Plan a tour company website travellers can compare and book from
Travellers shortlist tours by comparing them line by line: where you go each day, how many people, what's included, which dates, and the price. A tour company website wins when that comparison is easy on your pages. Anticode presents tours clearly and takes private enquiries, while group departures with many seats usually link out to a tour booking system.
How travellers shortlist tours
Someone planning a walking week, a food tour or a multi-day trip usually has three or four operators open in tabs. They flick between them looking for the same facts, and they drop any tab that makes them hunt. Make these visible on every tour page, near the top:
| Fact | Write it like this |
|---|---|
| Length and pace | "6 days, 5 nights. Moderate: 12 to 18 km a day on paths with some climbs." |
| Group size | "Maximum 12 guests, usually 8 to 10." |
| Start and finish | The meeting point, the time, and the nearest station or airport. |
| Price and what it covers | Per person, sharing; the single supplement; what deposit is taken. |
| Dates | Each departure listed, with a plain note when one is full. |
| Who it suits | Fitness, minimum age, and whether solo travellers are common. |
Itineraries that read like a real day
A day-by-day itinerary is the heart of a tour page, and the most common mistake is writing it as a brochure. "Discover hidden gems" tells the reader nothing. Say where you start, what you do in the morning, where lunch is, how long the afternoon walk or drive takes, and where you sleep. Mark which meals are included each day. If the route changes with weather or tides, say so.
Below the itinerary, two short lists do a lot of work: What's included (accommodation type, meals, guide, transfers, entry fees, luggage transfer) and Not included (flights, travel insurance, some meals, tips). Travellers trust operators who are specific about the second list.
Guides, safety and the questions people email about
A guide profile page puts a face on the trip: each guide's background, the regions they lead in, languages spoken and relevant qualifications such as first-aid or mountain leader awards. Then answer the practical questions before they reach your inbox: what to pack, how luggage moves, dietary needs, what happens if a departure doesn't reach its minimum numbers, and your cancellation terms. Travel is regulated differently by country, especially for packages that combine transport and accommodation; your business is responsible for its own terms and any protection wording.
Bookings: seats, deposits and enquiries
This is where a tour company website needs care, because tours have many seats per departure. Anticode's booking calendar takes one booking per slot, which fits a private guided half-day or a one-family tour, not a twelve-seat departure. That leaves three practical routes:
- Your payment link. For a small operator with a handful of fixed-price tours, put a "Book this departure" button on each date. An account has one payment link, so every button opens the same checkout; point it at a page at your provider that lists the departures. You track how many have paid and mark the date full yourself.
- A tour booking system for scheduled departures. If you run frequent departures, live seat counts and automated reminders matter. Link each date's button to that system's booking page and let Anticode do the presentation.
- An enquiry form for private and tailor-made trips. Travellers should tell you preferred dates, group size, ages, interests and a budget range. Anticode's standard contact form has fixed fields (name, email and a message), so prompt for those details above it, or use a custom form tied to a site function (up to 30 plain-text fields) or a structured enquiry form built as an app. Anticode saves each one sealed at rest, emails it to you, and connectors can push it into HubSpot or Airtable.
For a single-guide experience with one party per time slot, such as a private city walk, the booking calendar works as it is. See payment links and the booking calendar for how each behaves.
Building tour pages with Anticode
Tours are a natural CMS collection. Create a tours collection with fields for name, region, days, pace, group size, price guidance, meeting point, included, not included and the itinerary text; each tour is served at its own address, and adding next season's tour is an entry, not a rebuild. A guides collection works the same way.
For design, the Editorial (Geist) system suits long itineraries with strong photography, and Swiss (Inter Tight) keeps dense tour facts tidy. Use your own photos from real departures rather than generic landscapes; travellers can tell. The event website page has more on presenting dated departures.
What Anticode doesn't cover for tour operators
- No seat inventory, waiting lists or automatic "sold out" when a departure fills.
- No deposits and balances on a schedule; your payment provider or booking system handles that.
- No calendar sync with booking platforms or resellers.
- No translated versions of pages: sites are English only.
Questions people ask
Can travellers book a place on a group tour directly?
Not as a seat booking on Anticode's calendar, which allows one booking per slot. For a small programme, use your payment link pointed at a list of departures at your provider, or link to a tour booking system.
Should tour pages show prices?
Yes. A per-person price, the single supplement and what it includes stop people leaving to find it elsewhere. Keep prices in the CMS so each season is a quick edit.
Where do private tour enquiries go?
To your email, sealed at rest in your dashboard, and optionally to Slack, a spreadsheet or your CRM through connectors.