Running an adventure tourism business can feel like the absolute dream – doing what you love and sharing those thrills and experiences with people from all walks of life. But turning your passion into a business can also be an adventure in itself. Whether you’re offering windsurfing, jet boating, zorbing or mountain biking, here are a few important tips to kickstart your adventure tourism business off successfully.
1. Know your product inside and out
This may be easy if you’re turning your lifelong passion into a business, but it’s still important to conduct your research on the adventures you’ll be offering. That means researching the best equipment to invest in, looking to industry leaders and competitors, and tapping into exactly why people love the experience. This will help you shape your product, customer service and marketing.
2. Build your business plan
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Before you jump into bookings, it’s important to sit down and conduct your market analysis and segmentation, nail your product offering, define your business profile and mission, set your sustainability philosophy and set a financial forecast for your first few years. This plan may evolve over time, but it will be an important early step in making plans and securing finance.
3. Clarify your safety policies and messaging
We don’t need to tell you that safety is of paramount importance within the adventure tourism industry, both in a general sense and now in a COVID-19 context as well. It’s vital that you dedicate planning time to perfecting your safety policies, services waivers and risk assessments – as well as adjusting these on an ongoing basis for compliance and customer confidence.
4. Streamline processes wherever possible
Anyone who runs their own business truly knows the meaning of the word busy. Now’s your chance to research and streamline all possible processes so you’ll have more time to do what matters. For example, using a tour waiver app like Wherewolf means you won’t need to carry pens, paper forms or clipboards, and you can integrate your booking and waiver software so you can gain those all-important signatures without wasted time or worries.
5. Anticipate the unexpected
Here’s where it’s useful to channel your inner pessimist and think about all the things that could go wrong with your adventure offerings. Having contingency plans in place for bad weather, changing customer expectations and market shifts means your business can stay agile and keep customers happy, referring and returning to your adventure experiences.
6. Listen to customer feedback
It’s important to ask for feedback from your guests from your very first booking. After all, your customers will be the life and blood of your business. Creating a healthy feedback loop will help you to adapt as time goes on and proactively plan for your business. Wherewolf’s paid plans make this easy, enabling you to send automated follow-up emails after each tour.
With a few tried and tested steps, you can build your adventure tourism business with a solid foundation and the flexibility to adapt as needed. Before you know it you’ll be doing what you love!
If you’re just getting started then Wherewolf Lite could be ideal for you. It’s free for up to 400 waivers a month, and you can try it now with no lock-in contracts.