Tour operators make great partners for hotels and resorts. Hotel owners can contract tour companies to sell rooms to the operator’s clients. By teaming up with a tour operator, hotels can draw in new guests and provide exciting new experiences for existing ones. In this article, you’ll discover some top tour operators and how they can help your hotel thrive.

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What Are Tour Operators?

Tour operators are businesses that provide a full spectrum of services for leisure travelers. They will organize their clients’ transportation, sightseeing, food and beverages, and accommodation. These tour packages remain popular with modern travelers as they represent a significant reduction in complexity and potentially offer financial savings.

For many customers, it’s far less daunting to purchase a complete package than it is to arrange their vacations piecemeal. Tour operators market their products online and through conventional marketing, offering brochures that lay out their itineraries and services. A tour operator may offer a range of diverse experiences, but it’s common for operators to specialize in a particular type of vacation and a specific region.

Packages sold through tour operators are often great for large group events or meetings. Tour companies may have long-term contracts with hotels and other providers in their operating regions, creating mutually beneficial arrangements.

What Is an Online Travel Agent (OTA)?

An online travel agent, also known as an OTA, is a company that sells travel products via a web platform. Rather than offering its own services, an OTA sells products from third parties, such as hotels and tour operators. The OTA takes a commission on all bookings made via their platform. OTAs have made it much easier for prospective travelers to obtain accommodation and other travel services at attractive rates. They also enable the companies providing these products to expand their customer base and reach more buyers than they would otherwise.

Examples of OTAs include websites like Expedia, Booking.com, AirBnb, and many more. For more information about OTAs, read “11 Tips To Increase Your Hotel Bookings Through OTAs.”

Video: What is online travel agency and how does it work?

3 Benefits for Hoteliers of Working with Tour Operators

Just what are the benefits of working with tour operators? Why should you consider partnering with a travel company to develop package deals for your establishment? After all, you’re already a successful hotelier.

Through excellent customer service and effective hotel marketing, you’ve developed your business, and you’re drawing in the guests you need to generate a healthy revenue stream. You may wonder why you should look into partnerships when things are already going well. Here are three major upsides to this kind of partnership. Read on to find out how your hotel can benefit.

Increase Hotel Bookings

Tour operators can help increase bookings to your hotel. Instead of relying on direct bookings or bookings through OTAs, hotels that partner with tour operators can rely on their partners to generate a certain number of bookings when the company operates tours. Tour companies bring in more guests by including accommodation in their packages sourced through their hotel partners.

This represents additional bookings for the hotel, without any extra effort from your marketing team or expanding your hotel technology to offer additional services. A well-designed partnership with a tour company can be an excellent way to maximize a hotel’s revenue.

Additional Marketing Channels

Tour operators naturally promote this as part of their normal operations when creating a travel package. Tour operators market heavily via a range of different channels. Their promotions appear in print media, billboards, and other traditional channels, online and social media.

This benefits their hotel partners since they’re effectively doing some of the hotel’s marketing themselves. The tour operator will book guests who might not previously have been aware of your hotel without your hotel ever having to reach them. This can significantly expand your hotel’s reach, representing one of the most effective hotel marketing strategies.

Access to Industry Trends

Trends in travel are notoriously volatile. It can be challenging for a busy hotelier to stay on top of the latest travel and hotel trends or developments in the hospitality industry. Because tour operators have a deep insight into the latest trends in leisure travel, they can be a goldmine of valuable information on travel and hotel marketing trends.

Working with a tour company can help you as a hotel owner craft products and experiences that will keep pace with changing customer needs. You can use information gleaned through collaborating with your partners to create your own unique offerings, riding the latest hotel trends to new heights of success.

10 Big Tour Operators Hoteliers Should Partner With

When choosing a tour operator to partner with, looking at big names is a good idea. While a smaller company might make a great partner in the short to medium term, it’s advisable to consider large companies with established track records. A tour organizer that only attracts small numbers of clients can’t really benefit your hotel; they may also lack the expertise in marketing and product development that’s second nature to larger, more established companies.

You also need to consider which partners are right for you. Suppose you’re operating a luxury wellness spa specializing in relaxing breaks for stressed-out executives. In that case, you probably won’t want to partner with a company that offers adventure tourism or low-cost package vacations for families on a budget. You also need to consider the region of your hotel and which tour providers are most likely to be productive partners.

A company that mostly offers seasonal breaks might not be able to generate as much custom for your hotel as one that runs tours year-round. That’s why you need this list of the biggest tour operators and travel package providers in today’s hotel industry.

These companies are established leaders in the field, with a global presence and huge brand recognition. Whether you operate a small boutique hotel specializing in weekend getaways and city breaks, or a luxury resort catering to an upscale clientele, you’ll find the right partner for your hotel on this list.

Tour Operators - TUI

Based out of Germany, TUI is one of the biggest names in tourism. The TUI group operates around the world. They own many travel-related companies, from hotel chains to travel agencies, cruise lines, and even airlines. Many leading tourism brands are included under the TUI umbrella, including Iberotel.

Video: Travel Guide to Mexico’s Caribbean Coast | TUI

 

Tour Operators - cdf

The China Tourism Group engages in tourism and merchandise sales throughout China and other East Asian nations. They offer tours for individuals, groups, and clubs, as well as business travel, study travel, and sports activities packages. They also provide booking and travel agency services, both online and in person.

Tour Operators - booking com

Perhaps best known as an OTA, Booking.com offers customers a range of tour packages worldwide. Customers on their website or app can book accommodation, travel, and other services individually or as part of a package. Customers can select a pre-designed package or create their own from a menu.

Tour Operators – Expedia

Expedia is well-known as a fare aggregator and travel search engine. Increasingly, however, this travel technology company now partners with various accommodation and travel service providers to create enticing packages for their customers. Expedia owns the VBRO, Trivago, Hotels.com, and Orbitz brands, to name but a few. Their reach makes them an attractive partner.

Tour Operators - jet2holidays

A sister company to the Jet2 budget airline, Jet2Holidays is a travel operator offering low-cost package vacations. Patrons are flown out of Jet2’s six UK base airports to destinations throughout Europe and New York. They partner with over 1,000 travel agents and have become the largest tour operator in the UK.

Tour Operators – American Express Business Travel

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) is to business journeys what American Express Travel is to vacations and leisure trips. Despite the name, they are only part-owned by the American Express credit card company. GBT offers business travel, meetings, and event organization services in 140 countries, making corporate travel arrangements much more streamlined.

Tour Operators - Intrepid

Although they’re a smaller group than previously mentioned, Intrepid Travel is one of the biggest names in adventure tourism. They offer more than 1,100 tours around the world. Groups of around ten people are escorted by local guides and Intrepid partners with locally owned hotels, creating a unique and immersive travel experience.

Tour Operators - CWT

CWT (originally Carlson Wagonlit Travel) is a full-service business and corporate travel solutions provider. They offer packages that include transport, accommodation, conferences, meetings, and event management services. CWT’s stated aim is to make corporate travel simple and easy to arrange from a single platform, without the glitches and conflicts that often plague business events.

Tour Operators - Sabre

Although focused on software and technology, Sabre is an important name in the travel and tourism field. As well as developing technology to streamline everything from booking logins to hotel operations, they partner with travel and accommodation providers and operate a global travel marketplace. Sabre’s products and services are especially relevant to hoteliers.

Tour Operators - Abercrombie Kent

Abercrombie & Kent is a luxury travel provider, offering upscale packages to high-income travelers. Their focus is on creating unique and memorable experiences for a demanding clientele. They provide a range of packages, from exciting small-group adventures to expedition cruises. This makes them an ideal partner for luxury hotel businesses.

Hotel Management Companies

As a hotelier, you’ll know how difficult it can be to keep up with day-to-day operations across all your hotel departments – especially if you own and run multiple properties. A hotel management company can help you take your hotel business to the next level by providing expert hotel management, from marketing to partnerships with tour operators.

Hotel management companies range from small enterprises to huge global businesses with hundreds of hotels in their portfolios. Hotel management companies can provide the expertise you need to realize your hotel’s full business potential. To learn more, read “Hotel Management Companies: Top 8 Biggest Hotel Management Companies” today.

Hotel Websites: Where to Sell Packages

Selling package deals can be a great way to generate bookings and increase customer satisfaction by helping to provide a great experience for your guests. By bundling your rooms with travel, tours, excursions, or entertainment, you can make life easier for your guests and improve your hotel’s revenue.

If you’re a hotelier who sells package deals to consumers, or you’re planning to do so in the future, you’ll need to know about the top websites that feature options for creating package deals. In “Hotel Websites Where Hoteliers Can Sell Packages (Including Examples),“ you’ll discover some of the best hotel websites that facilitate the creation of package deals for your guests.

Tour Operators FAQs

Hotels may partner with tour operators, allowing the tour operators to sell rooms in the hotel as part of a wider package deal. The tour operator benefits by providing a more complete package, which also benefits customers, while hotels gain the ability to reach new customers and generate more bookings.

One of the biggest disadvantages of working with tour operators as a hotelier is the commission fees that need to be paid to a tour operator for bookings they generate. Hotels must also relinquish some control over pricing.

Tour operators will generally create, promote, and sell tour packages, which may include activities, accommodation, and travel. Tour agents serve to connect travelers and tour operators; usually by providing the traveler with information about the packages tour operators offer and helping the traveler to actually make a booking.

Tour operators can offer hotels increased visibility when selling hotel rooms, access to different market segments, and the potential for more bookings overall. Tour operators can create demand for hotel rooms during the low season.

Before working with a tour operator, hotels need to consider commission fees, the demographics a tour operator can reach, their reputation, and the amount of sales they are likely to generate. It is important to make sure the tour operator is a match for the hotel in terms of brand values.

In this article, you’ve discovered some benefits of partnering with a tour operator. You’ve learned about the wide variety of potential partners, from adventure tours to business travel specialists and companies offering travel and hotel technology solutions.

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This article is written by:

Martijn Barten

Hi, I am Martijn Barten, founder of Revfine.com. With 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, I specialize in optimizing revenue by combining revenue management with marketing strategies. I have successfully developed, implemented, and managed revenue management and marketing strategies for individual properties and multi-property portfolios.