Why Tour Operators Need More Than Booking Software with TourOptima

Tour operators aren't just competing on the experiences they sell, they're competing on the experience they deliver behind the scenes. From the moment a traveler books to the moment they leave a review, every interaction matters.

In this Company Spotlight, Dan sits down with Benjamin Sann, Founder & CEO of TourOptima, and Josh Halpern, Chief Commercial Officer, to explore how technology is helping tour operators simplify operations and deliver a better guest experience. They discuss the everyday challenges operators face, from flight delays and last-minute schedule changes to managing guest communications across emails, text messages, OTAs, and multiple internal systems.

Ben and Josh explain how TourOptima brings these moving parts together into a single platform, helping office teams, guides, drivers, and coordinators stay connected while giving travelers timely, personalized communication. They also share how operators are using data and automation to reduce no-shows, improve customer satisfaction, and make day-to-day operations more efficient.

The conversation also explores the growing role of AI in tour operations from smarter customer support and multilingual communication to sentiment analysis and operational insights. Along the way, Ben and Josh explain why the best technology doesn't replace people, it gives them the tools to deliver exceptional service when it matters most.

Learn more at touroptima.com.

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Transcript

Why Operations Shape Guest Experience

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel Trends Podcast and a special spotlight episode. This is your host, Dan Christian, and today's conversation is going to be right at the intersection of technology, operations, customer experience, and the future of tours and activities. And that's specifically, as you saw from the title, the future of tours and activities, AI automation, and the guest experience with Tour Optima. Now, for anyone who spent a significant amount of time in this industry, you know that delivering an incredible guest experience is only one part of the equation. Behind every successful tour, attraction, or experience operator is an incredibly complex operational machine that includes bookings, waivers, guest communications, guides, transportation, payments, reviews, upsells, customer support, and increasingly artificial intelligence. So for many years, these operators have been forced to stitch together multiple systems, spreadsheets, messaging platforms, and a lot of manual processes just to keep everything running. The challenge has never really been about creating great experiences. Many companies do that. It's been connecting all the moving pieces behind the scenes. And that's what I'm most excited about today's conversation. And joining me in a moment are two industry leaders who are helping redefine how modern tour operators manage guest experiences and operational efficiency. First person I'm going to bring in in a minute is Benjamin Sand, the founder and CEO of Tour Optima. I've known Ben for many years and have the opportunity to watch his entrepreneurial journey from the earliest stages with this particular business. And one thing that always stood out to me is his ability to identify operational pain points and build practical solutions that operators actually need. And we're also going to bring in Josh Halpern, the chief commercial officer at Tour Optima, who's recently joined and has a great deal of experience in e-commerce and technology. And so I'm pleased to have him on the podcast as well. But just for context, Tour Optima is focused on helping Tour operators modernize the entire guest journey by connecting travelers, guides, drivers, and office teams through a single communications and operations platform. That system brings together email, SMS, WhatsApp, automated workflows, digital waivers, payment collection, all into one fully branded mobile application in one connected ecosystem. Tor Optima now supports operators across seven continents and helps facilitate communications for millions of travelers annually. And what's particularly interesting is that Tor Optima isn't simply solving today's operational challenges. They're really building for where travel is headed next. And that includes artificial intelligence, automation, personalization, real-time communications, and an integrated traveler experience, which is going to become a standard expectation for many operators in the future and force them to really modernize around this, especially when you look at companies like Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, or even Spotify is probably the most closest example for what Tor Optima has built. In today's conversation, we're going to get into the background of Tor Optima and what Ben originally set out to solve, how the platform has evolved from simply a communication solution into a comprehensive operational ecosystem. We'll talk about some of the biggest challenges that Tor operators still face today, how AI and automation are creating real business value, why connectivity between booking systems, payments, guest communications guides, and distribution channels is becoming mission critical, and what separates the fastest growing operators from the rest of the market. And I really believe that Ben and Josh, as well as Tor Optima specifically, is uniquely positioned to lead the way in the future of travel and experiences. Now, most importantly, we're going to discuss where the tour and activities industry is headed over the next few years and what operators should be doing to prepare for tomorrow. So whether you're a tour operator, a destination management company, a traction, activity provider, technology leader, or someone simply passionate about the future of travel, I think you're going to get tremendous benefit from this conversation.

How Tour Optima Started

SPEAKER_02 4:08

First of all, I want to welcome Ben Sand back to the Travel Trends Podcast. Ben is a great friend to Travel Trends. You've been a key part of our AI summit the last couple of years. Obviously, you and I are great friends and have known each other for many years, both at my time at the Travel Corporation and since you have been scaling this incredibly successful business. So I'm thrilled to have you back. And obviously, I want our listeners to know the backstory. But first of all, welcome back to Travel Trends. Tell us where you are today. To be back. We're here in sunny New York. Fantastic. And New York is obviously a major global hub. I had uh Jake Peters, as you know, from Fora on the podcast recently, and he was highlighting to me just how significant it is being based in New York as a global travel hub because the business you can do, the meetings you have, everyone's coming through New York. It's such an amazing city. And so you have built a travel business in New York City, but you also had a very successful first startup. I want everyone to know a little bit of the backstory of Tor Optima, the challenge you set out to solve, which is incredibly complex. And I know that from my time overseeing day tours and multi-day tour brands. But tell everyone a little bit about your background, Ben, and how and why you started Tor Optima.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

So prior to Tor Optima, founded, sold Best Parking, which was uh coming from New York, parking was an issue, thousands upon thousands of facilities. We built the first reservation and comparison uh system for for purchasing parking, uh, scaled that to multiple cities, and that was essentially if we think about ResTechs today, uh ResTech for parking, in other words. Uh we've come a long way. I was interested in travel, of course, and looking to solve tangential field within travel, which was a lot of operators did a phenomenal job of sending out confirmations, uh making sure that bookings were taken, payments were taken. But it was that last mile of delivery that created all sorts of operational headaches, flights being delayed, people landing at the airport at different gates, uh understanding that tickets needed to be reissued at the Coliseum for day tour operators, bad weather alerts at an observatory, all of these situations where last-minute communications needed to reach guests, and there was really no tools that handled that well, other than uh WhatsApp from personal numbers, uh it calls between the office staff, guides, coordinators, front office, and guests. It was it was a very messy process. And we came in and we we saw there was a need for that and started to work with a few very large companies in the space to solve this pain point.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Well, it was really fascinating for me to see the early stages because having worked across 40 brands at the Travel Corporation, many of the world's largest multidata operators, as well as the largest regional day tour operators like Evan Evans in the UK or AAT Kings in Australia, one thing that stood out to me over that time was how disconnected their systems and technology platforms were, but how critical the operational experience actually is. And nobody was offering anything like what you had built. So immediately when I saw the solution that we reviewed together at FocusRight a couple of years ago, my initial reaction was like, oh my God, this is so perfectly fit for purpose for multi-day as well as day tour, because you'd already solved what is the most complex part of day tour, which is every day is day one on a day tour, and you have to pick people up at their hotels. And so for multi-day, it was a natural extension. And I know you've gone on to have success there as well as attractions and observatories, and we'll bring Josh into the conversation in a moment because I know he's driving a lot of that new business and bringing clients on board. But just before we finish on the backstory, I would love for you to kind of bring us up to speed, Ben, from you know, from us having that conversation more than two years ago at Focus Right, and the journey you've been on over the last two years to not only succeed with so many clients, but also build out this technology in a way that is incredibly useful and solves all sorts of problems and is very much focused on customers just having the best possible experience on their trip so they'll come back and leave very positive reviews.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah, I I think that if a customer and this is what Uber did for the for the industry, right? And and I like to think of our the current state of the industry, pre tour optima, five years ago as taxi dispatch. And I think it's a great analogy because every everyone's effectively a taxi dispatcher. People are standing at the wrong spot, the meeting point needs to be moved because just like with Uber, there's construction, all of a sudden I need to pick you up on a different block. And how do customers, given the fact that they've all been exposed to Uber, you've been exposed to Uber. We all use it, we pull it out first thing, we expect that level of service from our tour operators. Same with Amazon package delivery, right? We have an issue, we actually know where our package is at any given time until it until it hits our doorstep. We know when it's gonna come, where it's gonna be. If we if we contact Amazon, they

Solving Last Mile Travel Chaos

SPEAKER_00 8:55

know exactly who we are, they can deal with our issue in two seconds. That's what customer expectations have become. And just because you're and I think it's even more important when you're traveling because customers are are nervous. This is their first time in Italy at the Coliseum, first time in France. They're getting off a plane. Uh they're they're nervous, uh, their connection is spotty, and they need to be sure that they know exactly where to go and and when they need to be there.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, and that's where like the tourist and activity operators, you know, historically, and even many today, you know, they're still stitching together spreadsheets and waivers and using different messaging apps, like you mentioned, WhatsApp, and then they have their booking tools. And so it's incredibly complex to operate, but then also how you engage with the actual traveler to make sure that they have, as you described with Uber, an experience where they actually know where their guides are and they can even know where the other guests are, and that takes away that anxiety. So for me, when I saw what you built, obviously for me for me, it stood out to that I'd never seen anything like it. And I know that you've had great success in the datour space and now moved into uh to multi-day. But tell us a little bit more about how it's evolved since then and then specifically why you decided to bring Josh and uh and create that role of a chief commercial officer.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Absolutely. And in fact, we started with multi-day today, back to multi-day, back and forth between and realize there's so many parallels really between the two. I even hate to bridge a line there because we work with operators that do both day and multi-day. And what I think the the line is is just uh lodging and and stringing together a series of different activities into a cohesive unified experience. But really, it's it's just a matter of of duration. I don't know why the industry creates this arbitrary divide and and companies have to specialize in one or the other. Uh, but regardless, we we started realizing that, hey, this is this is being used from by very large companies to handle communication at scale. And this could also be used for observatories, right? When there's bad weather alerts, uh, when there are long lines to check in, when people are in a foreign city and and they need to understand where do I go, how do I cancel, how do I manage my booking. This is on the day tour and attraction side of things. On the multi-day side of things, really taking users from the pre-experience. We were very focused when we met Dan with the on-trip experience, but pre-experience, I have to upload my passport. Well, it's it's super easy to do that through text or WhatsApp. Post-experience, surveys, tipping, all the entire communication timeline from the point of booking all the way through post-strip and even into post-trip CRM land. And and that's some of the new stuff that that we've been working on. Given given the scope and given how much really interest we were receiving, I was at the whole gamut of conferences from WTM to Fitor, uh, despite not being fluent in Spanish, which Josh is. And I realized that, hey, we we need someone to just focus on the commercial side of the business, on expansion, and on partnerships. There's so many really exciting partners that we've partnered with in the industry, from OTAs to Restex, that Josh was was truly needed. And Josh, I'll let you talk about your background, but you came from a background of diplomacy and and partnerships. True. This is accurate.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Um, very circuitous uh route here. But actually, as you said, man, I mean, I find in in a lot of ways uh we we are kind of shepherding a new era of diplomacy through travel. So I I often say this, and I know Dan, you hear me talk about this at at our different conferences, but I don't think people really understand, and and I'm sincere in this. I I as a former diplomat, I do feel like there's more impact we're having in the tour industry to bridge gaps on a day-to-day basis, real people understanding each other, than and frankly, that's not a hard it's not a hard barrier to break when we see where our diplomacy is on a global scale now. But um even at our best of times, I think uh I think travel industry can do more for diplomacy than diplomats do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Well, I saw your diplomacy at work the very first time we got a chance to go out together. And this is when uh Ben and I, again, have known each other for many years and have been good friends, and when Josh uh was being considered for the role, I gave him a two big thumbs up because we were uh together at the Adventure Travel and Trade Association conference in Denver. We had uh an epic

New Expectations Set By Uber

SPEAKER_02 13:05

uh adventure of racing uh scooters on the street and even went out for a night of karaoke with our friends over at Intrepid, who um uh are also now clients ultimately, not specifically because of the karaoke, but it was uh it showed me that you could add both sides to you know your background, you're knowledgeable, you love travel, and also you're just great with customer engagement. And obviously, I you know we got on for the moment that we met. And um, but I would I would love to hear from your vantage point what attracted you to Tour Optima. I know what I saw when I uh first got the demo from Ben. I'm sure you had a similar reaction, but what made you decide to jump on board?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah, I mean, I I think just to take a step back, obviously what attracted me to the attractive the travel space in general was definitely the ability to a couple things. One is obviously the message of what travel is and what it can stand for. And as I think we all want to wake up in the morning and feel like we're doing something meaningful to change the world for the better, I I genuinely feel like that's that's what the travel industry can be and is doing and can do more of. And so I wanted to go towards that. And then when I saw the trends, you know, 10 years ago when I was really in the e-commerce space and I launched uh the e-commerce innovation lab for the Department of Commerce, it was really out of the idea that there are tons of companies out there that just don't understand the technology and have to get online. They have to get online to become competitive globally. And the SMB space was definitely lagging, and there was a lot of kind of need to educate on highly technical uh skills and tools for e-commerce optimization. And then you you fast forward 10 years, when I start to see where the trend is in the travel space, you go in, and I'm sure there's a lot of operators out there that feel this way. You go into these travel spaces, these conferences, and you're like a dealer deer in a headlight because you you you see 50 different things, they're all seem similar, they've got all the right buzzwords, and they it's hard to differentiate and see where these actually applies to you. And I felt like that's a great trend to be on, where you're now starting to do what I like to do, which is educate, not just sell. And so when we start to educate companies on how to do things better and what tools to use, it was just kind of serendipitous that I met Ben really through Bruce, also at Arrival and the whole crew. And when you start, as you said, when you see the demo and you see where the technology is, you say, wow, this is something that operators need. So this isn't about uh it's not about vaporware, it's not about telling them something that's some weird niche of their operations. It's fundamental. And when you see operators say, wow, as a B2B technical SaaS business development person, it sells itself. So I don't, I I felt like I could get behind this and and really help. And as Ben was saying with the partnerships, um, to me, I'm very into better together, how do we work together as partners, public-private partnerships? So the associations that you and I met from the association uh the Adventure Travel Trade Association, and then uh we looked at uh outside, and then you look at arrival, and all these partners are really fundamental to to rising tide.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, one of the things I just want to call out too, Josh, is when you coming on board and you know, knowing Ben as well as I have for years, it's an interesting combination between the two of you guys. And but one of the things I wanted to highlight to all of our listeners is how the platform has evolved from what and what the core facets of the platform actually are. Because I think that's actually important for our listeners to understand. I'm sure many people are multitasking while we're having this conversation looking at tour optima.com. We're gonna make sure that we have some specific details for you in a moment about how you can get a personalized demo so you can really understand how it would work for your tour business or your attraction. But going back to the core, Ben, of what you built with this platform, I would love for you just to walk us through what some of the core facets are of the Tour Optima platform that have been kind of the game changers for many of your clients.

The Unified Communications Timeline

SPEAKER_00 16:36

First and foremost, communications platforms. So uniting SMS, WhatsApp, OTAs, emails into a single view, whereby the office staff, the bat I'm talking about the back office staff, the front office staff, anyone on the ground, the guides, the coordinators, and the guests are united in single conversation threads. And for multi-day operators, that is ensuring that before day one, the group has time to connect with each other in a secure way where they're not given each other's contact information, but they can communicate and opt in. Once that tour guide or the trip leader joins that experience, we're able to involve them in the conversation and taking that through to the conclusion of the experience and making sure that it's a single cohesive unified journey that lives within the tour operator's CRM and visibility.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

One of the things I wanted to specifically ask you around this is because I still remember when you were initially pitching to the operation side of the business, and this is where there's a real difficulty when you're working the operation side and you've created systems that work, that function. There may not be optimal and they may lose revenue or uh cost time, but you're right, you've built something that you're, you know, you're continually trying to just manage. It's very difficult to wrap your head around something else that could completely change the way you operate, but ultimately would make you more efficient and I've and make it for a much a much better experience for your clients. And so I know one of the things that Ben evolved was actually getting the messaging right for CEOs and executives so they could really understand the value of introducing a platform like this. And so on that topic, because I think that's the real pain point that I, you know, I saw very early on, is that if people use Tor Optima, like a white label platform, to be able to optimize the guest experience on a day tour or multi-day tour. And as you said, Ben, like you know, either, if they're just adjoining a tour, how do you make sure they have an amazing experience, write positive reviews, come back? And ultimately, that's the measure of success that is going to increase revenue. So tell us if you wouldn't mind from you know what you saw initially when you looked at operators that were using the platform. Whether was it about being more efficient with time or was it increasing revenue or a combination of both? What were the things that they weren't even realizing they were missing that were the biggest benefits of them switching over to this platform in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Being proactive. Many times as an operator, you are responding to issues as they come up,

Preventing Problems Before They Happen

SPEAKER_00 19:00

and then you're firefighting those issues. And our goal is to map out those issues in advance, figure out how do we automate processes to prevent those issues from happening in the first place. And when they do happen, automate them either through uh rules or now AI. And that process will take the director of operations or the director of customer success and experience and have their call center dramatically improved, response times improved, happiness of the employees improved, uh, happiness of the guests improve, and it all relates together. We're we're ensuring that every guest has a great experience so that when they when we send them that review request, we know they've had a great experience because they've they've made the tour on time, they've met up with their tour guide, they've uh had a great mid-trip check-in, and now we're finally sending them the post-trip review, and we know they've had a good experience on that experience on that tour.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

And that's where getting the core and the fundamentals obviously was so uh important to your uh initial customers and their success that are continued to be on the platform. And I know you guys have been continuing to build out the platform as Tor Optima has uh has expanded, you know, quite significantly in the last uh couple of years. And you know, seeing you all in action uh just recently at the arrival conference in Valencia, as you mentioned, Josh, obviously Bruce is a great friend to us all. And the arrival conference is such a uh a unique and important conference, especially for day tours and attractions. And I saw your booth absolutely slammed for those three days of the event. You guys hosted the welcome party, and it was really cool to see you guys in action. And Hannah's well on your team, but the whole team there in your booth can continuously buzzing with people looking at the features and the capabilities. And I spoke to a few operators at the event who were we just switched over to Tour Optima, or we actually just had a demo. We're about to start using Tour Optima. And so on that note, Josh, I wanted to bring you back into this because there's obviously a lot of newer features you've introduced, a lot of capabilities that have been requested. Um, so tell us a little bit about what drove some of those additions, you know, market trends, but also specifically uh what your clients have been requesting. What are the things that that stand out to you being, you know, I guess now just over a year in the role and seeing uh all the momentum and success? What are the things that stand out to you about the features and capabilities of tour operations?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah, and I think speaking to the on the backs of what we were just talking about, let me try that again. So talking a little bit about the three pillars of I think where we add value, right? We delight the guests, we're increasing revenue, the lifetime value. So if you're a multi-day, it's really about the lifetime value engagement with the guest to increase the what we call in the e-commerce world the average order value, the average lifetime value of a guest, and then it's the operational efficiency. And so kind of staying true to that, and I think Ben and I go back and forth a lot because we get a lot of requests from different operators. As you know, you have five operators, you get 17 different requests, and we want to make sure that we accommodate

AI For Policies Language And Scale

SPEAKER_01 21:50

everybody, but we want to stay true to where we're adding the most value, as you said, right? So we want to make sure is the request going to add revenue? Is it going to delight guests? Is it going to improve? Operational efficiency. And so one of the things that have come up, I mean, the people that when we speak to operators, the people that love us out of the gate, often the operations people are thrilled. Uh, the revenue folks, they they want they see the the dollar signs go in, and the marketing team. And so we've been asked feature-wise to look at how we can help them articulate to the wider internal audience through dashboard analytics what's going on and what's being effective and what isn't. Where can they push the buttons to wring out more value from the existing guests, especially in a world where we're seeing some tourism trends, as you say, travel trends around headwinds? How do we get more value out of the ones that already are committed and traveling? And that's that's in the dashboard, in analytics, it's in uh obviously AI features. We just incorporated multilingual AI, you know, so we we have the ability for AI to respond in any language, and then now the ability for an operator to look on that response and before it's sent, translate it to their language so they can understand it and send it over. So getting uh just broader tools within the dashboard. Ben, I'm not sure if I've missed anything there.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Overall, we work now with so many different operators, and uh of those operators, thousands of customer service reps who are writing in with phenomenal feature requests. And each of these feature requests seems small individually, but together they create a powerhouse of a system for an operations team, for revenue management teams, or our operators as a whole. So that's what really provides value to the platform. And I think as we think about the proliferation of AI tools, AI is phenomenal if you know exactly what you want to create. But it will not invent the nuances that an operations team in Cancun that deals with trips out to Chichinitsa has to deal with every day. Right now, there's a massive strike over at Chichinitsa and it's it's closed. The vendors are up in arms because they're being delegated to uh stands outside of they think they're not gonna be able to sell as much. Operators have to reroute guests that have booked months in advance that are taking a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to one of three different sites. So imagine you're a guest, you get to Mexico, you're told, hey, you can't go to Chichinitsa today. You we're gonna send you off to a different archaeological site. How do you frame that in a way where that guest says, hey, that sounds great. I'm not gonna cancel my trip. I'm gonna be excited about this. The photos look great, sign me up. Getting that nuance down and making sure that you can retain 99% of guests and they're happy at the end of that experience is something that just requires a deep understanding of the market and requires a uh a lot of nuances.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

You've both brought us some really interesting points. Obviously, Josh bringing up AI and Ben, even as you were speaking there, just with the human touch and given how things change uh within a specific destination, as you just outlined in Chichen Itsa, I actually just did that trip recently and I was in Cancun with my family and we did a Chichen day tour, and it was fantastic. But there wasn't a lot of technology in that particular experience. And so um, and so it's one of the things I do want to get into is the human touch and technology. But before we do, one of the things you had mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, Ben, when you look at the industry and how it's evolving, one thing is that operators are being forced to modernize much faster in the face of not only Uber, but Amazon, Airbnb, they want instant digital experiences. So that's the expectation, which really changes and puts a lot of pressure on operators to be able to introduce technology and something that we've talked about extensively on this podcast over the last few years is the fact that most people get into the travel industry because they want to delight customers and they want to have amazing travel experiences, not because they are experts in technology and they have to find a way to start to leverage technology. But most travel companies are just that. They're travel companies, not technology companies. And this is what's unique about companies like Tor Optima is you are a technology company that serves the travel industry. So on that note, I do want to get into AI because this is one of those things that if operators are being forced to go down this path, they may be thinking, oh, I can spend a weekend vibe coding a platform, or I can, you know, try and create something and I can stitch these things together and potentially creating more of an issue. And so let's talk about how you guys have integrated AI because I still remember, Ben, when you joined our AI summit, one of the things you talked about was sentiment analysis of being able to understand if people are having uh some difficulties on their trip, the most important thing you can do is solve it right there in the moment, not allow that to occur, and they go home and then they write a negative review. And that's one of the benefits of the Tour Optima platform that really stood out to me is that you can do sentiment analysis by virtue of AI. So let's let's highlight to all of our listeners where you guys have integrated AI into the platform. So I'd love to hear that from you, Ben. And then Josh, you can jump back in to kind of highlight where you guests are asking you or where your clients are asking you to continue to develop. But yeah, Ben, tell us a little bit of how you've got to build AI into the platform.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, so previously the status quo was everyone's on WhatsApp, communicating off platform. This this is last-minute emergencies as they develop. And by centralizing that, you can still use WhatsApp as a delivery method, but by using Tor Optima, you assemble a very large knowledge base of what's what's going on, what are all the problems that you face as a business, what are taking up the most time, what's having the most customer dissatisfaction. And you as an operator can create and craft a knowledge base and processes and protocols that solve this proactively instead of reactively. And if you do have a customer who's who's writing in, how are you going to deal with that? And the nuances are insanely complicated. Every single OTA has different refund policies and cancellation policies. If you need to reschedule someone at Chechenitsa because of the strike that's going on and the massive uh situation there, it's going to the way in which you reschedule them is going to depend on the policies of the agent or the OTA. We're in a very special business where our many of our customers are customers through an agent or through an agency. And it really separates the travel industry from many, many other industries. When I buy sneakers, I go to the store and I buy a pair of sneakers. When I buy a travel experience, I might go through an agency, an OTA, or a local travel agent to purchase that experience. And making sure that everyone's kept in the loop and follows the right guidelines is an immense challenge. So that's one of the areas that we're really looping in AI in being able to analyze policies, handle that proactively. And it's a big training effort from our end into giving operators the tools to understand Reg, understand a knowledge base, understand how do I tweak my knowledge base to deliver the types of suggested and automated responses that I'm looking to deliver and set my guidelines such that AI will only respond to customers or deal with certain issues if it's above a certain confidence threshold. So we've we've in the last six months, as everyone knows with Opus and Claude, just taken off exponentially when it comes to the capabilities. And and this is something that needs to be truly harnessed and funneled into the into the right direction as opposed to, hey, I am looking to build a call center or a contact center. Please vibe code it for me because it's not going to understand the nuances of the travel industry and that OTA agency dynamic that I just mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Yeah. And Josh, on that, I mean, obviously, you're seeing a number of operators utilizing Tor Optima and also embracing AI as you guys have into your stack. Um I'd love to hear if there might be some really interesting use cases or hacks that you're seeing of how uh creative use cases for uh Tor operators using using Tor Optima and leveraging AI.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Sure. Um I was just imagining, though, Ben's example of buying a shoe and what it would be like if if it were actually like Tor. So you'd basically have a private shopper that would shop on your behalf, buy the shoe, and then if you wanted to change the size, you couldn't communicate directly with the store, nor could the store communicate with you. You'd have to go through an actual personal shopper who'd have to then go back and forth. It would slow up the economy significantly. And that's right. That's that's I guess what we're dealing with. And so I, you know, I think I just want to highlight some of the bigger things that one of the things that operators take advantage of our platform around is the manifest view, the ability to message all the guests, all the different channels that Ben talked about, where it's unique messages based on who the guest is and what channel perhaps they purchased from, but then doing it at scale on a on a manifest level where you can send everybody on a specific tour a message, know that they get it, but it does it's going to be different for everybody depending on what channel they came into. Right. I don't know if everyone really hit home on that. That ability, operators who understand that and then are leveraging that to then also create the right upsells based on the channel or no upsells if they're coming in through, let's say, OTA channels, right? So there's there's certain ways that operators, if they do it right, they're doing it at scale. And frankly, you cannot do it if you don't do it through a platform like ours because you can't do that at scale. You'd go crazy, try to differentiate which upsells are gonna go to which guest based on which channel, right? Um so I think that's a a major value prop and also a major challenge that they have. Similar to disruptions, right? Operators want to tell everybody they need, there's no option to not tell people that the tour is canceled, that the entrance is moved, that the weather has impacted things, but they need to know that everyone's gonna get that. And that has to happen at scale without everybody calling or messaging every individual guest. And we do that. Um so those are so there's some added um features. Uh well.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah, one of the things great. One of the things I uh was just gonna add, I've certainly seen you know the value that's created operationally by using the Tor Optima platform and how you guys are continuing to integrate AI, and obviously you'll be a part of our summit again uh later this year. And so we're gonna continue to have those conversations. But one of the things that always comes up when we're talking about AI uh is that what is the role for the human touch? And I am a big advocate, as I think you both know, uh, that really in the face of AI, people are going to desire human connection that much more. However, where we see AI being utilized is very much in automating some of these workflows. And actually, and and when I look at the tour optimal platform, the thing that stands out to me is you very much have this concept of a tour leader or a guide that you are improving the experience for the guests to better facilitate the guide doing what they do best, which is guiding the tours and making sure that they're creating a

Where Humans Still Matter Most

SPEAKER_02 32:05

great experience. So I would love to hear your take on this. Like when you think of uh an operator work workflow, like when you think of an operator, what what is the value of automation and what do you think still requires a human touch?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

I'm gonna give an example that kind of weaves right between the two. Personalization. Operators that personalize their messaging from day one all the way through to who's asking for a review, putting a name to those tours and to the guests, have a lot higher conversion, a lot better guest satisfaction, and actually reduce their no-shows because people feel they've engaged with the actual operator, the actual guide before they've arrived. So wonderful personalization. Now the question is could you use AI to do that? Yes. We use AI so that the tour guide, who's not necessarily starting to work until the day of the tour, is actually sending messages that are personalized to the guests. The guests feel they're getting a personal message from the guide, but the guide is actually not having to send that message themselves. Um, similarly, the pictures, the photos, right? We personalize photos and map them in the in the system for a guide can actually have their own photo. When the guest is assigned to that guide on that tour, they're going to get a personalized photo and the name of that guide welcoming them. That does not have to be actual human sending those out.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, so I would say that with all of the emphasis on AI and AI suites, there is a lot lost to rule-based orders and flows. And when it comes to travel and OTAs at scale and bookings and booking notes and dietary preferences and allergies, there is a lot of rule-based orders that will always exist to prevent any misunderstanding with an AI. So, for example, if a pickup point is specified in the system, there is no need to involve AI in terms of aside from the guest asking, hey, when do I need to leave my hotel to get to the pickup point? Yes, that is something that we need to involve AI for. But there is this tendency, I think, at the moment to think that everything should be vibe coded and AI can just handle the whole workflow. When we're talking about people that are taking a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, there are certain things that you want to be very, very specific and never get wrong because 0.01% is still too much to get wrong.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, and we've certainly seen that. Like if you look at the uh Mike Coletta and the work that FocusRight has done with the latest AI utilization from a customer point of view, it's overwhelmingly they're using it for planning, but not for booking. And the big reason they're not using it for booking is trust. And you're absolutely right, Ben, that one of the things that we continually talk about on the podcast is the fact that when it comes to people's holidays, it's actually more important than the money they've spent. It's the time that they have. And so the reality is they're also booking on different platforms. So you brought up OTAs, and I wanted to ask you about that as well, because at every arrival conference, it's always about distribution and connectivity and the challenges that many operators have because they have different booking systems and CRMs and different payment uh uh processes, and then these messaging tools, and they work with all these different distribution partners. So you've obviously seen that evolve over the last few

Connectivity With Booking Systems And OTAs

SPEAKER_02 35:10

years, and it's more complex than ever today. So very keen to get your take on that as it relates to operators listening to this to try and figure out you know, utilizing a platform like Tor Optima. How important is connectivity in their consideration of implementing a solution like this?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

We our platform supports operators that do not have a booking system in place. So a lot of multi-day operators have not found a booking solution and a booking system that works for them. Uh, some of the largest ATOR operators are still on their own custom systems. So we do not require that. What we have found is having a booking system leads to a lot of efficiencies because the booking system serves as a hub and almost almost the operating system on which apps can then be built. So we consider ourselves as a communication system and portal, an app, uh a service that sits on top of the core booking data. That core booking data better be 100% up to date, current, have all the pickups in the system, have all the resource assignments. That needs to be in place for communications to work. Because if if that is not in place and you don't know when your tours are leaving, you haven't uh dynamically priced your tours based on availability, you don't have a channel manager to manage all of your OTA relationships. Uh, if if you don't have that, you're you're gonna be firefighting forever. And we're only adopting a service like ours is is moderately helpful, but you're still gonna be firefighting. So you need to have a central system as an operator.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

And taking a full arc back to the original discussion around, to me, the trends around e-commerce and where this is now, you're seeing you know, in the e-commerce world, the backbone of a business was really the website and the interface, and Shopify became that backbone in many cases. And then everything's a bolt-on. And the best, and then you can choose your best and breed. What we're seeing is that it's it's really arrived to the point where the ResTech is, as Ben's saying, the backbone of an operational kind of infrastructure. And then what is the best and breed that you can bolt onto that and what works most seamlessly with that?

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Well, and this is where obviously the most modern, if you will, like tour and activity providers are utilizing technology that will serve their customers because they know their value of repeat business. And um, customer retention, lifetime customer value is is as important as it's ever been. And I think that the operational experience is ultimately where you know it can fall down. That's that's ultimately the experience people are looking for. So I'm keen to finish off with a couple of tips from you guys when it comes to revenue and growth that every tour operator is looking for today, and obviously trying to make a decision on who they partner with, what platforms they use. And one of the decisions always around using a platform is the cost of a platform. And it's so interesting when Ben and I were having these discussions with some of the partners that are now part of Tour Optima, you know, when you look at, and I've had this experience because I know what it's like when I'm

Revenue Leaks No Shows And Upsells

SPEAKER_02 38:00

on the operator side looking at technology and the idea of it being a cost, but the reality is it actually is going to increase revenue and it's gonna, and for a number of reasons. So I keen to ask you on this question, Josh. When it comes to revenue and growth, you're clearly hearing existing clients that are extending your relationship with you, other clients that are coming on board. A couple of tips from you when I when you look at operators and where they're leaking revenue today, and you know what you would say separate some of these high growth operators from everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Okay, sure. I'll say uh three things, and I'm sure Ben will have five more, but um one is obviously personalized, personalize, personalize. You can do that at scale, making sure people feel that they're engaged with the guide when it's vet when it's that's appropriate or somebody specifically uh and that the and that the operator knows who they are, what they've booked. Uh the second thing I'd say is making sure that you are uh selling the right thing to the right guest. The idea of blasting everybody saying, hey, we just got this really cool coach tour, uh everyone, just everyone, 15% off coach tour. It's that may or may not be the best sell for everybody, right? And and if you can do it at scale, make sure you're selling the right thing. And if you don't have those things in your portfolio, either partner with someone who does. We're seeing a lot of uptick in revenue from partnerships between operators and between products, or get the product, or think creatively about the product. If you can infuse a lunch cell in there, infuse a lunch cell. And then the the the loss revenue and that leakages, I think, speaks to um no shows, cancellations, the inability to re rebook people at a different, more appropriate time based on maybe their weather or their requirements, maybe doing it at scale and making sure that people get what they want before they either decide not to show up or they give a bad review. Ben, where did I miss? I'll do perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah, Josh. Um you're hired. Josh, you're hired. Nice. I you know, I learned from the best. Um yeah. Well, let's talk about on that note because obviously you're a key part of the future of Tor Optima. So as much as we joke, I mean, obviously, yes, it's um it's been great to see the dynamic between the two of you and then certainly seeing you at conferences, and you know, we're gonna be together again at many of the big industry conferences over the course of 26 and 27. I wanted to finish off to talk about where the industry is headed. I know that you and the team have been very focused on future-proofing Tor Optima. You've got some of the biggest clients in both the day tour and the multi-day tour space utilizing the platform. They're gonna continue to make sure that it's feature complete and and does everything that clients continue to expect. So tell us a little bit

Consolidation Standards And Future Proofing

SPEAKER_02 40:25

about where the industry is headed and and specifically why people should be considering Tor Optima. So maybe we'll we'll start with Ben and then we'll go to you, Josh, and then we'll make sure everyone knows how to connect with you guys and also arrange to book a demo.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, I think the level of customization and personalization based on the operator and the tour, and whether it's pickups, whether the tour is meeting points, whether it's day or multi-day, whether there is a foundation that the operator might want to support based on the where in the world the guest might be, based on geo-aware notifications, all of these attributes and and what the expression I like to use is the devil is in the details. And it's only until you get into the details that you find out that that's really an apt apt expression. And we've gone down so many different, I would say, communication rabbit holes, rabbit holes being a good word in this case, of solving pain points that a specific client that does swamp tours in New Orleans might have regarding their pickups at 6 p.m. to take people to the to the boat tours. How that differs from the Coliseum, how that differs from Chechenitza, how that differs from a customer landing uh in in Morocco, right? To to set out on a week-long experience and then having travel disrupted due to a due to a war in the Middle East. All of these things are what separates, I would say, us in terms of how we think about our business and the level of care that we provide. And I really as a company, I've made it our mission culturally to treat every operator's business as if it's our own. So when we see an issue like the war in the Middle East break out or an issue at Chechenitza, which we discussed, how do we proactively go in and suggest ways of helping these operators solve that problem?

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, I mean, I I think, first of all, I think that the there's a lot of consolidation of tools. I think people are working together more and more. There's uh there's infrastructures we know around standardization around technology. Uh so I think that's a great thing. I think that we're seeing uh some out some we're seeing some technologies really come out of the gate and we really see how I want to answer this. I think we're seeing a lot of trends around consolidation and collaboration between technology tools. We're seeing standardization, as we know with Octo and others. I think that we're seeing um operators really look to what is gonna be effective versus what sounds like it's a great idea, and then you try it. There's not as much of an interest in trying something and then having it fail six months later. They recognize like tried and true is important. Um, I think for us, in terms of Tor Optima, our ideal client is a client that's well educated, that has enough volume that they can see those incremental values that that are being brought to the table and both in operational efficiency as well as a revenue. Um, it doesn't necessarily have to be the largest companies in the world, but it does have to be a company that's willing to invest in growth in the proper infrastructure, that core foundation, because you know, we we find that the companies that see what we do and get it are willing to put the investment both financially but also in the time. When you see under the hood, you see how much work we do. We're not a traditional SaaS solution where we pay us a month and we walk away. Every month we'll get that reoccurring revenue. We work with you very deeply on how to how to create those right messaging flows that, as Ben was saying, it's just it's it's about understanding the nuances of the only industry that we work in. Um so I think that people often, and I don't think we do a good enough job, and I have to work on this with a team, of articulating the intimate work we do with each operator. Uh and unfortunately, people find that out afterwards and they love it. They don't necessarily want to tell all the other operators that that's the key key sauce. Uh but we have that's where we're gonna be focused a lot more in the in the coming years is finding the right. Clients that get it and that want to grow versus those who you know just think of it as an incremental, minor, minor, not a fundamental value add.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah, well, you both know I'm big believers in both of you, the team, and what you've built with Tor Optima. And I know from uh speaking to many of your clients how happy they are. And I want to make sure that all of our listeners that are looking to increase revenue and future-proof their business and make sure that they're meeting the clients uh where their needs are today from a technology point of view for you know day tour, multi-day, but also the attraction, something we can get into in more detail and uh future conversation. And uh, but in terms of connecting with

How To Get A Personalized Demo

SPEAKER_02 44:35

you, obviously I've mentioned the website. What would be the best way for everyone to be able to reach out? Obviously, Josh, that's your role now, so I'm not gonna put that on you, Ben. So, Josh, what are the best ways to connect with you, the team, and to be able to arrange a demo?

SPEAKER_01 44:46

The best is Dan's personal number. I'll pull it up right now. Anytime and I'll I'll I'll read I'll redirect you. I think that we'll we'll put a demo link in that's unique to Travel Trends and we'll send it over. You can share that with the audience. I think that's the best way to do it. I just want to preface it by saying Ben, myself, the entire team very deeply cares about what we do. Uh we are perfectionists, so sometimes to a fault. We really want to work with companies that get it. Um, so do not hesitate to reach out. Uh, and and as you as you know, we we're we love each other, we love the team, we really enjoy what we do. So otherwise that that wouldn't get us up in the morning. So uh let's stay in touch.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

That definitely shows. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Josh. Great to have you back on Travel Trends. I wish you and the team every success in 2026. Uh, look forward to seeing you at many of the conferences and keeping in touch. Thanks for your support of travel trends as well and have certainly a very bright future ahead. So thanks again to you guys for joining us today. Thank you, Dan, for all you do, man.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Thank you. And that's a wrap for our latest spotlight episode of Travel Trends. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Josh and Ben. Thanks again to you both for joining me and having this conversation around the future of tours and activities. Obviously, I'm very bullish on the future of Tour Optima and what you and the team have built. And I think one of the things that stood out to me most about this conversation is that it's not simply about technology, it's really about solving real-world challenges that tour operators, attractions, and activity providers face every day. And one of the things that we discussed is these disconnected systems and manual processes, which still exist far too commonly across the industry, and where we need to get to with automation, connectivity, personalization, and really making for a seamless guest experience. And as you heard, over the course of our conversation, we explored the growing impact of artificial intelligence, changing customer expectations, and why operators need to think beyond simply taking bookings and really focusing on the entire guest journey. Ben, having known him for so many years, it's so exciting to see your Tor Optima journey continue to unfold. And Josh, it's exciting to see your expertise and perspective being brought into the business and the success that you and the team are having as you're rolling out new clients across the industry and attending all the big trade shows, which it's always great to see you guys at. And I think one of the biggest takeaways for me from today's conversation is that the future really belongs to operators who embrace connected technology, automating repetitive tasks, leveraging AI intelligently, and that will focus relentlessly on delivering exceptional customer experiences. For our listeners, if you're a tour operator, attraction, activity provider, or tourism business looking to streamline your operations, improve guest communications, increase revenue, and really future-proof your organization, I strongly encourage you to learn more about what the Tor Optima team is building. And you can request a demo with the following link: Toroptima.com slash travel trends. So you'll be able to connect directly with the team and be given a very personalized demo for listening to this episode and reaching out. And that link again is Toroptima.com slash travel trends. You can see firsthand how Toroptima is helping operators simplify operations, enhance the guest experience, and really create a more connected business. And on that note, thank you again, Ben and Josh, for sharing so many valuable insights with us and your vision for the future of our industry. And thanks to everyone who joined us around the world for this episode of Travel Trends. Until next time, safe travels.