In this article, we will introduce you to the case of a bike tour operator based in Crete, who, for the sake of discretion, we’ll be calling Barbabrillos. The owner is an ordinary, traditional Cretan man.
When Barbabrillos was young, he loved cycling with his friends. They used to explore the whole island with their bikes, discovering hidden paths and unapproachable beaches. He was 23 years old when his passion for cycling led him to set up his own bike company. His dream was to organize guided tours to give access to unapproachable places of the island to more people and become one of the top cycling tour operators in Crete.
Now he is 42 years old, and most of the time, he is very stressed. As you can imagine, managing everything alone during the high season can be challenging. He can’t find free time to cycle with his friends anymore, and running his bike tour business takes all of his time!
How Barbabrillos, our bike tour operator, worked before kleesto
Lots of paperwork
I guess you can easily imagine how Barbabrillos’s office might be: a desk full of papers, which would drive him crazy. Especially in high season, when everything was demanding and should be efficient as a bike tour facilitator.
His highest priority was to try to keep everything organized in excel files. On top of that, he had to answer phone calls from travelers seeking bicycle adventures in Crete. So he had to pick up the phone calls and synchronize guide tour timetables with his clients, tasks that most of the time led to messed up reservations! As a consequence, over-bookings were such a common phenomenon that he missed reservations. As a result, he ended up with many two-star ratings!
Incomplete communication
Barbabrillos was struggling to explain every detail to customers every time someone asked for it!
As soon as somebody interested in a tour showed up, he had to present all bikes provided and all types of bicycle tours to choose the most suitable for them. Then, he had to explain the prices, discounts, tours timetable, and destinations while communicating well with his partners. His partners included bike repair companies, hotels, travel agencies, and tour guide partners. He informed all of them immediately if the price is different or the bike tours were not available at a specific time or day.
All he could do was update his excel files and send them one more time to his partners (that’s if he had the time during the high season).
The cost of poor resource management
Let’s now examine Barbabrillos’ performance in resource management. His primary need was to synchronize the personnel with the equipment. For example, tour guides and bike vehicles always had to be synchronized with customers and tours in real-time.
As a result, double bookings were a common problem for his bike company. He will never forget the day that a Chinese family had booked a 6-people bike tour at the same time with a family from France. As he told us, they were trying to figure out a solution for about an hour in his office. In the end, they left with a bad review of his business. That was the day Barbabrillos came across the kleesto tour operator platform through a search he did online. After a demo with our sales team, he decided to upgrade his company with an automated booking operations management solution.
How Barbabrillos operates now, using kleesto
Real-time online bookings
His daily schedule changed dramatically while using kleesto. No more paperwork! All reservations and services were automated and organized in kleesto’s online software solution. Having an all-in-one bike tour operator software meant that he had his own online space to manage all the bookings, pricing plans, and many more. Now, our bike tour operator can track instant bookings on bike tours from his website provided by kleesto’s online booking solution. Without a doubt, he doesn’t have any more over-booking troubles. Now everything is automated. And his reviews are five stars!
Great communication with his partners
With kleesto, his partners’ network has expanded significantly, and he is making better and wiser decisions for his company’s operation. Moreover, our bike tour operator software allows him to communicate any changes in his business to his partners in real-time.
Let’s explain further how he handles communications with the hotel in his area. With a small piece of code placed on the hotel’s website, any visitor staying at the hotel can book a bike tour directly from the hotel website, which can sync with our bike tour operator software. At any moment, all partners can have the same information about any time or price!
Efficient management of resources
As you remember, managing his resources was the major problem Barbabrillos had to deal with, but kleesto luckily changed that rapidly. kleesto’s software connects availability and equipment, updates all reservations and cancellations in real-time, and syncs with all his partners and channels. What does this mean? If all bikes are not available at any given time, the system won’t accept any more bookings.
Also, if a guide is responsible for a specific tour, he won’t be booked for another activity. So, finally, Barbabrillos has achieved to maximize the use of his resources and so his revenues.
Barbabrillos is now an international bike tour operator
From a small, local bike tour operator, he has grown into an international experience provider with great rating reviews and recommendations. Now, travelers worldwide can find Barbabrillos through his website and book their favorite bike tour in advance. In addition, he can connect with travel agencies outside Crete! In a world where travelers want to share their experiences, they can now comment, leave reviews and share their knowledge, resulting in more customers every year.
Conclusion
As described, just after getting in touch with kleesto, Barbabrillos realized that this was all he needed as a bike tour operator! He got a complete suite of solutions for the excellent organization and increased performance of his bike tour operator business while providing quality and uniqueness to his customers. If you are a bike tour operator and have the same issues as Barbabrillos had before using kleesto, book a demo with our team or try kleesto for free.
