Adventure Business Systems Review
Adventure business systems, theoretically, haven’t changed much. What has changed is the amount of technology involved in every area of the way adventure and travel businesses operate. Most importantly, businesses must have an active email list, be present on social media, have contactless waiver signing, allow online reservations and close sales with live chat.
I remember being in college and taking courses in accounting, marketing and risk management. The impression was these were foundational systems I would need to run my adventure business someday. I learned quickly that technology was going to be THE way owners managed their businesses in the future. As a result, I have watched it explode over the last decade.
Adventure Business Systems Now Revolve Around Software
With Covid-19 forcing everyone online and into remote working environments, the online office is here to stay. Businesses will need to work hard to keep up with digital trends. Like optimizing websites for mobile and being available in real-time to customers will be key to closing sales. Training their guides to use various social platforms to help feed the world’s insatiable hunger for travel inspiration. From speaking with many small business owners, the biggest challenge is how much technology there is to keep up with. Many owners are overwhelmed by this new IT role. It is a lot to manage, there’s no doubt about it. That is to say, business owners are not only the tour guides, the sales reps, and the CFO’s but now they are also the IT and digital marketing experts.
From a customer’s perspective, being able to book their activity or accommodations online, sign waivers before arrival, and communicate with you via chat/text are big factors in their buying decisions. These contact methods are how you will build trust and maintain relationships with your travellers. They also allow you to have 2-way communication so you can learn from them and move to serve them better than ever before.
Before we can talk about which software tools you need and which processes you should prioritize standardizing, we need to understand the big picture.
What are the KEY adventure business systems?
While adventure and travel businesses use many of the same systems as other business types, I wanted to outline them here and provide a description within the adventure and travel context.
The Marketing & Sales Systems
Marketing is the part of your business where you promote the buying of your services and gather leads. It’s at least 90% digital today using tactics like email marketing, social media posting, social media advertising, website sales funnels, business listings (google my business), referral programs, webinars, launching new products etc. The sales system is made of the processes that convert leads into clients, or travellers in our case. You need a successful, repeatable process to convert leads that match people’s expectations from other areas of their life. A sales system would include elements such as client calls, client emails, live chat support, welcome sequences, client portals and retargeting ads.
The Delivery/ Operations Management System
This is your team and guides delivering the adventures or other booked services. Travellers are in destination requiring execution of logistics and using resources to deliver the experience. As the most customer-facing aspect of the business, this area needs to be dialled in. Operation management systems would require processes such as pre-trip preparation, risk management plans, incident/accident report templates, equipment logs, activity briefing scripts, evacuation procedures, cleaning policies etc.
The Training/ Human Resources System
This is the overlapping processes of hiring, training, paying, tracking performance, and off-boarding of your team as well as sub-contractors.
Financial Management System
This is the ongoing tracking of everything related to money management within the business.
Processes within this system include tracking customer and supplier payments, cash flow management, as well as all accounting and bookkeeping tasks and financial metrics reporting.
Product Development System
This is how adventures get created and maintained over time. How do you create a new adventure? Is this a repeatable process? A Product Development System requires processes around supplier qualifying, design element criteria, traveller interest data, program offering gaps, testing/scouting, supplier relationship management as well as product changes and discontinuation.
The Support System
This system acts as the glue between the other systems as well as supports each of them individually. Processes within the Support System are related to equipment maintenance, building maintenance, IT support, internal communications and customer service.
Now that we have reviewed the highest level of organization, the business systems, let’s discuss how you can use these systems to organize your business backend.
How do I use the business systems to get organized?
Looking back at our adventure business systems overview, we can begin to see all the tech tools that could be used across and within each system. Let’s now review the types of software platforms you would need within these systems;
All Systems
- File Storage & Sharing
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Project Management
- Internal Communications (chat)
- Meeting Scheduler
- Video Meeting/ Online Conferencing
Marketing & Sales System
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Scheduling
- Social Media Platforms
- Website
- External Communications (email)
- External Communications (live chat)
- Reservation Management
- Survey
- Graphic Design
- Photo/Video Editing Software
- Video Hosting
Delivery/Operations System
- File Signing
- Reservation Management
Training/ HR System
- Team Time Tracking
- File Signing
- Team Scheudling/Calendar
Product Development System
- Supplier Relationship Management
- File Signing
Financial System
- Bookkeeping & Accounting
Support System
- Web Hosting
- Website
- Payment processing
- SEO & Analytics
Here is a basic visual representation of some of the key software platforms used in business today and how they are connected;
When it comes to organizing your business backend, you want to keep the above list in mind. The way that works for me is inverting the platform-system relationship as I organize, I am using the system levels to create folders, name projects/channels etc.
To give you an example, we want to set up our file storage & sharing platform so we create the top-level folders using the names of each of the business systems.
Now within each folder/channel, we stick to the topics and tools that fall under that system. This helps us centralize the discussions, standard operating procedures, guidelines, templates, master files, and other materials and media so it’s easier for the team to find what they need when they need it.
Next Actions to Better use Your Adventure Business Systems
Now that you have reviewed the Adventure Business Systems and the software types that are needed for each, you are ready to start organizing!
- Review the full list of software types and check off the ones you already have.
- Update your main level folders, channels and workspaces with the name of the corresponding Adventure Business System.
- Review that all the content under each system belongs here. Re-organize as needed.
- Check to see if you can integrate any of your existing software with each other. You want to be able to attach a google file with an Asana task for example.
- What’s missing? If you identified a key piece of software that is missing and you can’t use one of your existing software to serve that purpose, start researching which software will meet the needs of your business. you can start your research via the form below.
Join the Conversation
We would love for you to join our Business of Adventure Facebook group. This is a collaborative space for business owners or freelancers in the adventure travel and tourism space. The focus here is to share best practices and tips about online presence and digital marketing (front end) and online systems (backend) so you can establish a rock-solid foundation for your adventure business. If this is something you could benefit from, please join!