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WhatsApp for tour operators

Your customers are asking from a timezone where you are asleep

Travellers book at the hour that suits them, from wherever they are, and often days before arriving. A reply the next morning is a reply after they booked something else.

What they actually ask

  • Do you run the sunrise trip in November?
  • What happens if the weather is bad?
  • Is there a minimum number of people?
  • Can you collect from my hotel?
  • How late can I cancel for a refund?

What makes this different from any other business

The enquiry arrives from another timezone, usually at night

A traveller planning from home may be eight hours ahead of you, and one already in the country is messaging after dinner. Neither will wait for your office hours, because there are four other operators listed beside you. This is the trade where after-hours coverage most directly converts.

Weather and minimum-numbers policies decide bookings

Anything outdoors or on water carries two questions a traveller will not book without: what happens if it is cancelled for weather, and whether it runs if not enough people book. Both have real answers — refund, reschedule, credit — and both are almost never on the listing page.

Seasonality makes generic answers wrong

Tours that run daily in August run twice a week in November and not at all in January. An agent answering from a generic description will confidently tell someone a trip runs when it does not. Season dates have to be written down explicitly, and this is the most common source of a wrong answer in this trade.

Setting it up

  1. 1
    Write your season dates explicitlyWhich tours run when, and which stop entirely. This is where a generic answer goes wrong most often.
  2. 2
    Publish the weather and minimum-numbers policyWhat happens on cancellation, and whether it is a refund, a reschedule or a credit. Travellers will not book without it.
  3. 3
    Add pickup points and cancellation windowsHotel collection areas, meeting points, and how late a refund is possible.

What it does not do

  • It cannot see live availability or remaining places unless your booking system exposes them
  • It does not take payment or deposits
  • It answers from your published policy, so a stale season date becomes a wrong answer

Questions

Can it tell someone whether a date is full?
Not unless your booking system exposes availability for a custom action to read. It answers from your season dates and capacity policy, and captures the request with the date and party size attached.
Our customers message in several languages.
It answers in the language it is written to, from the same source material. Publishing your policies clearly in English is usually enough for it to answer accurately in another language, but check the ones that matter to you.

Where the rules come from

Other businesses like yours

Answer the traveller planning at 2am their time

Point it at your season dates. Free plan, no card needed.