Tourpreneur Tour Business Podcast

Mitch Bach shares with us why he set up the immersive training company Tripschool and how he uses his 17 year experience to help you become a better tour guide and/or director and tour guide.TripSchool offers immersive tour director & guide training experiences online and around the world! In this episode, we cover many topics, but this is not a sales pitch. Mitch shares with us how to build an engaging tour experience which will help to grow your tour business. I quizzed Mitch about the Tour Director Certification Course and if it would help me with my plans to set up my own brewery tour company. ( An idea that has been derailed since COVID-19 but I am still thinking about it but probably in 2021.) Mitch is not just a tour guide trainer, he also works as a tour guide and towards the end of the chat, Mitch shares with us one of his tour guide secrets that always blows the minds of his tour guests, it blew my mind as well.

In this in-depth interview with GetYourGuide co-founder Tao Tao, discusses GetYourGuide's response to the coronavirus and the steps they are taking to support operators. Tao also goes deep on GetYourGuide's vision for its branded tour initiative GertYourGuide Originals, what does the online distribution look like in a post-coronavirus world, and what all of this means for operators of tours, activities, and attractions. With thank to Arival Online and host Douglas Quinby.

This week, digital marketing expert Jennifer Burke and Tourpreneur host Shane Whaley put two tour operator websites through the Tourpreneur Tune-Up. We review TheTourGuy.com and TypicallySwissTours.com Listen in and hear our suggestions on what we like, dislike and how these tour operators could supercharge their websites.

How do you price, market and push your products amid a global downturn in travel demand? When should you discount? What messaging and promotions should you use? This workshop walks through best practices and key tips to keep your marketing and pricing on track.

In this candid and in-depth episode of Tourpreneur, we are joined by Gordon Firemark of Firemark Entertainment Law Offices, who specializes in the podcast and other entertainment copyright. I chat with him today about the ins and outs of trademark law for your tour company, when you should hire a lawyer and why you should trademark your tour company name. Registered trademarks are a concern for many Tourpreneurs, and I'm not a legal expert, so I've asked Gordon Firemark, who specializes in entertainment law and expert about trademarks in the United States. About the question of trademarking your name, Gordon says, "The short answer, I think is yes." Your brand name is what allows you to grow your business. Another person can start a company using a name that is confusingly similar to your own name, and that could really undermine your marketing and promotional efforts and slow down growth. Trademark registration is an essential way of protecting against this happening. "I would say this is near the top of the list of things to do from a legal standpoint and as you're getting a business off the ground." Trademarks are designed to protect distinctive names. Descriptive terms don't pass muster with the trademark registration folks until they've been used long enough to have acquired a secondary meaning in the mind of the consuming public. Make sure to choose your name wisely and choose a name that's distinctive so that you don't have the pushback in those early days. You really have to evaluate what your time is worth. You may spend two or three hours that the lawyer would complete under an hour and know your application is made right. What's your time worth for that when you could be either out running a tour and getting things taken care of so you have the bandwidth to do activities that are important for your business.

Arival has been conducting a survey of the impact of coronavirus since March 8. In this Arival Online event, Arival CEO Douglas Quinby walks through key findings and discusses them with leading tour and activity operators.

Our industry is hurting badly right now, there is no sugar-coating this. Shane wants to know what you wantto hear on the Tourpreneur Podcast as we battle through the coronavirus crisis together. My name may be on the intro but this is your show. Tell us what you need to learn or hear going forward.

Three Food Tour Operators or as we call them food tourpreneurs, discuss all things food tours. Including what is Food Tour Week, what booking platform they use for their food tour business and much more! We are joined by Lauren McCabe Herpich (Local Food Adventures), Midgi Moore (Juneau Food Tours) and Kevin Durkee (Culinary Adventure Company.)

Coronavirus is hitting the travel industry hard. On this episode we talk to tour industry veteran Peter Syme who shares actionable tips on what tour operators need to be doing in order to protect our tour businesses.

Sean Finelli walked away from a lucrative analyst job on Wall Street to move to Rome. He worked numerous bar and restaurant jobs to pay his way and then found himself selling tours on the streets of Rome. This is when his life changed. Sean worked his way up from selling tours for others outside the Colosseum to building his own successful tour business. Sean reveals he suffers from dyslexia but also shares how he has turned it into an advantage.