Streamlining your tourism business
Technology offers great opportunities for streamlining many aspects of your business including payroll, online booking and reservation management, capacity and scheduling systems, tracking product profitability, asset maintenance and digital marketing.
An essential starting point is your accounting software – which can save you a significant amount of time as an alternative to paper systems or excel spreadsheets. Any good accounting software will provide you with up-to-date financial information which gives you the ability to make decisions using real time information. These decisions may include where to trim costs, which months provide your highest revenues, how much you have left in your budget and how much cash you need this month to pay the bills.
When choosing an accounting software package, make sure you consider whether it will integrate with your point of sale, operational or marketing software. There are huge time savings as well as reduced errors if you can have data flowing seamlessly between the systems. The second consideration is whether the software needs to be installed on your desktop or whether it is cloud-based. The cloud-based option provides significant flexibility allowing you to run your business from anywhere where there is internet coverage – from a boat, a plane or your bach. It is also extendible, meaning as you increase your team, you don’t need to install new instances of the software – you simply add a new user and provide them with a digital device.
If you think your business would benefit from smarter technology, we recommend you start by mapping out your customer’s journey from investigating your products and services all the way through to paying. This will highlight the specific needs and touch points.
As with any product or service there is a huge range: you can get the premium solution with all the bells and whistles or you can opt for the budget version. Select a software solution that aligns with your positioning. For example, if you are a 5-star hotel, you will need a robust online booking software that enables clients to select and bundle packages such as meals, spa treatments, transfers and accommodation and pay using a credit card. It should generate automated emails and texts to confirm bookings and remind clients about dates.
There are a lot of options out there and our team is fully trained on the most popular solutions. So, if you want to talk with an expert who has seen the software in action, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone.