

Handling callouts and last-minute staffing changes

When someone calls out an hour before a tour, you obviously need to find coverage fast. Here’s how to handle those last-minute changes:

  • Keep a list of backup guides who can step in on short notice
  • Make sure your scheduling system shows who else is available that day
  • Reassign the tour and notify the new guide immediately
  • Update the manifest so everyone knows who’s actually leading the tour

When your staff schedule lives in your booking system, you can make these changes on the fly, and your guides see the updates instantly. No need for group texts, frantic phone calls, or confusion about who’s covering what.

Making sure guides have what they need before they head out

Your guides need to know more than just “you’re working Tuesday.” They need the full picture: which tour, what time, how many people, meeting location, and any special requests.

The best way to make sure guides are prepared for all experiences is with pre-tour checklists. Here’s what to include:

  • Tour name and time
  • Confirmed headcount
  • Customer manifests with names and special requests
  • Equipment list (and confirmation that everything’s ready)
  • Meeting points, routes, and itinerary details
  • Emergency contact information
  • Any last-minute updates or changes

A centralised booking system puts all of this in one place. Guides log in, see their schedule, pull up the manifest, check equipment assignments, and head out with everything they need.

3. Coordinating tour logistics

Tour logistics include everything that happens behind the scenes to make a tour run smoothly — confirming transport, coordinating with vendors, managing meeting points, and ensuring everyone has the right information at the right time.

Confirming transport, meeting points, and timing

If your tours require transportation services — shuttles, boats, buses, vans — you need to coordinate pickup times, routes, and capacities with those providers. You should specify:

  • Pickup and drop-off locations for each tour
  • Transport capacity and how many guests you can accommodate
  • Timing — when transport needs to arrive and depart
  • Route details and if there are multiple stops
  • Contact info for transport providers

The key is setting all of this up when you create your tour products. Define your meeting points, set your timing, and specify transport requirements. Then when bookings come in, all those details are already locked in. You’re not figuring out logistics from scratch every time someone books.

With Bókun, you specify these details when building your tour listings. Once it’s set up, every booking for that tour automatically includes the transport and meeting point information you’ve already outlined.

Sharing final headcounts and guest requirements with guides and vendors

You also need to finalise tour details with vendors 24 to 48 hours before departure. In those communications, you should include:

  • Final guest count (usually 24 to 48 hours before the tour)
  • Any special requirements (wheelchair accessibility, dietary restrictions)
  • Changes from the original booking (cancellations, additions)
  • Contact information in case of issues

You can email everyone individually, or your booking system can handle it — the goal is getting everyone the right information without you becoming the middleman for every detail.

Managing last-minute schedule changes

When something changes — weather forces a route change, a venue has a conflict, a tour gets rescheduled — you need to loop everyone in fast. Update the tour in your system, notify all affected parties (guides, transport, vendors, customers), and adjust any dependent bookings.

The more people and moving parts your tours involve, the more critical it is to have one source of truth for tour details. When you make a change in one place, it should flow to everyone who needs to know.

4. Tracking equipment & making sure you have what you need

If your tours require equipment — kayaks, bikes, safety gear, audio headsets, snorkelling equipment — you need to know what you have, where it’s stored, and whether it’s available for upcoming tours.

Knowing what equipment you have and where it is

Equipment tracking starts with taking a complete inventory. Here’s what to note down for each piece of equipment:

  • Item type and description
  • Quantity available
  • Current location (storage facility, on a tour, being serviced)
  • Condition and any maintenance notes
  • Purchase date and replacement timeline

When you’re managing this in spreadsheets, it’s easy to lose track. Equipment gets moved, things break, quantities change — and your spreadsheet is only as current as the last time someone updated it.

Tour operator software with inventory management lets you store all these details in one system. You can see what equipment you have, how much is available, and what’s already assigned to upcoming tours.

Prepping gear for scheduled tours

Before each tour, ensure the required equipment is ready and available.

When doing this manually, you should assign specific equipment to tours (far) in advance, and double-check you have enough inventory for each tour 24 to 48 hours before tours are scheduled to depart. Then you can flag any shortages, shift around equipment, or make changes before customers arrive.

With Bókun’s Resource Management, you can assign equipment requirements to each tour when you create your products. When bookings come in, the system checks whether you have the necessary resources available. If equipment is unavailable or fully allocated, Bókun blocks new bookings until inventory frees up — preventing you from overselling tours when you don’t have equipment for everybody.

Planning for replacements and new inventory

Your equipment is going to need maintenance or upgrades every now and then, so you need to know when certain supplies will be out of commission, or when to order replacements, before you’re caught short.

To best care for your inventory, you should monitor:

  • Equipment lifespan and when items need replacing
  • Usage patterns (high-use items wear out faster)
  • Seasonal demand spikes that might require additional inventory
  • Budget for replacements and new equipment

While booking systems help you track what equipment you have and how it’s being used, the actual planning for maintenance and replacements typically happens outside the system. The booking system provides the data (this equipment is assigned to 20 tours this month), but you’ll need to use that information to create maintenance schedules and determine when equipment is due for an update.

Read more: Tour operator software with inventory management

5. Staying on top of customer communications — without drowning in email

Timely communication is a key part of offering five-star customer experiences. Customers may have questions before or after booking, and promptly answering them can be the difference between winning and losing customers.

Then, every booking requires a series of emails to confirm reservations, send tickets, remind customers of tours, and follow up after.

Some communications you can automate, and others are best handled by a real person.

Standard transactional emails — booking confirmations, tickets, pre-tour reminders, post-tour follow-ups — should be automated. This is also best for digital waivers or forms customers need to complete before arriving. These are the same every time, so there’s no reason to send them manually.

Pre-booking questions and customer complaints need a real person. If someone’s asking about customising a tour or voicing dissatisfaction with their experience, they’re going to expect a real person to acknowledge their situation and reply thoughtfully. Automation just can’t do that.

Bókun’s CRM and automated communications tools include templates for all standard communications and marketing emails. You can also add your own templates here to schedule any type of marketing or promotional email from our system.

Bókun also offers customer portals where travellers can check booking details, view meeting points, or reschedule and cancel reservations without contacting your team — which cuts down on repetitive emails.

6. Delivering a five-star experience every tour

Now, good communication is just one aspect of maintaining customer satisfaction. You still need to follow through on the day of for truly successful tour experiences.

Start on time and stay on schedule

Nobody wants to wait in long lines for check in or for late arrivals to trickle in. Fast, organised check-ins set the tone for the entire experience — and keeping to schedule throughout the tour shows respect for customers’ time.

Tours that run late frustrate customers who have other plans. Tours that feel rushed don’t give people time to enjoy themselves.

The goal is to keep to your timeline while still making the experience feel relaxed.

Here are our tips to stay on schedule:

  • Use digital ticketing so customers arrive with tickets already on their phones
  • Set up ticket scanning to check people in quickly
  • Have manifests ready so you can verify bookings without digging through emails
  • Start on time for guests who arrived punctually
  • Keep the tour moving without rushing — balance staying on schedule with giving people time to really enjoy and absorb the experience

Bókun’s mobile apps include ticket scanning tools that let you check customers in from a phone or tablet. Guides can pull up the manifest, scan tickets, monitor no-shows, and get the tour moving without holding up the group.

Keep tours engaging with great guides

The actual tour experience depends heavily on your guides. They need to be knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and able to connect with the group.

A great guide should:

  • Have strong communication skills — speaking clearly, projecting their voice so everyone can hear, and making eye contact with the group
  • Be an engaging storyteller — sharing interesting stories and facts, not just reciting dates and names
  • Invite attendees to be part of the experience — making sure everyone feels involved, checking in with quieter guests, and answering questions
  • Radiate positive energy — true enthusiasm is contagious, and guides who genuinely love what they do make the experience better for everyone

Handle problems smoothly when they occur

Try as you might to offer a perfect experience every single time, there are things you can’t control, and problems will spring up from time to time. The weather can turn bad, equipment can break, and other attendees can hold up departures or disrupt experiences.

Here are some of our solutions for the most common issues you may encounter:

  • Weather problems — have backup plans ready to go, like indoor alternatives, different routes, or clear cancellation/refund policies
  • Route changes — communicate clearly to customers about what’s changing and why
  • Equipment failures — keep backup equipment accessible
  • No-shows or late arrivals — decide in advance how long you’ll wait before proceeding; those who arrive later miss the boat

The key is staying calm and making customers feel looked after, even when plans change.

End on a high note and request customer reviews

The last few minutes of a tour matter. Finish strong by thanking customers, inviting them to return, and asking for reviews while the experience is still fresh.

As mentioned above, Bókun’s automated communications tool can send out review requests on your behalf. After the tour ends, customers automatically receive an email asking them to share their experience, so you don’t have to follow up with each person manually. Our integration with Tripadvisor lets you share reviews between platforms, so Tripadvisor reviews appear on your website and vice versa.

7. Processing payments & keeping tabs on financials

Payment processing is how you actually collect money from customers, and financial tracking is how you know whether your business is making money or just staying busy.

Accepting payments from customers

You need a way to accept payments beyond just cash — credit cards, digital wallets, and other popular payment methods. You should also look for systems that support multiple payment types — upfront payments, deposits, and buy now pay later (BNPL).

Tour operator software like Bókun integrates with payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, Braintree) so you can accept all payment types directly through your booking system. Whether customers are booking online or you’re processing a walk-up reservation in person, the payment goes through immediately and the transaction appears in your system with all booking details.

Read more: Payment processing for tour operators: the complete guide

Handling refunds and adjustments

Not every booking goes through as planned. Customers cancel, request refunds, or need to modify their bookings — and you need to process those changes quickly.

Most online payment processors let you handle refunds and adjustments directly through their platform. And if you’re using a supported payment processor, you can process refunds right in Bókun — the system connects to your payment provider to issue the refund and automatically updates the booking status.

Regular reconciliation so you actually know what you made

At the end of each day (or week, or month), you need to reconcile what you’ve earned. This means matching bookings to payments and making sure everything adds up. Here, you should be tracking:

  • Total bookings for the period
  • Payments collected
  • Refunds or adjustments issued
  • Outstanding payments (deposits due, invoices not yet paid)
  • Total revenue

Bókun’s reporting dashboard captures all this data for you and shows revenue as it comes in — broken down by sales channel, product, and time period. You can see daily, weekly, or monthly revenue and track which channels or products are generating the most revenue.

8. Using data to understand & improve your business

Your booking system collects data on everything — which tours sell best, which channels bring in the most customers, what times of the year bookings spike — so you can use those valuable insights to make smarter decisions that actually grow your business.

With the right data, you should be able to answer critical questions like:

  • Should we add more departures for this tour or cut it entirely?
  • Which marketing channels deliver the best return?
  • Are we pricing tours appropriately, or are we leaving money on the table?
  • Do we need to hire more guides for the summer season?
  • Which partnerships are actually worth maintaining?

Tracking which channels bring in the most bookings

When you sell through multiple channels — your website, OTAs, partners, and affiliates — you need to know which ones are actually driving business. To measure the success of each channel, hone in on:

  • Total bookings per channel
  • Revenue per channel
  • Revenue by booking

Bókun’s reporting dashboard breaks down bookings and revenue by channel, so you can see which sites and partners bring you the most business.

Identifying your best-selling tours and peak seasons

Not all tours perform equally. Some sell consistently, others only during certain seasons, and some might not be worth running at all. We suggest analysing:

  • Which tours book most frequently
  • Which tours generate the most revenue
  • Seasonal patterns (busy vs. slow months)
  • Time-of-day preferences (morning tours vs. afternoon vs. evening)

This helps you make smart operational decisions — you can schedule more departures for popular tours, cut down on underperforming experiences, adjust staffing for busy seasons, and optimise pricing based on demand.

Measuring revenue trends over time

You need to know whether you’re growing, staying flat, or declining — and whether changes are seasonal or signs of a bigger trend. You should look at:

  • Monthly and yearly revenue comparisons
  • Revenue by tour product (which experiences make the most money)
  • Average booking value
  • Profitability after expenses

If revenue drops in October every year, you can plan for the seasonal dip. But if you notice total revenue has dropped 20% from last October, that’s a problem you need to dig into further.

Bókun includes a variety of reports to measure bookings and revenue by sales channel, product, and time of year. For deeper analysis — custom reports, deeper data cuts, trend analysis — we offer more advanced reporting tools through our App Store.

Getting started with Bókun

Managing a successful tour business doesn’t have to mean juggling a million moving parts or a dozen different systems — that’s exactly what tour operator software is for. Bókun is one of the most highly rated tour operator software — with an exceptional 4.7-star rating — because it’s designed specifically for travel experience providers by people who actually understand the tourism industry.

As a Tripadvisor brand with over 10 years of industry experience, we’ve worked with operators at every stage — from mom-and-pop shops to global teams — and built a platform that actually handles what you need.

Bókun brings everything you need to manage all areas of your business in a single system: booking, channel, and availability management; staff scheduling; product management; inventory tracking; CRM; automated customer communications; mobile apps with check-in tools and departure management; payment processing; and reporting.

And we offer some of the most impressive growth drivers around: 70+ OTA connections to promote tours to global audiences, an in-built distribution network to establish partnerships with other tourism businesses, and referral tracking to establish an affiliate network and earn bookings from a variety of partners.

See how Bókun can make your life easier by starting a 14-day free trial — no credit card required!

Now that you’ve covered the essentials of managing daily operations, check out our guides below to learn more about growing your business through online sales channels, travel industry partnerships, and digital marketing strategies:

You can read more about our customers’ success in the case studies below: