When Guests Show Up: The Trip Experience That Sells Itself

What actually makes a guest remember a tour for years after it ends?

In this episode of the Tour Operator Growth Podcast, we break down the part of the customer journey that matters most: the actual experience itself. From guides who create unforgettable moments to small details that turn guests into lifelong fans, we explore why the best operators do not leave great experiences to chance. They build systems around them.

Greg and Nikki share real stories from rafting expeditions, Kilimanjaro, safari experiences, and the tiny moments guests still talk about years later. They also unpack how tour operators can improve check-in, create memorable “surprise and delight” moments, empower guides, and turn every trip into a content engine that fuels future bookings.

This episode is all about Stage 4 of the Growth Engine: Experiencing. Because the experience your guests have today directly impacts the reviews, referrals, and bookings you get tomorrow.

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Chapters:
00:00 Intro: Why the Trip Experience Matters Most
01:22 The Tours Greg Still Talks About Years Later
04:16 How a Kilimanjaro Guide Changed Nikki’s Life
07:20 Small Human Moments Guests Never Forget
09:41 Why Guides Can Make or Break Your Business
12:27 The Safari Story That Almost Became a Bad Review
15:18 The Check-In Experience Sets the Tone
16:48 Surprise and Delight Moments Guests Remember
20:47 The Jump Rope Story and Creating Fun During Downtime
22:14 Turning Guest Experiences Into Your Marketing Engine

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to the Tour Operator Growth Podcast. Last episode, we talked about everything that happens before the trip even begins. The confirmation emails, the pre-trip communication, the reminders, the little moments that build confidence and excitement before guests even show up. But today we are talking about the trip itself because at the end of the day, the trip is the main product. Every review, referral, repeat booking, social media post, word of mouth recommendation is a downstream of what happens once the guest is standing right in front of you. Now, this is still part of the experiencing stage. Our last episode, we'll call it part one, was between booking day and trip day. Well, today we are talking about what happens when the guest shows up. And what's interesting is the operators winning right now don't treat great experiences as something that just magically happens because they have good guides. They treat the experiences like an actual system. They intentionally design moments that guests are going to remember. So great, let's start here. When you think back on trips or experience that you have taken over the past years, or maybe your family members have taken, what's something that gets you to talk about today? What has actually been a memorable experience?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

First off, we do not plan anyone watching, we do not plan what we wear. And so we're both wearing the same thing today, which is wild. Um, but I've like I mentioned in the last episode, I don't go on a ton of paid trips and experiences, but the ones I have gone, a lot of them actually have been with Western River Mob Adventure Center because I live here in Utah. I actually grew up with with Brian, who's one of the owners, and then obviously I work for part of the company. And so when I was 16, I actually went on a trip to Westwater with Brian Merrill, and he was our tour tour guide. So he lives in my neighborhood. He was the guide, which he doesn't guide a ton. Um, and I I always remember that trip because just a week before I went on another rafting trip in parentheses here. Um, it's a tubing experience. And I I had no clue, or actually it was the week after, sorry. I had no clue that like they were so different from each other. There's rafting trips and there's leisurely tubing experiences, right? And so when I was hearing I'm going on both of these things, I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. We go on Westwater, which is one of the best single-day rafting trips out there, and had a great time. Brian, there's this rapid, I believe it's called the Skull, and he got us like really close to it, whereas some of the other guides didn't. They kind of went away from it a little bit more because it's like a pretty dangerous rapid if you hit it the wrong way. Um and so I always remember that and the story he was telling about how like he's only ever flipped once or twice. I can't remember why. Um, and so it was like such a high adventure, fun trip. And then I go and do this Probo Canyon thing that was like sit on a tube and float down a freezing cold river. And I remember thinking, like, why are we doing this? I just went on a fun trip, let's go do that again instead. Um, so that's always been memorable. But the most memorable, the one I talk about the most is Cataract Canyon. This is I did a two-day Cataract Canyon trip, and basically you have a motorized uh raft that takes you down to where the rapids are, and then there's like 36 rapids or something in a row. And for me, I'm an I love the adrenaline. And so once we got to those rapids, it was like just destroying us the whole time. And the guide was just like so fun about it. He was engaging and like yelling with us, and like you could tell he was having a fun time as well. And so that's just super memorable. Anytime the guide is genuinely having a fun time just makes your experience that much better because you know that they love their job, they're helping you, and it it's really fun to to look back on those. I tell everyone about that trip as often as I can. What about you, Nikki? You've gone on a lot of fun things.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, and I will say that most of them stand out because of the exact reason that you just mentioned is the guide. And I know we're gonna talk about this today, but when I went up Kilimanjaro, and I know I always mention this, but it is a life-changing experience. It's one of those trips, and I know Western River is, and I know there's so many tours that are life-changing, memorable experiences. Um our guide was everything to us, right? So going up the mountain was incredible. It was a huge accomplishment. It was really challenging. The experience was awesome, but our guy made it happen, right? I could tell you so many small details that basically put my life in his hands. But it was that exact reason that you're mentioning, Greg. He genuinely loved what he does. He lives, breathes, and sleeps, Mount Kilimanjaro. And when the guides believe in what they do so much, it really rubs off on the clients in such a positive way. So obviously, we get to know his name is Amne. He's the best guide in Kilimanjaro. And he we spent nine days with him, you know, from sunup to sun down sundown. And we developed this an incredible relationship where he trusted us, we trusted him, he was super educational. Um, and we had so much fun, right? And then as I was going up and down Kilimanjaro, I saw other other guides not doing what Amne did for us, right? Yumne carried our bags. Amne bent over backwards to make make sure that Chad and I were having the most incredible experience that we possibly could, right? And that just made it. And we appreciated him so much so that we ended up developing this friendship. He ended up coming out to France by the time this episode goes live. It'll be about three weeks ago, his first time leave leave leaving Tanzania. And he stayed with us for two weeks. And we can't wait to go back to Tanzania and stay with him and continue our friendship. And then anytime I go to Kilimanjaro, if I ever climb Mount Kilmanjaro again, I keep joking about this because I don't think I will. And they keep saying, like, you will, you will, everybody comes back. I don't think I will. That was the hardest thing I've done in my life. Don't get me wrong. Climbing out was fine. Like the up until summit night, completely fine. It was the summit that that destroyed me. So it was worth it because I got to meet Amne and be friends with all the porters and whatnot. So, anyways, best experience of my life because of the guide. And so let's start with that, Greg. Tell us one of the ways that tour operators can improve the guest experiences through guides.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Before we jump into that, let me just share something because both of ours were more like bigger, maybe life-changing experiences or bigger experiences. But here's a moment where someone made a difference that was like very small. Me and my wife, we went to South Carolina on a trip to Charleston back when we were living in North Carolina, and we rented an Airbnb. And we've we've rented multiple Airbnbs, and usually you show up, you never even see the host. You just walk in, you use the code, you go and leave. It's kind of like a hotel that way. But we drive up to this like middle of the nowhere land with two houses, and this lady comes out with the biggest smile on her face and just like comes and gives us the biggest hugs, and is like, I'm so glad you guys are here. And was just like so loving. She walked us over to the house, explained the things to us. She checked in on us anytime she saw us outside. She's just like interacting with us, and she was so like energetic and loving. It felt like, hey, this is our new grandma. And it was such a memorable experience that way. So just these little things that like not life-changing, just stayed there for a night or two. I can't remember. But she made it like the only Airbnb I can remember really ever talking about is that one. So that kind of goes into these. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

The common denominator is people, right? Like that is such a there's more to it, right? Of course, but such a big part of what we do. And what I pro what we pride ourselves on at Res Mark Web and Waiver Sign is the people, right? The support team, the interactions. Like it is such a huge part of what we do. And if you don't have the right people in place, like, but those people could, even though that was only a night for you, Greg, like you're still talking about it. She made a difference in your life, and maybe you made a difference in her life too. Like, people, people beautiful. I love people.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, like I don't remember if the bed was good quality or not. I don't remember. I do remember that it was like a little tiny place, it was kind of run down, but it was still clean and like nice, you know, nice enough at least. Um, but that leads into this first thing that we kind of want to talk about is your guides and your staffing standards. So this is what really can make and or break a trip. If you have one bad guide or one day where the guide just isn't on um their game, like you can really ruin a trip for, let's say, 12 guests on that. And now you have 12 people that might be, you know, potentially doing a bad review. They're not sending referrals, and that word of mouth is now stopped at those 12 people. And so making sure that you have really solid guides that it's a it's a performance, right? And so they need to be able to perform every day, rain or shine. And that's can be hard to find, especially when in this industry, a lot of guides aren't the same people every year. You're cycling through them because they're often college students that are coming and you know, guiding for the summer, and then the next year they're off to something else. Um on Western River, I know there's a lot of guides, and this happens with other companies as well that are there for a long time. Um, some of the guides I had, they've been there for 20 years, I believe, and they knew the company in and out, they knew everything in and out, and yet they still had fun every day. It wasn't they were never dialing it in and just there. And that makes a huge difference. You can tell when a guide is just there to kind of get through it versus a guide that is genuinely loving their job. And I'll relate this back to I guess I've been on a few more trips than I think about or tours. And when I lived in Chicago, there's a tour that goes down the river that's an architecture tour, which sounds boring when you just think of an architecture tour, but it's actually one of the coolest things I've done because it's just relaxing, you float down this this river in between all these tall towering buildings, and they tell you about the history of them. Like, here's the Wrigley building and how gum was basically started with Wrigley. It was the soap factory, like, and they put gum in with the soap. You learn all these things. I'm a movie guy, so they talk about how like that's where Transformers was filmed and Batman and all this cool stuff. And I've been on it probably four times with different groups of people, and there's one guy that I remember that was just like so like is boisterous the right word, I don't know, energetic. He loved his job, and it made it that much more fun. It was actually the last time I went, uh, two years ago, and it was probably the best one I've been on. Even though I've been on it three times previous, I was like honed in. I was like, this is awesome. And so making sure that they're a good fit for your culture, um, that they're energetic is gonna make a huge difference.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

I have a quick story, and I've I've I've thought about sharing this before, but I don't want to come off like a snoo. I'm really forgiving when I comes to giving people five-star reviews. I usually do not give anything less. But in this situation, I decided to not give a review at all. So that was my like my version of a one-star, just don't give a review, you know. So my safari that I went on, incredible experience, right? It was the safari itself, seeing the animals, you can't you can't beat that, right? But there were certain things within the actual like the tour that I questioned. And I don't want to go into the details too much, but for example, one small thing was we were allotted uh soft drinks on the trip, and they had a cooler of soft drinks, but the tour, the tour guy drank them all, so we didn't have any soft drinks to drink, and that was fine. But my husband really wanted to coke and and I wanted water. There was plenty of water, and I'm I'm blessed that I was able to have water, like you know, I'm not complaining, but it did say on the uh pre-trip information and the proposal that we would have unlimited soft drinks. Well, we didn't have any soft drinks for two days, and then also this is wonderful. Now, the the tour guide, the tour company, sorry, the tour company, great company, great reviews. This just happened to be the guide. So the tour company said, we'll pick you up snacks. Like, let us know what snacks. My husband has some dietary restrictions, so we let him know a few little snacks because he wouldn't be eating like the main dinners and stuff like I would be. And so he the tour guide must have picked up the snacks. It's probably part of the process um at the beginning of the trip. He ate them. He ate the snacks. So it was fine on my behalf because I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner and no problem. But my husband didn't have any snacks. And that's what he had to eat. Like, anyways, we laughed about it. It was completely fine, but a little odd. But that's a really small thing. And there were some other little small things that we were questioning and whatnot. We would like go back to the hotel at night and chat about it and stuff. And I did email the tour company. I did email him and I said, absolutely wonderful experience. I wanted to tell you my specific things that happen, just so he could address it with the guy, not to get him in trouble or anything like that, you know. So, anyways, that was just a quick little thing that I remember. I did not leave him a bad review. I try not to do that unless something is very, very serious. Okay, so we talked about the tour guides. I'm sorry, but that is such an important part of the tour. So that is such an important part of the experience. I think we all know that. So the check-in and first impressions. A lot of tour operators do care about the check-in process, but they treat it more as just logistics, just paperwork, just getting your gear ready, just signing the digital waiver. But I want you to remember it is more than that. The check-in process really sets the tone for the entire trip. It should feel smooth, personal, welcoming, inviting. We don't want to make guests feel like we're just processing through. We want to make them feel like friends and family. One example is when I did Kilimanjaro, when the porters and tour guide met us at the hotel, they embraced us and said, you are now family. Just those words. Like you are now family. We're not co we're not, you're not a client, you're not a customer, you are family. And they stuck with that the entire trip. Like we were family. Also, automated waivers, for example, if you're using waiver sign, make this moment dramatically better as well. So people don't show up to the tour having to deal with some paperwork. It's already done and dusted. The handoff from office staff to the guide is also important. Does it feel seamless or does it feel jarring? Did they introduce you properly? Do you know who this person is that's actually going to take you on the raft, even if it's a day trip?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

I think during the trip, there's all these moments that happen. And how can you make these moments kind of be delight, delightful or surprising to the guests where it's like a wow, that was cool. And they don't even have to be big things. So, as I've been thinking about this, like when I went on the Grand Canyon trip, we go and stay at this ranch, bartend ranch, um, in the middle of nowhere. And a helicopter is what actually gets you into the canyon, which is a really cool experience in and of itself. Um, but I remember we were standing there, like, okay, the helicopter's coming soon, right? And we're all outside kind of waiting. And this helicopter comes, but it comes like low to the ground and it just zips by us, and then it flips around and comes and lands, right? And just that little thing of like the whoa, that was cool. Like it it flew by us fast. Like it had nothing to do with how the experience was gonna be, but it was just like uh cool, that was awesome. Um, funny part of that is it came and landed, and someone's a little too close and the wind knocked them back into a chair and they fell over. It was really funny. Um, because everyone was like, Why are you so close towards landing? Move back.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Um wait, Greg, um, hold on a second. Where where was this? Where was the helicopter picking you up from and taking you to?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I know you're gonna be able to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of uh Barton Ranch. So it's a ranch out by the Grand Canyon that at least on Western Rivers, like four four-day trip, you you fly in from Vegas onto this dirt, well, it might not be dirt, but onto this tarmac, and then you go to Barton Ranch, and um we slept there for a night, and then it picks you up in a helicopter and flies you, flies you out into the canyon. Like a maybe a seven-minute ride, right? Um the other part of that one too is once we're in the helicopter, like you could go over the edge of the Grand Canyon and just kind of like drop in normal, like slowly, right? But this guy like took a nosedive and like made it fun, made it an experience, right? Like, you're never when are you gonna do that in a helicopter game? Probably never. And so that little like thing is like, whoa, that was not something I was expecting. And maybe it scared some people, but at the end of the day, we were all like, that was pretty awesome. That was pretty epic. Um and those those type of things have happened on most trips I've been on, whether it was like, you know, here's a moment at night when we're all kind of getting ready to settle down, and here's a surprise. Like, we got cake and ice cream. That happened on the same Grand Canyon trip. It was actually one of the guides' birthdays, and they they pulled out a bunch of cake and ice cream. And in my mind, and I think I remember people saying this out loud because this was like day three, and people were like, How did you keep the ice cream like in there this whole time? We had ice cream this whole time, like I don't know, just things like that that go a long ways, and you can these are things you can standardize. These obviously that was someone's birthday, but what are things that you can do every trip that's gonna be that surprise and delight that comes out as like a whoa, I wasn't expecting that type of thing. The helicopter flying by that may have been a surprise and delight that's done every single time. It may have just been the helicopter pilot having a good time, who knows? But if you can schedule them out, then it's not just a one-time moment. It's a every single trip is going to experience this, and it's going to leave that little bit of lasting impression that can then be the thing that they talk about to their friends after the trip. It's like, you gotta go because like the way this happened was so cool that I'm never gonna forget it and it's gonna make the difference, right? And that's what can set your company apart from the other five companies that do the exact same thing as you is that one little surprise and delight moment that just makes it different. I have one more and then we can move on to the next piece, but um, all my stories are rafting trips. But I went on a rafting trip a couple of years ago in Moab with my church with a bunch of young youth, right? Like 16, 14 to 18 year olds. And I've been on quite a few rafting trips in my life at this point. And a lot of times when you stop for lunch, you kind of just stop and eat lunch. You have, you know, the typical peanut butter jelly sandwich or turkey and ham and cheese sandwich, which I always put them all together and make one sandwich, and everyone thinks that's weird. But I've done it on every rafting trip I've ever gone on. Um, but as we're waiting, the guides actually pull out the safety line on the beach, and they're like, Who wants to jump rope? And so we started jump roping, and by the end of it, I think we had 24 people jump roping in it at the same time, which they said was the most people, whether that's true or not, or that was just them making us feel good. They did a great job of entertaining us, right? In this time where you could just be sitting around chatting or kind of maybe being like, whenever we're getting on the river. Now we were having fun on the riverbank. And when it was time to get back on the raft, people were almost like, oh, but this is fun. What are we doing? And so those type of moments can really make a difference because I've never had that happen on a rafting trip.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah. All right. And the last one I'm going to talk about is capturing content during trips. So the trip experience can actually be your content engine. The trip you run today heals bookings like six months from now. So content capture isn't going to be extra work if it's part of your process. And think about it as the bridge between stage four, which is what we're in right now, the experiencing stage, and all the way back to stage one, which is that dreaming stage. Here's a great example of how you could do this during the actual trip. Western River Expeditions incentivizes guides to shoot content or capture videos and photos. And then if they're used on their social media channels, the guide will get $30 to $20 as a reward. But that video has to then be used on social media. So the social media manager is the one that decides is that video good or not. And there's been a few times where the videos have gone viral. One specifically got 1.5 million views. And it was just a simple video that a guide took, probably while he was sitting down and it's just spanning the river. So utilize the actual experience itself, encourage your guides, encourage people to take photos and videos. Guides are better content creators than professional photographers sometimes because they're going to capture those authentic moments and not staged ones. And also utilize the guests to capture content in the moment. Encourage them to be taking photos and videos. You know, sometimes they have to be reminded. It's okay if they don't want to. It is 100% fine if the customer wants to just live in the moment and not take photo and video. And but the guide can capture it for them. But don't get too caught up in that because it's all about the experience as well, especially if you're out in nature. Like it's not all content heavy all the time. But there's a balance we have to remember.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

That's the tricky thing. Like I'll talk about my rafting trip in the Grand Canyon again. Like part of the best, one of the best things about that is it was four days with no cell phone. Like I had no service. So I put my cell phone in the bag, never looked at it again, and it was great. And everyone starts getting on their phone, especially with like Starlink now. I've heard those are making it into some of these trips. And it's like that can really change the the wood the nature of your trip. And so it's really being cognizant of about like those quick moments. You don't want your guide on their phone all the time for sure. You don't want people thinking they're just like texting their buddies. So having certain moments where it's like pulling it out. And even them saying, like, hey, I'm gonna get some cool content real quick so that people know what you're doing, versus like, oh, guide ran off with this phone again. Um making it clear that people understand like what they're using it for and not that they're just like putting on their Instagram to show everyone how cool their job is or something, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah. To sum up the experiencing stage, a great trip plus great pre-trip systems equals a guest who is going to become your best marketer. And remember, the Resmark Growth Engine does not end at experiencing, it ends with sharing. So in our next episode, we're gonna start diving into the sharing stage of the Resmark Growth Engine. If today gave you even one idea that you can put into action this week, do me a favor, please share this episode with another operator friend who needs to hear it. That's how the show is going to grow, and that's how this industry gets better by all helping each other. And if you haven't already, hit follow wherever you're listening to this episode so that it shows up automatically when we post a new one. Until then, take care of your guests and we will take care of you. We'll see you next week.