Peak Season Top Tips for Outdoor Activities Provider

Make sure your content and activity descriptions are up to date and optimized ⚡

The best way to promote your activities on your website and on Manawa is to check if your content is up to date and optimised!

In this example of two similar (and awesome) activities of paragliding over annecy lake, the prices are the same, and while the two pictures are nice, the one organised by Flyeo, on the left side, is better and as you can see, they received more bookings than Tangata Manu!

The same goes for the content description. The objective is to be sure that the client has all the answers to their question so that they can imagine themselves doing the activity. The most important things to include in your content would be the course of the events, the meeting point, and the price.

Your main objective should be to anticipate any pre-booking questions a customer might have.

A good example for the itinerary of a dog sledding activity :

• Pick-up at the Hotel at departure time
• Meet guides and drive to the activity location (30 minutes)
• Activity and safety briefing
• Meet the dogs!
• Learn dog sledding techniques from guides
• Begin your self-drive dog sledding adventure! (1.5 hour)
• Break for a snack and warm beverage
• Return to the base
• End of activity
• Transportation back to pick-up spot (30 minutes)

Clients need reassurance 😰 → 🤗

It’s really important to be reassuring in the activity descriptions on your website and on your Manawa activities. You have to keep in mind that your clients are not you and don’t necessarily know your activities.

At Manawa, our clients love adventure, but it is often their first time trying out a new activity!

Don’t forget to address client worries and concerns, and to share this information on your activity page.

If you offer an activity that involves getting into the water, such as snorkeling, diving, rafting of canyoning, I encourage you to communicate the technical characteristics of the wetsuits you offer to reassure customers that they won't be cold.

If you offer guided hikes in a national park where bears may be present, the same applies. Be reassuring about the fact that seeing them is rare and should be considered as a chance. And that in any case, if it happens, the guide is trained and will know how to react to ensure their safety.

Customers prefer everything to be included in the price! 🧾

Make your products as complete as possible to simplify the customer experience.

Clients who book online want to know what they are paying for, and it is frustrating to discover additional costs.

In North America, taxes and tips are often excluded from the price shown online - this can be especially frustrating for international clients who are not used to this. For your information, on Manawa for our outdoor activities in North America, we always include taxes in the price starting from.

Similarly, when it comes to the technical equipment needed for the activity, it is best to include the extra cost (if necessary) in the price, or create a separate option where clients can book with add ons included.

If it's not possible to include these options, be as transparent as possible on your activity page by clearly stating the costs!

Imagine you're on vacation in the north of Scotland and you find a superb via ferrata activity. The price from €75 suits you, the photos make you want to go, and reading the description motivates you more than ever. So you decide to book, and when you get to the basket, you realize that you have to add €15 tax, €8 national park access fee and €10 harness hire. So you end up with a price tag of €108 when you thought you'd only pay €75. You're frustrated and disappointed and consider looking for a cheaper option elsewhere, or even not doing the activity at all.

Be clear about the accessibility of your activities 📏📍

I love this slide and the superposition of the north of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and England side by side with Quebec, one region of Canada.

It’s really important that you are really clear on the accessibility of your activities so that the clients can plan and prepare themselves and so that you can adapt your client acquisition marketing campaign.

Compared to North Americans who are used to driving long distances, Europeans do not have the same perception of distance! 5 hours driving is very different in Europe vs North America! One of our tips is not to hesitate to write in your activity description the travel time between known cities/points of interest and your meeting point.

Even if you include transportation in your activity package, always include the driving time and distance so that clients can prepare for long (or short) drives!

Here is an example for a Guided Excursion to Quebec City from Montreal with a Cruise on the St. Lawrence River organise by our partner Croisière AML.

• Meeting with the guide at Concord Tours & Travel in Montreal
• 3-hour luxury bus journey to Quebec City
• 1-hour stop on foot at Montmorency Falls
• 3 hours of leisure time in Old Quebec and the Petit Champlain district to enjoy lunch (not included) and visit the historic heart of the city at your own pace
• Cruise on the St. Lawrence River for 1.5 hours (departure at 2 or 4 p.m., as chosen by you)
• Return to Montreal by bus (approx. 3 hours drive), arriving around 8.30 p.m.

Clear cancellation policies increase conversion rates 📈

It’s really important to communicate your cancellation policies on your activity pages. When you have clear cancellation policies it’s very reassuring and it acts as a confidence booster, inviting clients to picture themselves doing the activity and complete the booking!

Even if your cancellation conditions are strict, it's a good idea to write them down so that customers don't have to wonder about them. If they do, they may leave your activity page to find them, and then leave your site if they don't.

Having clear cancellation policies is one of the reasons why clients choose to book on Manawa. Don’t hesitate to reduce your cancellation policies as much as you can (without having a negative impact on your business) on your website and on Manawa to increase your sales.

Referring back to the part with the two paragliding examples, if you have two similar activities with different cancellation policies, the one with a shorter policy will get the booking.

On Manawa, because we are dedicated to outdoor and adventure activities, we have a Weather Guarantee that encourages our clients to book with more confidence. If our partners have to cancel their activities because of the weather forecast, the client is fully refunded and it’s also free of charge for the partner - the costs are on Manawa because we support our partners!

Open your bookings as soon as possible and be transparent regarding availabilities! 📅

This slide may seem obvious, but increasing your seasonal availability and opening your calendars early will increase your bookings!

Even though booking windows are becoming shorter year after year, clients are still booking their holidays months in advance. If they are booking 3-6 months in advance but your bookings are closed until your season opens, it will be impossible for them to book with you and they will seek a different activity or even location.

Having an updated calendar also gives clients the option to make a last minute booking to fill out any extra spaces in a tour group or to fill any cancellations and respond to unforeseen demand. This will improve the overall customer experience and make you stand out from your competition.

A good example is French Polynesia: imagine a 50 year old couple booking their once in a lifetime dream vacation to French Polynesia — they are planning one year in advance and every activity is pre determined before they arrive!

On the other hand, you can also have a 25 year old couple from San Francisco going to Bora Bora for a last minute honeymoon after eloping! They will be booking activities the night before, using their phones, while lying on their hotel beds.

Your calendar should be able to accommodate both of these clients!

If you haven't already done so, find out about online booking 🚀

If you don’t take online bookings already, it is a must do! It can seem obvious, but it is and will be one of the main client demands over the next few years.

Manawa is connected to 10 booking software, and continues to connect new ones to meet the needs of our partners. The other advantage of using one a booking tools for the activity profesionnel is to be able to have the instant confirmation option on Manawa.

Having instant confirmation is a huge conversion rate factor for the client experience (and it saves a lot of time for booking management).

If you don't have an online booking system today, I strongly encourage you to make an appointment with some of them!

Be reachable free of charge and respond quickly ☎️ ⭐

Update your voicemail 📞

Set up a simple, clear voicemail system. For example, you can ask the customers to give you the reason for their call, their contact details, encourage them to write to you or to check your FAQ or book directly on your website 😉

Create autoresponder emails & social media messages 📧

Create an automatic thank you e-mail / message in which you tell the customer that you will reply within X hours. Take advantage of this automatic e-mail to obtain more information about the customer by asking key questions (dates, number of participants, etc.). Don’t hesitate to redirect them to your FAQ.

Depending on a client’s origin and generation, they will have different ways of communicating and you must find a way to be reachable freely and quickly in order to respond to different requests!

Today there are a lot of existing methods of communication, the classic ones being phone and email. However, some clients will prefer to use social media such as facebook or instagram plus some other outlets like whatsapp, viber…

My advice is to ask your client what methods they are using and choose the one you would like to put in place AND communicate on your website that you are reachable in this way.

Be careful that you don’t become overwhelmed by too many communication outlets as you still need to answer all your client requests as fast as possible and the more outlets you use, the more complicated it can be! Take the time to choose your main outlet well, communicate clearly how you can be reached, and don’t hesitate to automate as many things as possible.

Get reviews from your international customers in their native languages ⭐

We all know that the client reviews are really important to selling your activities online, so I recommend that you to find a way to gather as many reviews as possible. It is important to have reviews on both your website and Manawa. Client reviews have a huge impact on client reassurance, client conversion rate, and your google ranking too!

If you have international customers, don't hesitate to invite them to write in their native languages, as this will provide an even more effective reassurance factor for customers who speak the same language!

Today you have many great ways to encourage clients to leave reviews:

• Number 1: Encourage your team (monitors and greeters) to ask customers - it's the most effective way!
• Number 2: Highlight the importance of customer reviews with visual QR codes. This can be on the reception counter, on the truck and/or on a business card in the monitors' pocket.
• Number 3: If you're offering goodies, photos and/or something to drink (in a glass or can), don't forget to add an invitation on the product to share a 5-star review of your company
• Number 4: Follow up with customers by email a few days after the activity (though on the same day is the most effective), then 10 to 20 days later once they're back from vacation.

A little tip: when customers write you great reviews on google or on your sites directly, don't hesitate to thank them and invite them to copy/paste their reviews on your Manawa pages too! This will significantly increase your sales.

The customers’ origin impacts their research 🔍

Here I would like to invite you to discover the tool Google Trends. It’s a really interesting and free tool that helps you to adapt the way you promote your activities!

Using google trends will give you the chance to discover how your clients search different activites, no matter the language, depending on their country of origin.

In this exemple you can see that ‘horseback riding’ and ‘horse riding’ are two different ways for clients to look up one type of activity You can also see that in the US ‘horseback riding’ is the more searched for term while in Australia the more popular search term is ‘horse riding’.

On the second exemple you can see that dog sledding, mushing, husky tour and husky sledding are interesting keyword. Dog sledding is the most searched in the world but Husky tour is really popular for German clients!

With this knowledge you can choose how to specifically title and display your activities on your website and on Manawa.

Work on search engine optimisation (SEO) 🌐

On this slide I won’t be able to cover all your question about SEO, it is such a big subject! Nevertheless, today I would like to share some ideas you can easily do to increase your ranking on Google.

Keep in mind that improving SEO is a long term project, and even for Manawa who specialise in SEO, it can still be a tricky subject!

To prepare this summer the easiest and most efficient SEO tips are as follows:

• Create a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section that answers all your customers' questions, no matter how simple.
• Have articles on your destination keywords: What to do in SPOT; Best activities to do in REGION...
• Articles on your sports/activities: Where to do SPORT in Quebec; Best places in Quebec to do SPORT…
• Create separate pages for each of your activities. Make sure that the page titles and descriptions repeat the keywords and main search queries SPORT + SPOT.
• Ask your partners for backlinks, which will give you an SEO boost.
• Translate your websites.

If you are already a partner, please write directly to your regional manager. If you are not yet a partner and would like to find out more about Manawa, you can also request a contact: Become a partner.