Tuscany on a Budget is one of the finest tours operators in Florence! As a branch of Italy on a Budget Tours, Tuscany on a Budget provides independent travellers with an experience of a lifetime. With Tuscany on a Budget, explore cities throughout Italy such as Siena, Tuscany, Florence, Pisa, and Cinque Terre! Experience Florence and its classic grandeur with a fun, exhilarating twist. This tour operator attracts a wide age group from 18-35 in order to make your tour experience exciting and unforgettable. Tuscany on a Budget allows you to not only experience Italian culture, but to fully engage in all things Italian. Tuscany on a Budget offers unique tours including Wine Tasting in Florence, Food, Wine & History Tour, and more! Curious as to what nightlife is like in Florence? No worries, Tuscany on a Budget has got you covered. This tour operator offers Florence Pubcrawls for the young crowd to discover all that Florence has to offer. If you want to experience cuisine, culture, nightlife, and history like a native Italian would, Tuscany on a Budget is the best choice. Ready to book an experience to last a lifetime with Tuscany on a Budget? click here. Stay updated with new offers, tours and deals Tuscany on a Budget provides by following their Facebook here.

Rafting Pinta is the number one source to soak up some fun! This tour operator offers a  rafting experience that will have you wanting more. Rafting Pinta allows you to enjoy easy-medium rafting obstacles along a pool drop river. This natural river provides waterfalls and rapids filled with spontaneous twists and turns. To ensure safety,Rafting Pinta provides each customer with the basic skills needed to become a rafting expert. This makes rafting an adventure that the whole family can enjoy. Rafting Pinta allows you to not only embark on the adventure of a lifetime, but they allow you to enjoy the scenic beauty of Croatia. Discover the beautiful lakes, caves, waterfalls, and vegetation cliffs along the river Cetina. Rafting Pinta’s prime location allows you experience the beautiful city along the river, Omis. Here, you can engage in various activities including paragliding, diving, sailing and rafting! What are you waiting for? Book your rafting tour here to get your adrenaline going. Don’t miss out on any offers Rafting Pinta. Follow them on Facebook here to stay connected!

Tours of Atlanta allows you to explore all that Atlanta has to offer! Experience Atlanta and its breathtaking views, while learning about the unique history of Atlanta all at your own convenience. This bus tour of Atlanta allows you to decide when you want to ride. Tours of Atlanta’s City Tour offers hop on, hop off tours so you can decide where you want to go. Tours of Atlanta provides its customers with spacious bus accommodations, including air conditioning, and surround sound. This tour operator also offers tours of Atlanta’s hottest spots including the Georgia Aquarium, CNN Center and the World of Coca Cola. Tours of Atlanta also offers transportation services for you convenience. This tour operator will be happy to take you where ever you need go, whether it be your hotel or an airport! Experience the scenic city of Atlanta with Tours of Atlanta’s customized tours. Are you ready to experience Atlanta? Book here. Follow Tours of Atlanta Facebook here for more information about all they have to offer!

BigCruiseDeal.com offers reservations for affordable, high-quality cruises along Vietnam’s Halong Bay! BigCruiseDeal stands out from their competitors because their main focus is on quality service for their customers. This company is the perfect choice if you want to explore Vietnam and cruise along the breathtaking Halong Bay. Whether you are traveling with your family, friends, or loved ones, BigCruiseDeal provides quality and affordable accommodations for all! If you want to book an unforgettable cruise experience with BigCruiseDeal.com, click here!

Regal Tours and Safaris is the #1 source to explore all that Victoria Falls has to offer! Regal offers tours and adventures throughout Victoria Falls to make your trip to South Africa last a lifetime. With Regal, you can bungee jump, explore Africa’s wildlife on elephant, taste Africa’s cuisine with a traditional Boma Dinner, and more! Regal Tours and Safaris also offers luxury hotel accommodations throughout Victoria Falls. This company works toward providing their customers with a trip filled with relaxation, adventure, and fun! To learn more about what Regal has to offer, check out their website here!

Asian Destination Travel is the perfect source for discounted accommodations throughout Asia! This company offers luxurious and affordable hotel packages almost everywhere in Bali, Thailand, and Gili Islands. Asian Destination Travel provides a lavish, relaxed getaway for all customers; whether it be a holiday trip, a destination to escape your hectic schedule, or a “just because” getaway, Asian Destination Travel caters to all.  FInd a list of their tours here.

Having your very own mobile app will allow your customers to get direct access to your tours without having to type in the url or wait endlessly for the mobile website to load. Instead, customers can access your site within seconds directly from their home screen and have a more efficient booking process. Customers will be able to look through your tours quickly when they only have a couple moments to spare and perhaps decide to book a tour that they originally had not considered. This free, useful, and efficient application will soon be available to all TrekkSoft users.

The TrekkSoft IT team has worked to create an individual app that reflects your company and its tours. You will have an app of your own that you can encourage your customers to download! You will have your logo and company name in the apps menu of their phones, and thus become a much bigger part of their everyday life. This mobile app will allow for an alternate booking platform that will be able to attract more customers.

Upon access to your app, your customers will be able to browse your tours in a mobile optimized version of your TrekkSoft site. Here, your customers can easily book tours or view tickets they have already purchased! Individual tours are displayed in a neat layout, and customers can easily browse all of your tours with a couple of scrolls. By clicking on a specific tour, customers will also be able to read the itinerary, description, and highlights of the said tour. On top of all of that, customers now have access to your online shop via your mobile app. By tapping on the pull out menu on the top left corner of the phone, customers now have a navigation bar that can direct them to “tours,” “shop” or “contact us.” This will allow them to search words or word phrases throughout your TrekkSoft website. If your TrekkSoft website has multiple language options, customers can also change the language on the mobile app. The navigation bar also strives to make your life easier! With this, you can login to your company’s account and access the backend information, such as passenger bookings.

In addition to all of this, your mobile optimized interface is completely individualized and customized by you! The icon of your app is your company logo, set in your TrekkSoft CMS backend, and once opened, your company header is the first thing that customers see. The color schemes and fonts match the settings that you’ve selected for your original TrekkSoft website, and you can choose what order the tours will be shown in. After setting up a mobile app with us, go to your TrekkSoft account, scroll over to “Design and Content” and there will be an option called, “Mobile Website.” Use this section of your TrekkSoft account to customize your Welcome Text and which tours you would like to display on your mobile app. After you set up your app, customers will be able to find it in the iTunes store, available for iPhone and Android devices. You get your own customized app, available to your customers, absolutely free with your TrekkSoft account. Stay ahead of the mobile market with TrekkSoft now!

For any questions or concerns about the mobile app, email us at support@trekksoft.com.

1) Single Seat: Sells one seat on the trip. Best for only selling one ticket at a time.

2) Multiple Seats: Sells multiple seats for one fixed price. With  this option, you may also place restrictions under the “Description” category. For instance, you can create a Family Package where 4 seats are sold for one price. However, in order to use this discount, two of the four customers must be adults and the other two must be children. People who book a multi-seat ticket, but do not conform to the defined restrictions, may be denied entry to the tour or charged an extra fee.

3) Group Bookings: Sells a block of seats at a reduced price. To receive the group rate, a minimum of ‘X’ amount of seats must be purchased at any one time.

Select the price category you wish to use for your tour from the drop down menu. Any trip or trip series may have multiple price categories which customers can book, such as Adult, Child, Group Price, and Special Package.You have the ability to name the price and further define the price structure that suits your trip best. Additionally, all three of the price categories allow you to sell seats as vouchers, choose booking restrictions, create a brief description, and determine the price for each selection.

After you have created the price categories, make sure you activate them. Go to “Trips” under “Tours/Addons,” and you will see the trip that you have created. Click “Add Trip” or “Add Trip Series” and select the trip that you wish to activate. At the bottom of that page, under Price Categories, check the categories that you intend to include on the trip. At the time, you can also limit the amount of seats sold within the category.

Charge based on seating

TrekkSoft also allows you to sell specific seats for different prices. In order to do this, click on the “Edit Special Prices” button (the button on the left of the pencil) after you have created your price categories. By doing so, you will have the option to adjust prices specifically according to the position of the seats. For example, while seats 1-5 may cost $10, seats 6-10 may cost $20. Seats that are not mentioned are sold for the default price you selected during the original process.

Adding a Trip Series

With the Trip Series option, you have the option of creating a series of departures for one trip. This allows you to create a daily trip timetable or specific days/times when the trip is available for departure. On your left navigation bar, scroll over “Tours/Addons,” and select ‘Trips’. On this page, click on the “Add Trip Series” button at the top of the page, which will lead you to have the option of selecting which Trip you would like to adjust to a series.

Change the Structure of the Trip Altogether

In addition to making pricing easier, TrekkSoft allows you to use bulk change to edit the duration and maximum capacity of all the trips in a series at once.In order to edit any one trip individually, make sure to unlink the trip from the series. However, be sure that is what you want, because once a trip is unlinked from the series, it must be edited or deleted one by one, and it is not possible to re-link a trip once it has been unlinked. Lastly, if the trip series is over, you also have the option of deleting all of the trips at once. Again, proceed with caution because this action cannot be undone. Payment customization has never been simpler with TrekkSoft!

Free of charge

Why pay for third party web hosting sites, when you can join TrekkSoft for free? When signing up for Trekksoft you’ll not only receive access to our top notch booking software, but also a free content management system to set up your very own website. Here are just some of the free perks you’ll enjoy when using TrekkSoft as your main CMS.

• no signup fee

• no hosting fee

• no web designing fee

• free 24 hour support

And better yet, all this free comes with no compromise whatsoever to full features and usability. Our solution is often preferred by tour operators because of the convenience of booking management and website design all from one CMS. Start creating!

Start Creating! 

When you first create your account you’ll want to go directly to the CMS setting page under ‘Design and Content’. This is where you personalize elements for your website such as color scheme, fonts, and images, and ultimately create the website that you have always envisioned. Take your time and be creative because the settings you choose here will become the virtual reflection of your company.

Now that you know the basics of selecting a color scheme, fonts, and adding images to your site, it’s time to set up a practical navigation for your website. Within TrekkSoft, a home page, tours page, about page, and contact page are presets for navigation; however these can be changed based on the purpose and organization of your business.

To start creating your custom navigation, first click on the ‘Content’ link from the ‘Design and Content’ drop down. This tab will become familiar to you as you fine tune the inputs of your customization in the CMS. From the content link you’ll have the option to add, edit, and delete individual CMS pages. To add a page follow the green button near the top of the screen. When creating individual CMS pages you will enter a title, navigation name, page layout, and url, these can be changed at any time by clicking on the edit pencil tool for the content page.

Concerning the page template, you can choose from pre-designed template provided to you or customize your own page template.

Once you are happy with the pages that you have established, you can review the organization and order of your pages in the ‘Navigation’ link under ‘Design and Content’, here you can also drag and drop pages into the desired navigation order

​Now go take a look at the front end of your website! All of your categories should appear on the navigation bar near the top of the screen, and when scrolling over each category a drop down will appear with designated sub-categories for a simple and interactive browsing experience for your customers.

Dariush kickstarted the event with an overview of general statistics on Mobile. In the tours/activities segment, 10% of tours/activities are booked via smartphone whereas hotel bookings are in the lead with 11% of their bookings done via smartphone. Lisa, who specializes in the hotel industry, stressed that the activity segment is a fragmented industry. In other words, it’s a unique segment because it’s very personalized and “as it becomes more intrinsic in one’s digitally demanding lifestyle, it is only gonna go up” (predictably by 5-10%). Jon added that “when you’re on a train or traveling, the most convenient thing is your mobile device… you’re looking for that last minute booking.” However, the problem is the lack of live inventory in the industry with no direct access to it. Lisa added that it’s really about “mobilizing the customer journey” and being there for every step of the way – something that Trekksoft provides.

The panelists then dug deeper by discussing Mobile’s pros/cons, established the first steps a beginner should take, and answered questions from the viewing audience. Karthick advised that it is best to first establish a strong mobile website, then create a native app if one wishes to engage with the customer even more. The hangout ended with Jon’s final message that “if you don’t have a mobile solution, you’re invisible to a lot of people” which was reinforced by Matthew’s comment that “you can ride this [mobile] wave or fall behind it, so jump on the bandwagon before it’s flooded and you don’t have a differentiator.”

With that being said, if you missed our hangout live, you can still watch it in full length below! Find out how you can go mobile TODAY.

Meet the panel of experts

• Jon Fauver, CEO of TrekkSoft and international tour marketer for over 20 years
• Dariush Daftarian (moderator), Marketing Manager of TrekkSoft and formerly marketing consultant for over five years
• Matthew Gallizzi, CEO of Notix Tech, specializes in QR codes and mobile website design.
• Lisa Miniter has been in mobile business development and sales for numerous hospitality companies and knows how the market works.
• Karthick Prabu, general manager of Tnooz in Asia, is an expert on tourism technology and covers updates from the area.

Register and don’t miss out on a chance to learn about how your company could adopt a mobile presence. We hope you’ll join us!

How to set up shop

The shop is where all of your ‘for sale’ items will be posted. But in order to have an active shop you will first need to post some items to sell. Any item that you wish to sell on the store must first be added as an add-on. So the first step will be to access the “Tours/Addons” drop down and then select “create an add-on” from the “add-on” link. Depending on what you wish to sell, there are three kinds of add-ons that you can choose from. 

• Single item add-on: any item that can be bought in quantity that is not assigned to a specific passenger. These are your trinkets: t-shirts, mugs, water bottles, etc.
• Passenger add-ons: this add-on may only be bought once for any single passenger and is linked to that passenger. For example: Travel insurance or a photo package that is specific to that trip.
• Gift certificate: A gift certificate allows the buyer to purchase a “Voucher” that can be reused as cash at the time of payment.

Once you have selected the type of add-on be sure to check the active option so that it shows up on the shop page of your site. As custom features to each add-on you can also choose to allocate it to a tour, upload a teaser image, and customize a PDF receipt. By allocating an item to a tour, the add-on will display in the booking process of any tour that you check, and customers will be informed if they wish to purchase this add-on.

But, say you’re selling a t-shirt and don’t necessarily want to associate, or “allocate,” it  with a tour, and you just want  to sell it as a stand-alone item in your shop…no problem! Simply do not select any of the tours and your item will only be visible in the shop section of your website.

Once established, all active add-on items can be viewed in the “shop” link in the “Tours/Addons” dropdown. All add-ons that are displayed in the shop will also be able to be purchase as stand-alone items without having to first buy a trip. Within the “shop” link of your TrekkSoft admin desk you can create categories to organize how your items are ordered and displayed in the shop.

Gift Certificates and Vouchers

Allow customers to give the gift of your tours. Putting gift certificates up on your site allows customers to share their experience with friends, family, or maybe even themselves. Anytime that you create an add-on as a gift certificate, it is linked to a voucher and can be bought on your TrekkSoft shop. This certificate will act as cash at the time of payment and any remaining balance can be paid by credit card by the purchaser.

Vouchers are not only limited to being sold as gift certificates. Separate vouchers can be created from the “marketing” dropdown and clicking on “vouchers”. Here you can create a code and set a price for each voucher. Vouchers are not tour specific and have cash value.

A voucher can also be created when establishing a price category. Once you establish a tour, instead having to setting up and manage trips, you can simply sell the tour as a voucher. Just click the “sell as a voucher” box when filling out your tour information. Doing this wil automatically create a voucher for that tour, available for customers to book from the shop.

Vouchers, and all other add-ons, are a great addition to your online sales. Set up your virtual shop using TrekkSoft today!

 with tour operators with the best potential and compatibility for your company.

Setting up Partners

All partner inquisitions must be made by emailing support@trekksoft.com. Once we have a confirmation from both parties and an agreement on commission, we’ll activate the partnership within your TrekkSoft account. Now you can take the next step of setting up partner tours.

1. Once we have added the parnter to your network, you can share them within your admin desk under “Tours/Addons” in “Partner tours”. Each tour can be individually shared with a specific partner for reselling.

2. As soon as your partner has shared his tours you can let them display with just clicking the corresponding checkmark. You also can make certain adjustments for the tour so that it fits your customers taste by clicking on the yellow edits pencil on the partners tours page.

3. Now you can also generate iFrames or Book Now buttons for your partners tours or generate specific navigations if you are using TrekkSoft as your website. Start pushing your partners tours also as add-ons for your tours or make a special offer for your customers by an e-mail newsletter.

​The larger your network the more expansive your customer base will be. When TrekkSoft customers come together to resell tours, the booking potentials for your company are endless.

Partner accounting

In the agent desk under the accounting tab you will find a separate section for partner accounting. This link shows you an overview of partner commissions and gives you access to individual partner details such as passenger names, price, discount, partner commissions and more by clicking on the magnifying glass to the right.

From this page, click the magnifying glass again to view basket details of the booking page, which shows how much money you owe your partners or how much they owe you. Plus, you can see all the details which are shown above in total numbers here.

Note that sales made by a partner are paid out by TrekkSoft directly to the partner who made the sale. So whoever makes the sale is responsible for paying any promoter or agent commission and TrekkSoft commission. All of these responsibilities can be managed from the accounting tab in the agent desk.

No, not the same agents from The Matrix, James Bond, or Men in Black–we’re talking about TrekkSoft agents! Agents, in TrekkSoft lingo, are typically partnering companies, be they in the form of DMO’s, fellow tour operators, or hostels, who, for commission, agree to feature your tours through their company. Depending on the agent, they will choose to either promote you through marketing or integrate in a way that generates livebookings. Both are beneficial ways of growing your company and filling passenger seats.

Agents take the form of different industries and personality types, and as with all business arrangements each carries their own approach and requests.  For advice on how to enlist agents, read our previous blog entry here.

Add and define agents:

Now we’ll fast forward to the moment after you have landed an agent. The next step is adding this agent/s to your TrekkSoft account so that you can further get into the logistics. We’ll start at the marketing tab in the admin desk. From the marketing drop down you have access to the Agents, Gift Codes, and Vouchers links (we’ll get to the latter two in a bit). To add an agent, simply select Agents and click on the green “add agent” button at the top of the page. This action will direct you to a page where you’ll be required to fill out agent information. Another way to add an agent or list of agents is to upload a .CSV file that contains all of the same agent information that would be manually input when creating individual agents within TrekkSoft.

Whichever way you choose to add an agent you’ll want to be sure to to input three important components: an agent code, commission, and permission rights.

1. An agent code is a unique code to identify agents within TrekkSoft.  This code can also be used as a gift code. In this case when “Gift Code” = “Agent Code”, the agent will receive credit for the booking each time a customer inputs the specific agent code into the gift code field.

2. Agents will promote or sell you tours on a commission based payment. The agent code will compensate an agent accordingly, but you’ll need to set the agreed upon commission rate for each agent individually when creating their profile.

3. When creating an agent, you are able to select from one of four options concerning agent rights: promoter, online agent, offline agent and super agent. The rights of each are defined accordingly:

• promoter: has the ability to make commission from bookings but only has viewing access of the agent desk.
• online agent: may sell trips through an agent log-in but is only allowed to make payments online.
• offline agent: is allowed sell trips through an agent log-in and take money directly.
• super agent: this agent has the same rights as the mandator.

If none of the options from the dropdown menu fit your desired permissions, there are more options below the drop down that you can check or uncheck accordingly.

Once you have entered and saved these three fields, you have successfully created a TrekkSoft agent. You can view a list of all of your agents at any time on the default view of the agent page. On this default page you can also assign users to an agent by clicking on the corresponding pencil or you can delete an agent by clicking on the trash bin (careful this action cannot be undone! ).  Remember, there is no limit to the amount of agents that  you can have, so add away!

Next step: agent accounting

As mentioned previously, agents operate on commission. The agents accounting tab in your agent desk is the hub for you to stay on top of agent payments and commissions. This page makes management easy with a detailed overview of each agent that has an existing basket for your company.

You can access an individual agent’s payment details page by clicking on the first icon in the agent accountings list. A popup will appear displaying all of the agent’s payment details including agent-held money, agent commission, balance and payments. The balance shown at the bottom should always be the difference between the agent commission and the mandator to agent payments. The balance is even when the commissions to the agent has been paid or the agent got invoiced for the money he owes the mandator and will read accordingly under the payments section.

After reviewing the payment details and, if the balance is not even, you can choose to add a payment at the bottom of the page to settle a pending commission with an agent. If you are deducting commission from the agent to yourself, be sure to add a minus sign before the typed amount. If it is a direct commission from you to your agent, just type in the desired payment amount.

The relationship between agent and tour operator has the potential to be highly profitable when executed properly. Be sure to take care of your agents so they will in turn take care of you!