Website Techniques For Scottish Tours Operators

If your tours cover a wide area of Scotland, providing detailed information on every place on your itineraries is too time-consuming. And even if you did take the time to do it, chances are there are many other websites offering it already. But other information could be just as valuable to prospects.

Writing About Your Tour Guides

Most tourists, myself included, believe that a great guide can turn an ordinary tour into a memorable experience, even if the Scottish weather misbehaves. Few, if any, tour companies use their guides to better promote their tours to prospects. Here's what you could include on your website:

• People are interested in what sort of commentary they can expect on the tour so write about special interests your guides have, whether it's in Scotland's scenery, history or culture. Publish their pictures to give prospects a face to associate their tour with.
• Ask your guides to choose and write about a favourite place on one of the itineraries. If there's a special story behind them becoming a guide, ask them to write about that too.

Most websites are impersonal so people react very well to the human faces behind the service, whether it's through pictures or information. To them, it's also an indication that your website is not one of the many useless travel websites they're trying so hard to avoid.

How To Stand Out From The Crowd

Website visitors are usually given only brochure-style information which is similar for most operators. Most tours from Edinburgh to the Highlands, for example, have similar itineraries, similar prices and similar service. To stand out and tip the balance in your favour as the better choice, provide additional information that they would find useful:

• Include tips on taking pictures from the bus for those interested in photography and tell them that the bus windows are cleaned before every tour. Let them know that, occasionally, they can ask their guide to slow down or stop for a moment while they can take a picture.
• Tell your prospects what sort of music they can listen to on tours. Few know that the tour has the added experience of traditional or contemporary Scottish music.
• Most tourists are unsure how often the bus stops and how long they have to wander around. While this is difficult to estimate, they will appreciate a general idea.
• Published tour itineraries are often sketchy when in fact, they should be as detailed as possible. Guides often take the group to places not included in the itinerary and while precise information cannot be provided, they will know that there is far more to the tour than what's being advertised.
• If hiking or camping is included in the tour, include as many details as possible about what they should wear, the level of difficulty for each route, whether you provide camping gear or not, how suitable it is for beginners, etc.

These details may seem obvious to you but not to your prospects. To them, this could be the first tour they are thinking of taking. Write about everything that they should know, even if you think it's common knowledge to you.

Get Customers To Contribute

Your competitors may include brief, two-line testimonials on their website but you can do better than that. Ask your customers to send pictures they took and a personal review of their tour to publish on your website.

People tend to believe fellow travellers so not only will detailed reviews increase your credibility but it will help bring even more visitors. It will also create a permanent connection with contributing customers which can then be more easily nurtured.