The Productivity Playbook YoutUBe video series by Kelsey Tonner, Guest Focus

 Hey, it’s Kelsey here…

I sat down to film a video about productivity for tour operators and realized I had way too much material for one episode. So I turned it into ten.

The Productivity Playbook series is now complete. Ten videos, each covering a different framework built specifically for people who run tour businesses. The Eisenhower Matrix. The 80/20 rule. Delegation filters. Deep work. Time boxing. Calendar strategy. Environment design.

The thread connecting all of them is simple: most operators aren’t unproductive because they’re lazy. They’re unproductive because their business trains them to be reactive. 

• Guests need answers. 
• Guides have questions.
• Weather changes. 
• Fires pop up constantly. 

And at the end of the day, you collapse feeling exhausted but cannot point to one thing that actually moved your business forward.

If I had to boil the entire series down to one habit, it would be this: each morning, before you open your inbox, identify the single most impactful task you could work on that day. The one that makes you a little nervous. Then spend 60 to 90 focused minutes on it before anything else.

No apps. No elaborate system. Just one focused block on your hardest, highest-value task before the fires take over. 

Operators who adopt this consistently tell us it changes everything about how their weeks feel.

All ten videos are on our YouTube channel, with real examples for tour business owners.

And if you are realizing that productivity is not your real issue, that maybe you need help figuring out which tasks actually deserve your 90 minutes each morning, that is exactly what our coaching program helps with. Book a free strategy call here. 

Talk soon,
Kelsey

Kelsey Tonner
Founder, Guest Focus
guestfocus.com

A new ebook from Christopher S. Penn : Stop Guessing. Start Winning -The destination marketer's practical guide to generative AI that actually produces results—not just impressive demos.

So, Christopher S. Penn wrote a book. It's $19.99, and it may very well change your life. If not your life, at least your weekly routine.

👉 Grab it for $19.99 → Stop Guessing. Start Winning.

His new book “Stop Guessing. Start Winning.” is a practical AI guide written specifically for destination marketers, not generic "AI for everyone" advice that could apply to literally any industry.

You'll get the RACE 2.0 Framework, four prompt techniques that actually hold up in real workflows, and 7 use cases built around destination marketing. Competitive analysis, crisis comms, personalized guest communications, event proposals, all of it. With frameworks you can pick up and use the same day.

Which matters, because organic search traffic is already down 50% in some markets as AI-mediated discovery takes over. The destinations moving now are building a compounding advantage over the ones still waiting to see how it plays out. 

Spoiler: it's playing out.

Don't wait for your next planning cycle to figure this out. Grab the book, spend an afternoon with it, and walk away with an actual plan. 

Why I Told This Client Not to Spend on Ads (Even Though They Wanted To)

A few months ago, I was on a call with a tour operator who was frustrated with their bookings. Traffic was decent, enquiries were inconsistent, and sales felt unpredictable. They had already decided what the solution was before the call even started. “We just need to run ads properly.” It’s a common starting point. Ads feel like action. They feel measurable. They feel like the lever you pull when things aren’t moving fast enough. And to be fair, in the right situation, ads can absolutely work. But this wasn’t the right situation. As we talked through the business, it became clear that the issue wasn’t visibility. People were already finding them. The issue was what happened next. The positioning was vague, the messaging tried to appeal to too many types of customers, and the experience itself, while good, wasn’t being framed in a way that made it feel distinct or memorable. In simple terms, they didn’t have a traffic problem. They had a clarity problem. If we had turned on ads at that point, we would have done exactly what they wanted. We would have driven more people to the website. More clicks. More eyeballs. More activity. But we wouldn’t have solved the underlying issue. We would have sent more people into a system that wasn’t converting properly. And when that happens, two things usually follow. First, the cost per booking rises because you’re paying to attract people who don’t quite understand what makes you different. Second, the business starts to believe that ads “don’t work,” when in reality they were just amplifying a weak foundation. That’s why I told them not to spend on ads. Not because ads are bad, but because ads are a multiplier. They don’t fix problems, they scale whatever is already there. If your positioning is strong, ads can accelerate growth. If your positioning is unclear, ads accelerate confusion. Instead, we focused on tightening the fundamentals. We worked on who the experience was really for, not who they hoped it might appeal to. We simplified the messaging so it spoke directly to that audience. We restructured parts of the website so that within a few seconds, a visitor could understand what made this experience different and whether it was right for them. We looked at the journey from first impression to booking and removed points of friction and doubt. None of this is as exciting as launching a campaign. It doesn’t give you instant numbers to look at. It feels slower, and in some cases, it feels like you’re not “doing marketing” at all. But this is the work that makes everything else effective. Once those pieces are in place, ads become far more predictable. You’re no longer guessing who you’re trying to attract. You’re not relying on volume to compensate for weak messaging. You’re amplifying something that already resonates. There’s a tendency in business to reach for tactics when things feel uncertain. Ads, SEO, social media, email campaigns. All of these have their place. But if the foundations aren’t clear, they become expensive ways to learn the same lesson over and over again. The question isn’t “should I run ads?” The better question is, “if I send more people to this, will it work better, or will I just see the same problems at a larger scale?” If it’s the latter, the smartest move is not to push harder. It’s to step back, fix what’s underneath, and then use ads for what they’re best at. Acceleration, not rescue. Cheers Chris

Feel Stuck in Your Business? Let’s Fix That — Fast! With a Deep Dive Gain clarity and direction in one powerful session. The Business Deep Dive helps you refine your brand, pricing, website, and marketing with expert insight and a clear action plan to grow your business. Find Our More

The Marketing Coach Glasgow, United Kingdom

It’s OK If You Don’t Want to Grow Bigger

 

It’s OK If You Don’t Want to Grow Bigger

There’s a quiet pressure in tourism that doesn’t get talked about much.

The assumption that growth always means bigger.

• More tours.
• More staff.
• More locations.
• More markets.
• More complexity.

And if you’re not moving in that direction, it can start to feel like you’re doing something wrong.

But here’s the truth that many operators only realise after years of building:

Not wanting to grow bigger doesn’t mean you lack ambition. It means you know what you value.

For some people, a bigger business brings energy and excitement. For others, it brings stress, distance from guests, and a version of work they never actually wanted in the first place.

There’s nothing noble about growing for the sake of it. Bigger doesn’t automatically mean better, happier, or more successful.

Many of the most resilient, profitable, and satisfying tourism businesses are deliberately small. They focus on depth rather than scale. They choose consistency over constant expansion. They protect their time, their standards, and their connection to the experience.

And that choice is rarely accidental.

It usually comes from understanding what kind of work you want to be doing day to day. Whether you enjoy being on the tour. Whether you like knowing your guests’ names. Whether you want your business to fit around your life, not consume it.

Growth can still happen in those businesses. It just looks different.

It might mean higher-quality guests rather than more of them. Better margins instead of more volume. Smoother systems rather than more moving parts. More confidence, not more chaos.

That’s still progress. And it’s still valid.

So if you’re feeling out of step with the constant push to expand, here’s the permission you didn’t know you needed:

You’re allowed to design a business that suits you.

One that’s sustainable. One that’s enjoyable. One that reflects how you want to live and work.

Bigger is just one version of success. It’s not the only one.

Cheers

Chris

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-ok-you-dont-want-grow-bigger-chris-torres-lz52e/

Don’t attempt to “scale” until you’re regularly selling out

 

This is for the operator who feels behind because they are not “scaling” fast enough. In a tour business, “scaling” is not a status symbol. It is capacity. More departures. More products. More guides. More moving parts to manage. If you are not regularly selling out what you already run, adding more does not make you more successful. It just gives you more empty inventory to carry. So what should you focus on instead? Focus on becoming the easiest “yes” in your city. The operator local partners trust, because you are visible and you are reliable. That “visibility” part is not a single networking event. It is repetition. Visitor centers. Chambers. Hotel teams. Planners. DMCs. You keep showing up until your name is known to them. That is how the snowball starts. Then you back it up with the boring stuff that most operators skip. Reply to the damn emails. Quote when you said you would. Do what you promised. When someone is under the gun and another operator ghosts, you become the obvious call. Get the same tour to sell out so often that you are turning people away. That is the moment the market is pulling you forward. That is when “scaling” stops being a word you say and becomes a problem you have to solve. Inspired by Paul Whitten, founder of Nashville Adventures, and his approach to strategically growing his business. https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVI7kBEEVWh/

🤔 Can you guess our most popular resources of 2025?? Kelsey Tonner, Guest Focus

 Hey, it's Kelsey here…

Every year tour operators in our community consume a lot of our free resources. 

Watching Guest Focus videos, reading articles, attending webinars, etc. 

But what were the most popular this year? 

5 Most-Watched Videos of 2025:

• From Boring to Brilliant: The Art of Storytelling on Tour - Transform your fact-heavy tours into captivating experiences through the power of storytelling
• Tour Design 101: The Foundations of an Unforgettable Experience - Discover how operators have transformed standard offerings into specialized experiences
• How to Price Tours for Profit: Boost Your Profits by 40% - We’re sharing three essential pricing frameworks that will help you see more profits in your business
• AI for Tour Operators in 2025: How to Use AI in Your Tour Business – A complete toolbox of specialized assistants, not just ChatGPT answering questions
• Building Communities: Complete Guide to Facebook & WhatsApp Groups for Multi-Day Tours - How to build community so you can build trust with your ideal target guests

5 Resources Tour Operators Used to Build Better Businesses:

• The Guest Focus Formula™: Our proprietary framework for creating outstanding guest experiences that drive repeat bookings and referrals
• Tour Description Templates: The specific structure that turns browsers into bookers on your sales pages
• Marketing Funnel Framework: The VIP Marketing Method™ mapped across the 5 stages of travel planning
• Pricing Strategy Tools: Cost-plus formulas, dynamic pricing models, and blended commission calculators that protect your margins
• Tour Business AI Lab: Free access to workflows, prompts, and operator-tested AI applications

5 Sales Page Improvements That Increased Conversions:

1. Run the 10-point audit on your current sales page—most operators fail at least 3 critical elements
2. Add trust signals strategically throughout the page, not just at the bottom (cancellation policy, safety badges, credentials)
3. Use "Check Availability" instead of "Book Now" to reduce booking friction
4. Include a clear tour timeline or itinerary format that helps guests visualize the experience
5. Address the unasked questions your guests have before they become objections

5 Strategic Focus Areas for 2026:

1. AI Integration: Moving from experimentation to implementation—let AI handle repetitive tasks so you can focus on growth (watch our AI series here)
2. Sales Page Optimization: Your tour page is either quietly making you money or actively losing you bookings (watch our tour descriptions series here)
3. Data-Driven Pricing: Using reports and analytics to make informed decisions instead of guessing (watch our pricing series here)
4. Off-Season Revenue Planning: Strategic projects during quiet months that multiply bookings next season (watch our off-season series here)
5. Experience Design: Creating memorable, multi-sensory tours that guests recommend without being asked (watch our tour design series here)

The difference between busy operators and profitable ones often comes down to focus. 

Not doing more things, but doing the right things consistently.

So gere's to a new year of strategic growth, not just harder work.

And of course to a 2026 filled with more insights, tools and resources from your friends at Guest Focus. ; )

Happy New Year!

Kelsey T & the Team at Guest Focus

P.S. open to sharing some love? A review or recommendation goes a long way… 

Here are some quick links to make it as easy as possible to say thanks:

Desktop:
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/guestfocus/reviews
Google: https://g.page/r/CfETS_l0luNvEAg/review?rc

On Your Phone/Mobile Device:
FB —> You’ll have to open the FB app, search Guest Focus Page, then click ‘reviews’
Google —> This link will open our business profile on Google Maps, then click ‘reviews’

Kelsey Tonner
Founder, Guest Focus
guestfocus.com



Tour Business Coaching
Create Unforgettable Experiences.
Attract Your Ideal Guests.
Sell More Tours.

Tuesday Tip - Cut Unprofitable Segments Ruthlessly

Tourpreneur Tuesday Tip A USEFUL IDEA TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS Are you spreading yourself thin trying to serve every customer type? Hidden Iceland was running small group tours that accounted for 50% of their departures but only 10% of revenue. By eliminating that segment entirely, they freed up operations and marketing resources to focus on premium and luxury private tours-and grew 5% despite cutting half their trip volume. Try this: Pull your sales data and calculate what percentage of your revenue comes from each product line or customer segment. If you find a segment that requires disproportionate effort for minimal return, model what would happen if you stopped offering it. Sometimes the best growth strategy is strategic subtraction. Inspired by how Hidden Iceland transformed their business by saying no to budget travelers and doubling down on luxury.

Feeling a lag in sales? Great post by Kelsey Tonner > Guest Focus

Great post by Kelsey Tonner of Guest Focus, so am reposting it here :)

 

Learn the power of Google 'Things to do'.

Tourpreneur is excited to partner with Google to provide you with this free course on how to harness the power of Google ‘Things to do’ for your tour & activity business.

The goal of this short course is to introduce you to ‘Things to do’, help you enroll, and harness its power to grow direct bookings for your business.

We’re launching this course in coordination with the announcement of Google’s new Ticket & Activities Editor, a way to list your tours on ‘Things to do’ directly through your Google Business Profile. 

Even if you’re very familiar with ‘Things to do’, this course will help you get up to speed with the latest developments.

Are you using your Google Business Profile to the fullest?

 Yesterday Google held a fantastic event focused on small business owners harnessing the power of Google's tools to grow your travel businesses.

Here are a few takeaways and updates you should think about in relation to your Business Profile on Google (and if you don't have one, claim yours immediately!):

• Do not “set and forget” about your Business Profile. Tend to it regularly—adding posts, updates, new photos, responding to reviews, adding or updating your tours. This matters a lot.
• Use the new features of Business Profile, including "Business Posts" to announce discounts and product updates. These posts show up on your Business Profile and in search results. (50% of customers look for promotions and discounts when searching for a business online.)
• Create an FAQ in the “Questions and Answers” section of your profile to save you time and help your customer.
• You can now add links to your social media accounts. Up to 7 accounts, and they'll display 5 of them.
• Update your photos at least monthly, and make sure they’re authentic—not staged, not overly edited.
• Load your individual tours on your profile using the new Ticket Editor! Do it now, it's so easy. If you're using booking software, chances are they might be connectivity partners with Google Things to do. But if not, simply go into your Business Profile, click on Activities and load your tours, with links to the individual tour pages. Now your Business Profile becomes a one-stop shop for the customer, linking directly to your tours.
• Mobile, mobile mobile: make sure your site is fast and friendly for phone users. Several Googlers brought this up, so it's clearly on their minds.
• Use the analytics from your Business Profile! It's actually quite powerful. Google shares a lot of useful analytics with you, such as where your guests are coming, highest activity times and days, search queries that led them to your profile, and much more.

If you want to learn more about loading your tours as part of their 'Things to do' program, take our free course we've created in partnership with Google.

Getting Faster: Know Your Website, and Know What’s Slowing It Down

 

The numbers don’t lie: Users prefer faster websites and applications.

There are many factors that impact the speed of your website.

Some you have control over; others you do not. This paper examines the various factors that impact web performance,

and the steps businesses can take to assess and improve the performance of their web properties.

https://content.cloudflare.com/NzEzLVhTQy05MTgAAAGKx7CkjnMPGM1-Z5FgXiUYqMcWKRiFboLmxWRUkdLQx2S3poh1bFswSmNp1xzdRbiEwm0y5qw=

SPTO SME Recovery Toolkit - now in Video Form!

 

SPTO SME Recovery Toolkit Videos   Warm Pacific Greetings,   We are excited to announce that the SPTO SME Recovery Toolkit is now available in video format! The Toolkit was developed to support the recovery of small, medium, and micro-sized tourism enterprises in the Pacific. It provides guidance on the entire product development process, from understanding market trends to online sales and marketing. We thank the SPTO member countries, industry and partners who contributed to this initiative and we hope you find these videos informative and helpful.   Best regards, The Division of Sustainable Tourism Pacific Tourism Organisation

These videos are a great way to gain insight into the toolkit and its chapters. We encourage you to watch each video to fully grasp the concepts and principles presented. Let us walk you through each of the videos and their corresponding chapters:

This chapter supports users to understand the evolving market trends. It provides guidance on different types of tour operators and agents before introducing key evolving consumer trends and how to apply these trends to your particular destination and business.

This chapter provides tips on adapting your product to ensure it appeals to the right target market. It presents important considerations that must be made in designing your tourism product. Learn how to refine your ideas for adapting or enhancing your product or creating a new experience.

This chapter provides you with essential information about international standards for health, safety, and security, as well as information on health and safety guidelines for COVID-19 safe operations.

This chapter guides users on pricing principles to ensure that your products are priced competitively while providing a profit. It walks you through the different steps to calculating prices for different types of products and how to allow mark-ups to be added with different businesses you might work with.

This chapter provides guidance in preparing your businesses for this new normal and re-evaluating how your business connects to customers, considering the importance of digitalization.

This chapter provides a clear understanding of the role played by staff, particularly tour guides, in the delivery of quality service and what practices to adopt to build reputation and trust.

In this final chapter, users will learn the different digital marketing options they can explore for their businesses. It introduces the different types of online sales and marketing platforms to promote your business, generate sales, and build relationships with your targeted audience.

Access the SPTO SME Recovery ToolKit here

Access the full SPTO SME ToolKit Videos Playlist here

For more information, please visit https://southpacificislands.travel/ or contact us at sustainable@spto.org

Radical Regeneration: A New Look at Sustainable Tourism #VIS2022

Tourism is an important economic driver for islands.

The sector is actively shifting towards becoming more sustainable in the face of environmental degradation caused by climate change - but what exactly are the options being developed?

Find out in this session!

How Erik built a tour operator business from scratch (and how he sold it.)

San Francisco tour founder Erik Hormann started with one Volkswagen bus and built a thriving vintage van tour business. 

After 5 years, he sold it to new owners, bringing the business full circle. 

This is his story and it is packed with lessons and advice for tour operators.

Women in Travel: The Highs and Lows of Changing your Career into Tours &...

All Things Legal! - 199

Airbnb to Kickstart Experiences After 2-Year Pause

 Airbnb mothballed its experiences business — and ceased investing in hotels — at the beginning of the pandemic, but CEO Brian Chesky said earlier this week that Airbnb will begin to invest in its experiences business again in 2023 after a two-year pause.

A file photo of an Airbnb host greeting participants in a bread-baking experience. Source: Airbnb

“It’s ready to invest like significantly in this business again,” he said.

Trotting out another e-commerce buzzword after discussing funnels, namely “flywheels,” Chesky argued that Airbnb’s homes and experiences businesses would invigorate each other.

“We have some really exciting things in the roadmap,” Chesky said, including for 2023. “And I think that experience is a great flywheel for homes because, again, the number one thing in travel is you want to have direct traffic, booking something unique that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Booking.com: Attractions Won’t Be a ‘Huge Money Spinner’

Booking Holdings Chief Financial Officer David Goulden, speaking at an Evercore technology conference September 8, noted that the company transitioned from a “homegrown acquisition strategy” for tours and activities — when it acquired Fareharbor in 2018 — to a partnerships model, such as through deals with TUI Musement and Viator.

He added that the market size and transaction values for attractions are not as substantial as for accommodations or flights.

“So I don’t think it will be a huge money spinner for us, but it’s certainly something that will create, I think, a lot of value for our customers, therefore, something we want to continue to focus on,” Goulden said.

Dennis Schaal, Skift

September 15th, 2022 at 1:47 PM EDT

https://skift.com/blog/airbnb-to-kickstart-experiences-after-2-year-pause/ 

Webinar: How to Master Social Selling for B2B

SEO and Google's Upcoming Core Web Vitals Update

Some of you have heard of it already. One of Google's most recent developments has been its Core Web Vitals update. This update adds three search signals to contribute to a website's rankings in search engines. Google plans to launch the update starting this coming June, making it one of the key marketing elements of the year for webmasters to consider. If you're unfamiliar with Core Web Vitals and what this update means for your online marketing efforts, there are certain aspects you should know about and steps you can take to prepare your website for optimal performance.   What Are Core Web Vitals?   Specifically, Google's Core Web Vitals update will contribute three of seven new ranking signals that affect a website's "page experience" score. These signals include:   Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) -- Pertains to a webpage's loading speed and visuals First Input Delay (FID) -- Indicates a webpage's interactivity Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) -- Applies to webpages' visual stability   Core Web Vitals serve as direct ranking signals, but the exact weight of these signals is still unclear. More details below on each of them. The idea behind these signals is for Google to ensure that websites provide visitors with the optimal user experience, which is an aspect that Google has been increasingly emphasizing over the years.   If a website features "poor" Core Web Vitals, it will be disqualified from "Top Stories" results and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), the latter of which is vital for webpages to appear in mobile search results. To make sure your website performs the way it should, there are some ways to optimize your website and boost your page experience score.     How to Optimize for Core Web Vitals   To help you prepare your website for Core Web Vitals and achieve a high page experience score, implement the following steps.     Optimize Your Website for Mobile Responsiveness   Every webpage on your website should be optimized for mobile users. A majority of visitors are likely to visit your site through mobile, and the user experience (UX) design of your site could deter many visitors if you're not making it mobile-ready.   Make sure your webpages fit on mobile screens and that different features continue to work on a mobile browser. You can test mobile usability through Google Search Console, and manually test the site on your own mobile device to see if everything is accessible and looks good.   Optimize LCP with Preloaded Elements   You can accelerate page loading speeds by preloading certain resources on your webpages, which can positively impact your site's LCP metric, or Largest Contentful Paint. Tools like Chrome DevTools can reveal which on-page elements are your LCPs, which you can then optimize to load faster by prioritizing certain elements above the rest of the page.   Improve FID by Optimizing Your Website's Reaction Time   The FID, or First Input Delay metric, measures the amount of time it takes for users to wait for the browser to respond to any type of action taken on your webpages. If it takes too long for the browser to react, visitors could be quick to leave your site.   One of the main causes of a long FID is long tasks, which are a kind of JavaScript code that may cause issues with a website, including unresponsiveness or even freezing. Minimizing those tasks can help improve FID. You can use Chrome DevTools to identify long tasks and find out what's behind them. From there, you can take steps to break them up into smaller tasks.   Take CLS into Account by Creating Sufficient Space for Visuals   You can optimize for CLS, or Cumulative Layout Shift, by making sure there's enough space on the page for visual elements, including images and embeds. If you don't create sufficient space for these elements, they may shift as the page loads, which could rearrange content on the page, potentially frustrating the user and causing them to click on the wrong link or other assets. Simply reserve areas of the page for different elements, which will make sure the page loads uniformly for each user.   Get Rid of Annoying Pop-ups and Other Obstructions   In optimizing the usability of your website to appeal to every user and improve Core Web Vitals, you should also consider the effect that pop-ups or other obstructions may have on user experience. While you may want to prompt users to subscribe, take advantage of a sale, or perform another task with a pop-up window, keep your pop-ups within view without preventing the user from browsing your site. You can achieve this by having pop-ups appear toward the bottom or top of the page as opposed to the center, and make it easy for users to click out of the pop-up to resume browsing the full page.   Keep Your Website Consistently Secure   In addition to usability, a core component of any website is a secure browsing experience. People want to know that the information they submit on your site is secure and that they won't encounter any risks that may compromise their systems.   In addition to ensuring that your website doesn't expose users to phishing, malware, or other malicious content, you should use a secure HTTPS connection for each page as opposed to HTTP. More tech-savvy users may be quicker to trust your website if they see that it includes an HTTPS certificate that keeps their information out of the wrong hands.   Maintain an Optimal User Experience   Ultimately, the best way to optimize your website for Core Web Vitals is to consistently facilitate a good user experience. By keeping your website visually organized, mobile-friendly, fast to load, unobstructed, and secure, you'll be able to earn a higher page experience score that keeps you on Google's good side. You'll also improve your credibility among users if they have a good impression of your website from the start of their browsing journey. When you combine these efforts with a comprehensive SEO strategy, you'll be able to appear on top of search engine results pages (SERPs) and keep people on your website once they land there.

Debate on the benefits and risks of the Health Passport