Trip Protection: The win-win solution for your business
Protects your business from revenue loss while also giving your customers peace of mind.
In the dynamic world of tours and activities, plans can change at a moment’s notice. With that in mind, we wanted to provide a new way for tour operators to offer flexibility for both their business as well as their customers.
Enter trip protection – a game-changing solution that provides peace of mind for travelers while simultaneously mitigating revenue loss and operational headaches for your business.
What is trip protection?
Trip protection, also known as “tour protection” or “activity protection,” gives customers the option to pay a fee at the time of booking, granting them the ability to cancel or rebook their reservations as necessary. Operators have the discretion to define their policy in any way that makes the most sense for their business.
We had the chance to pick the brain of a FareHarbor client that has found immense success implementing trip protection. This New England-based operator saw that 34% of customers select trip protection at checkout and has therefore boosted their bottom line by 5% when utilizing our recommendation of 15% for the add-on.
Aside from revenue growth, this company also improved operations with trip protection:
“We found [that by] adding trip protection, [which is autoselected], it made our customer service team’s job easier. They now had a policy they could directly reference when a customer was asking for a refund, rather than leaving your frontline staff to have to make the tough call on whether or not to refund a guest.”
A Win-Win Approach
One key advantage of trip protection is being able to craft the cancellation policy they really want. In an effort to be ethical and generous business owners, we see operators stress about finding a cancellation policy that helps guarantee customer satisfaction, but doesn’t result in much loss of revenue. By adding trip protection to their checkout, you can have a cancellation policy that safeguards them more effectively, while giving customers the option to award themselves a less-strict version.
From the customer’s perspective, trip protection provides invaluable flexibility and peace of mind. When unforeseen circumstances arise, knowing that they have the option to modify or cancel their reservation without facing steep penalties instills confidence and enhances the overall booking experience.
This addition can ultimately lead to higher customer satisfaction and increased loyalty towards the operator.
It is important to highlight that trip protection is NOT trip insurance, and it is essential to name this field properly. To see examples of your peers’ policies, our fee recommendation, and learn more about adding trip protection — check out our Compass guide and sign up for next week’s webinar, both of which are exclusive to FareHarbor clients. PLUS: Find out what other operators think about trip protection in our private Community and join the conversation.
