How to Start a Tour/Travel Website

February 26, 2021

So you want to start a travel/tour website? You’re a local tour guide (or thinking about becoming one) or maybe you want to start a new travel company from the ground up with your friends. Now all you need is a website to house your brand and sell your tours.

You have a few options, each with their own sets of pros and cons:

  1. Build it on your own
  2. Hire a developer or agency
  3. Use Tour Boogie

Build it on your own

This could be a good option for some folks, but the learning curve can be steep. Generally speaking, this is a “website first” option, meaning that you build a website first and then add your plugins and whatever else you need to handle bookings and payments. Then you need to find a theme you like and make everything fit together. Another approach here is going “booking first,” which means you find a booking system you like first and then try to make or find a website where you can put the booking system.

Either way, the process can be overwhelming for a lot of people so be prepared to learn a lot along the way.

Steps:

  1. Research different website building platforms
  2. Search for themes, templates, and plugins to help you make it into a travel website
  3. Spend a few weekends trying to get your website to look like the theme advertisement
  4. Deal with plugins that don’t work together
  5. Connect all of the pieces together to make a cohesive website

Cost: $
Timeline: weeks to months, depending on experience level

Pros: Can be cheap if you use free themes and plugins.
Cons: Can be expensive if you want to use premium plugins. It also takes a lot of time investment. If you’re a founder or a one or two-person business, you probably don’t want to be spending so much time on just the tech part of a very non-tech business.

If you like to tinker and spend time at the computer, and you actually enjoy making websites, this can be a good choice.

Hire a developer or agency

This is by far the most expensive and time consuming option, but gives you a lot of flexibility because you can create a custom website that does exactly what you need it to do. But be prepared to spend a lot and wait several months to see your finished product.

Steps:

  1. Look for a developer or agency. Read customer reviews to try to select the best one.
  2. Have an initial intake meeting to describe your vision to the developer
  3. Review wireframes, negotiate on price and timeline
  4. Finally, several months later, launch

Cost: $$$
Timeline: months

Pros: You get exactly what you want.
Cons: It’s very expensive and your competitors may beat you to market.

Tour Boogie

Tour Boogie is a hybrid approach - it’s not quite “website first” and it’s not quite “booking first.” It’s also not quite going with a custom developer, but it contains elements of all three.

Tour Boogie has everything already put together in one place to make the process super affordable, quick, and easy.

So that means you don’t have to select any themes, but you do get to choose how your theme looks in a more intuitive way. You don’t have to select any plugins because booking and checkout (and several others) are already included. And lastly, you don’t have to design a website from scratch like with a developer, but you do get access to Tour Boogie’s design and development team in case you want something special for your website.

Steps:

  1. Sign up
  2. Add your branding
  3. Add your tours
  4. Connect your bank account
  5. Launch!

Cost: $
Timeline: minutes to days

Pros: Quick setup, easy to manage on your own, excellent customer support
Cons: Not quite as customizable as the other options

Tour Boogie is a great option for people who don’t have the time or desire to learn how to make a website or fit all of those pieces together. It’s best for people who just want a website that looks good, works, and doesn’t require a PhD to operate.

Think Tour Boogie sounds like a good fit for you? Check out our pricing and sign up!