How to Test Tour Prices: Data-Driven Tour Pricing

This week, we're breaking down the essential metrics every tour operator should be tracking and showing you exactly how to run simple pricing experiments that can significantly impact your revenue.
How to Test Tour Prices: Data-Driven Tour Pricing

How to Test Tour Prices: Data-Driven Tour Pricing

This is part 8 of our Pricing Series. You can watch the whole series here, or start with part 1 here.

Uber’s data scientists were consistently shocked by how much they had to increase prices before people actually changed their behavior. When they implemented surge pricing after sporting events, small price bumps of a few dollars barely moved the needle. People kept booking rides, and drivers didn’t rush to those high-demand areas. That’s why surge pricing often feels so jarring – sometimes you’re paying double for the same ride. This finding reveals something crucial about human psychology and pricing that most tour operators completely miss. We’re often so worried about testing “big” price increases that we make tiny adjustments that don’t actually tell us anything meaningful about our pricing power.

If you’re consistently selling out your weekend tours weeks in advance, you’re probably leaving serious money on the table. And if you’re running below 50% occupancy, you might need strategic adjustments to fill those seats.

Let’s keep this simple and focus on leveraging data you probably already have to make better pricing decisions.

Essential Metrics You Should Be Tracking

Your booking software is one of the most compelling reasons to use technology in your tour business. It’s going to help you analyze data and run pricing tests effectively. Here are the key metrics we want to monitor:

Revenue per tour is usually shown automatically in your booking software’s revenue reports. Track this monthly and compare year over year, especially if you’re running a seasonal business.

Occupancy rate or capacity utilization shows what percentage of your available seats are filled. This is the key insight that most operators miss – if you’re selling out weeks in advance, you’re actually losing money. Ideally, you’d sell your last ticket just as the booking window closes. Selling out early means you might be priced too low, and customers seeing “sold out” or “unavailable” indicates you’re likely losing revenue.

How can you leverage this information? If you’re consistently selling out two or three weeks early on weekends, consider increasing prices by 15 to 20%. If you’re seeing above 80% occupancy, play around with some test price increases. If numbers are going the other direction with below 50% occupancy, consider some conditional discounting or promotions.

Booking conversion rate can be tracked through your booking software or Google Analytics goals to monitor website visitors and see what percentage ultimately complete bookings. This conversion rate information becomes important as you test prices. If you see a stable conversion rate as you lift prices, you probably have pricing power. Conversely, if you see a declining conversion rate after a significant price increase but still have steady traffic, you might be seeing price resistance.

Average order value matters if you’re adding upsells or bundling tours with discounts – this is part of your pricing strategy. When your average order value ticks upward, it’s a great sign that those upsells, bundles, and packages are converting.

Channel performance is especially important for tour operators leveraging online travel agents like Viator, GetYourGuide, and others. You want to tease out this information to better understand your true customer acquisition costs.

Simple Pricing Experiments You Can Run

There are two core ways to think about pricing tests.

The first is a time period comparison where you might have pricing A in one month and compare it to pricing B in another month. You’re comparing metrics like average order value, revenue generated within that period, and conversion rates. For seasonal businesses, it might be more useful to do year-over-year comparisons rather than month-to-month, since you know there will be seasonal demand changes.

The second approach is an A/B test. Instead of comparing time periods, 50% of traffic coming to a particular tour page sees pricing A, and the other 50% sees pricing B. This is usually done inside your booking software when people click “Check Availability” – half see one price, half see another. Then you analyze the same key metrics: conversion rate, average order value, and so on.

Simple Testing Best Practices

Test only one price change on one product at a time. If you’re making too many changes at once, it’s hard to interpret the data.

Track only a handful of things that matter most – total bookings, total revenue, or conversion rates before, during, and after the test.

Run tests long enough – think minimum 20 or 30 completed bookings or sufficient conversions to draw meaningful conclusions. You can quickly Google “statistical significance” if you want to explore this topic further.

Know when to stop. If you see bookings drop significantly, like 25 or 30%, it’s okay to end tests early. You may want to avoid testing during peak revenue periods that are really important for your business, where you don’t want to lose potential income during your busiest times.

Focus on high-impact changes. Test pricing adjustments that could meaningfully affect your annual revenue.

The Power of Guest Feedback

The quantitative data from Google Analytics and booking software tells only part of the story. Guest input can give you qualitative information about how changes impact their experience and likelihood to recommend your tour to others.

During testing, ask post-tour questions. Have your guides ask guests what they thought about the value of the tour or whether they’d recommend it to friends.

Consider email follow-ups with internal surveys during testing periods. Ask guests to rate the value for money of the tour between one and 10, or how likely they are to recommend the experience to a friend. Essentially, collect net promoter score data over different control groups or time periods.

Keep an eye on online reviews, looking for pricing-related comments. “Great value” means your pricing is probably on point. “Expensive, but worth it” means you might have room to increase. “Overpriced” or negative pricing comments require investigation – is it positioning or actual price resistance?

Look for patterns, not just individual comments. Sometimes you might find that few people mention price after a test increase, which could be a positive sign. Monitor your overall review scores on TripAdvisor or Google My Business to see if pricing changes impact your average rating.

When to Adjust Your Pricing

Consider testing price increases when you’re selling out or have occupancy consistently above 80%, when your booking conversion rate is stable or improving, when customer feedback is extremely positive and often mentions great value (indicating pricing power), or when competitors are raising their prices.

Consider promotions or strategic discounting when you have occupancy below 50%, when booking conversion is declining, when the competitive landscape has changed and competitors are significantly undercutting you, or when you’re seeing consistent negative feedback about value in online reviews.

How Much Should You Test?

People often ask for guidelines – should it be a 5% price increase, 25%, or 50%? What’s too much or too little? It’s hard to give general recommendations, but in most cases, tour business owners aren’t testing big enough price increases.

Remember that Uber story? The data scientists were consistently surprised at how much they had to increase prices to drive human behavior. If it was only a couple dollars more, they didn’t see drivers rushing over and didn’t see people canceling. That’s why surge pricing is often so shocking – sometimes you pay double.

Keep this in mind when testing weekend pricing. If you know you’re consistently selling out early, you probably have more pricing power than you think. You might need a price lift closer to 15% or 20% versus smaller 2.5% or 5% increases if you want to actually encourage people to shift to weekday bookings while still capturing those weekend customers who don’t have flexibility and still see the value.

Special Considerations for Multi-Day Tour Operators

Multi-day tours face unique challenges with pricing tests. You typically have lower booking volumes, so it’s harder to get statistically significant data. You also see longer booking windows, which means tests take longer because people need more time to make decisions.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test pricing – it just means it’s more challenging.

Key metrics to monitor as a multi-day operator include revenue per departure (not just per guest), booking lead time patterns to understand when people book and how pricing might increase earlier bookings, upsells and add-ons performance, and customer lifetime value since there’s often increased likelihood of repeat bookings.

Smart pricing moves for multi-day operators include increasing prices for future similar departures if trips sell out early and often, strategic discounting like early bird incentives to get people to make deposits or pay balances earlier (so you can leverage that capital for more demand generation), and using wait lists aggressively as they’re valuable for pricing intelligence and measuring potential interest.

Creating a Testing Rhythm

Many small business owners aren’t doing enough pricing testing, consistently leaving money on the table. Consider creating a rhythm that happens monthly or quarterly. If monthly feels overwhelming, start quarterly.

Create a dashboard with key metrics from your booking software or Google Analytics. Look at test results and review customer feedback for patterns in qualitative or quantitative data related to particular pricing tests. Then plan for your next quarter – are there tours selling out too early? Seasonal pricing changes to experiment with? New variable pricing or special promotions to test?

Keep in mind that year-over-year comparisons often provide the best data.

Take Action on Your First Pricing Test

Look for areas where you see demand spikes – are you selling out early or often? Have you tested variable pricing?

Identify the key metrics that will help you decide if a pricing change was successful. Some might exist in your booking software; you might need to learn how to run reports for particular time periods. Decide what’s most important: total bookings, average order value, how early people book, or conversion rate.

Then execute your pricing test. It’s that simple.

Remember, it’s easy to change pricing. Sometimes we get hung up thinking it’s the end of the world, that this is our new pricing forever. If you test a 25% markup and it doesn’t work, bring those prices back down. Embrace that testing mindset and remember the stakes don’t have to be that high.

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Avital Ungar is the founder and owner of Avital Food & Drink Experiences, a culinary company that hosts in-person and virtual events for corporate team building, client entertainment, and conferences. Her mission centers on deepening human connection through storytelling, food, and drink.
Ungar’s passion for the finer points of life began while living in Paris and the quaint town of Aix-en-Provence in Southern France, where she embraced the cultural norm of afternoon wine and explored the countryside’s culinary offerings. Upon returning to the United States, she pursued formal wine education and is now a certified sommelier.
A Phi Beta Kappa UCLA graduate, Ungar studied Art History, French, and Mandarin Chinese, though she jokes she wishes she could have majored in Chocolate. After living in Shanghai and working in the Chinese Contemporary art market, she returned to her hometown of San Francisco to pursue her professional interests in art and food.
Since April 2011, Ungar has operated Avital Food & Drink Experiences, offering progressive dining food tours in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City, where each course is served at a different restaurant. The company also provides dining experiences, conference activations, and interactive meals in 12 cities nationwide. Her virtual offerings include culinary experiences with ingredient delivery featuring award-winning chefs, bartenders, and sommeliers, along with virtual mixology classes, cooking classes, water tastings, and aperitif hours.
In September 2022, Ungar launched Edible Architecture, which creates innovative holiday products including Charcuterie Chalet Kits – savory gingerbread houses made from charcuterie and cheese board items, complete with “Salami Shingles” and “Parmesan Snow.”
Ungar has been featured in The New York Times, served as a judge at the Good Food Awards, International Chocolate Salon, and Best of The West Rib Competition, and has appeared on the Travel Channel, CNN, and in USA Today.
Midgi is the owner and Chief Eating Officer for Juneau Food Tours and Taste Alaska! She has lived in Alaska for more than a dozen years and got her start in the culinary industry as a food writer and blogger. Her tour company opened in 2014 and has hosted thousands of hungry visitors in Alaska’s capital city. In spring 2020, Midgi launched Taste Alaska!, a subscription box service to ship shelf-stable Alaskan food gift boxes.
The pandemic also presented the opportunity to create www.globaltoursconnect.com, an online boutique marketplace for food, history, and cultural tours.
Her passion for food and telling the story of Alaska have been noted in the New York Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Vogue.com, Forbes.com, AARP, as well as countless blogs and international and national television shows, including All the Best with Zita and Gordon Ramsey: Uncharted.
Gez Hamer is an entrepreneurial leader with extensive experience building and scaling businesses from startup to growth phases. He possesses strong strategic decision-making abilities and hands-on leadership skills, with experience across startups securing Series A investment, scale-ups obtaining continued funding, and post-acquisition companies ranging from SMEs to publicly listed global players.
Since June 2025, Hamer has owned Nautica Collective, a company reshaping luxury yacht travel for the new generation of travelers. Nautica Collective offers curated, boutique yacht experiences designed for over-30s millennials seeking connection, culture, and comfort through small groups, hidden anchorages, and chef-hosted dinners under the stars. The company operates routes in Mallorca, Greece, the Caribbean, and beyond, positioning itself as “aspiring luxury meets authentic adventure.”
In January 2025, Hamer co-founded Transcend Consultancy, which helps businesses navigate growth challenges with cost-effective solutions. The consultancy works with founders to streamline operations and expand into new markets, specializing in the transition from startup to scale-up with strategies built for today’s fast-changing business landscape.
Previously, Hamer served as Chief Operating Officer at ExperienceFirst from November 2022 to December 2024, Interim Chief Commercial Officer at Bundl from July to November 2022, and CEO/Management Consultant at GJH Consulting from October 2016 to November 2022. His diverse background spans consulting, operations, and commercial leadership across multiple industries and business stages.
Akila McConnell is a dynamic entrepreneur and cultural historian who owns Unexpected Virtual Tours and Training, and Unexpected Atlanta Tours & Gifts. She creates radically creative cultural training sessions for remote teams and immersive tours for visitors to Atlanta.
Since 2020, her virtual tours company has been featured in The New York Times and Forbes, specializing in cultural awareness events around Juneteenth, Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, and Pride. Her Atlanta tours business, operating since 2015, has been named one of Conde Nast’s 16 best things to do in Atlanta and National Geographic’s top tour in the city.
As a freelance culinary historian and writer since 2009, McConnell contributes to major publications including Conde Nast Traveler, USA Today, and National Geographic Traveller. Her book “A Culinary History of Atlanta” was a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year in History in 2020. She also hosts “Savory Stories,” a food-focused podcast on WABE, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate.
McConnell specializes in sharing stories of disenfranchised and minority populations through food, history, and immersive experiences that challenge the perception that cultural education has to be boring.
A Colorado native, Staci left a job she loved designing dental offices and funeral homes, to accompany her husband on a job transfer to the Central Coast of California in 2009. At the height of the Great Recession, jobs in an area known for its high density of retirees – let alone jobs in her industry – were scarce to non-existent.
After a couple unsuccessful years trying to resurrect her thriving career, someone mentioned a Food Tour. In a few short months she researched, built, and launched Carmel Food Tours (CFT). Now in its 12th season, CFT is expanding and rebranding to Enjoy Carmel, offering more than just food tours. CFT employs 6 guides, and plans to grow the staff by 50% in 2023.
In her free time she enjoys traveling, pickleball, and Pilates with her husband, and tossing a tiny ball at the beach for her fluffball Chuck.
Simon began his career in tourism as a tour guide with Fat Tire Tours – Paris. As a trained social studies teacher and a dual FR/US citizen, this job fits like a glove! After three years as a tour guide with Fat Tire and side-hustling as an independent motorcycle guide, Simon returned to FTT – Paris to create its human resources department.
Specializing in local compliance and talent acquisition, Simon took over the hiring strategy for FTT’s European operations in autumn of 2019. With a new group of trainees set to begin work in several cities, COVID required an immediate 180 degree turn for everyone. After a decade of building tour leader teams, Simon combined his two passions and started a motorcycle sidecar tour business, and welcomed his first guests in Paris in spring of 2022.
Born and raised in Charleston, SC, Catherine began her 18-year career in tourism waiting tables while in college at one of Charleston’s busiest restaurants. What started as just a fun job that paid the bills and allowed for many social outings with friends, had turned into something that made her realize that working in hospitality was the only industry she ever wanted to be in.
After graduating from the College of Charleston, she came to work at Bulldog Tours in 2007. Serving as Operations Manager, Catherine oversees a staff of 50+ tour guides and customer service members. The best part of the job for her is seeing guests experience and love Charleston in the same way the staff does. When she’s not working, she enjoys playing volleyball, going to the beach and spending time with her husband and two super adorable daughters.
Chad is an experienced tour leader, trainer and tour business consultant. He’s been the go-to-guy for developing world-class training programs and leading global teams for tour operators such as G Adventures and many small to medium tour and activity businesses. Chad also comes from a background of startups in the tech industry, having worked for Adventure.com, Airbnb Experiences and other great companies.
Live the life you dream of living… That’s Chad’s mantra and he does his best to bring it to life every single day. Chad’s a big fan of micro adventures and spending quality time in the wilderness, sailing, hiking and camping with his wife Julia, daughter Cali and friends.
John founded Bulldog Tours in 2001 as a hobby with a goal of helping preserve his hometown. This sustainable tourism model has raised over $4M to help preserve many of Charleston’s most historical landmarks. Bulldog Tours offers a variety of history, food, pub and ghost walking tours with over 50 tour guides.
John is the Chairman of the Charleston Area CVB’s Travel Council and on the Advisory Board for the College of Charleston’s Hospitality Tourism Management Department.
Ralph Velasco is the founder of Continental DRIFTER® Experiences, where he has developed more than 200 once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences since 2008. He specializes in travel product development, researching and vetting local partners in destinations worldwide, conducting scouting trips with local operators, and creating unique itineraries that guests remember for a lifetime.
Velasco has personally led small group tours (4-10 participants) to more than 30 destinations including Antarctica, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Cambodia, Lapland, Vietnam, India, Bhutan, Romania, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, Iceland, the Baltics, and the Adriatic. As founder of Continental DRIFTER®, he handles every aspect of the business from branding and trip design to marketing, social media management, contract negotiations, and client follow-up.
Since December 2018, Velasco has expanded his expertise through The Continental DRIFTER® YouTube channel, which features more than 75 videos offering travel advice, photography tips, destination guides, and interviews with locals. The channel targets GenX and Baby Boomer travelers and serves as the hub for his international tours. He conceives and films all content, oversees channel branding and optimization, writes scripts, records voiceovers, and manages social media distribution to increase viewer engagement.
Through his comprehensive approach to travel experiences and content creation, Velasco combines his extensive international travel expertise with practical advice for mature travelers seeking authentic, well-curated adventures.
Yaron’s love for travel turned into an 18-year career building one of Israel’s most successful travel companies. What started as personal wanderlust became Abraham Tours and Hostels – a business he co-founded and grew from scratch into a powerhouse serving 100,000 travelers annually.
As CEO from 2010 to 2022, Yaron learned how to turn great experiences into profitable business. The early years weren’t profitable despite rave reviews – they focused on creating amazing content without understanding business fundamentals. Once they cracked variable pricing, team management, and operational efficiency, everything changed.
Yaron and his team built systems that let him step away from answering every email. He developed bonus schemes that kept their best guides and drivers loyal for years, reducing industry turnover. Most importantly, he learned how to scale across multiple destinations while maintaining quality and profitability.
After stepping down as CEO in 2022, Yaron spent eight months traveling before launching his consulting practice. Now he works with the Israeli National Parks Authority on major system overhauls and helps tour operators worldwide through Guest Focus coaching, as well as other consulting projects.
Yaron brings this scaling experience to operators ready to grow beyond the one-person show, helping them delegate, systematize, and make data-driven decisions that improve both profits and personal freedom.

Accomplishments:

  • Co-founded and grew Abraham Tours & Hostels from startup to serving 100,000 tour participants and 200,000 hostel guests annually

  • CEO from 2010-2022, scaled company to 4 hostel locations plus a multi-destination tour operations

  • Established Israeli Hostel Association 17 years ago, served as general manager and chairman

  • Developed variable pricing schemes and team management for 100+ subcontractors/guides

  • Successfully exited as CEO in 2022, now consulting & mentoring various businesses in Israel and globally

After receiving his Applied Degree in Ecotourism & Outdoor Leadership from Mount Royal University in Alberta, Canada, Dave Kratt has made a living for the past 20 years in the alternative tourism industries as a guide, researcher, instructor, teacher, facilitator, manager, business owner, and naturalist. He has worked in many world regions including Central America, Australasia, Asia, and North America, applying his skills and training to various tourism, cultural, and environmental initiatives.
Kratt has been fortunate to find success through starting a number of businesses, which he tailors to achieve a more personal work/life balance. Recently, he made the significant decision to sell his farm and offload all personal and business assets, relocating his family (wife, daughter, and two dogs) to be more present in aiding his aging parents. This transition has provided him with the opportunity to share his business expertise through new and exciting channels.
In addition to his regular business coaching role with Guest Focus, Kratt recently started a consulting business called Wild Kratt Tourism Consulting Ltd. The two operations complement each other and have helped him find ways to share his passions for recreation, tourism, travel, and nature while enabling others to engage in these activities safely and consciously toward their potential social, economic, and environmental impacts.
Klaudija packed her bags in Slovenia 20 years ago with no plan except to see the world. A travel rep job in Turkey was supposed to be temporary – just long enough to fund the next adventure. Instead, it launched a global career building tour businesses from nothing and selling them for profit.
Her biggest win came with Urban Adventures, joining when it was just an idea without a brand. Over 10 years, she helped grow it to 500,000 passengers working with 170 tour operators worldwide. She spearheaded expansion into experiential products and negotiated one of the industry’s first media partnerships with New York Times Journeys.
Klaudija also built and sold two tour businesses in Ljubljana and London. Not many coaches have walked the startup-to-exit path.
Now she’s Head of City Experiences at TUI, leading an experimental department testing new products. This year her team achieved 75% revenue growth and 50% growth in passenger numbers.
Klaudija brings startup grit and corporate scale to Guest Focus coaching. She specializes in sales strategy, marketing optimization, and distribution channels. Her coaching clients particularly value her website development expertise – she’s guided three members through complete overhauls.

Accomplishments:

  • Grew Urban Adventures to 500,000 passengers working with 170 tour operators worldwide over 10 years
  • Negotiated one of industry’s first media partnerships with New York Times Journeys
  • Built and sold two tour operating businesses in Ljubljana and London
  • As Head of City Experiences at TUI: achieved 75% revenue growth and 50% passenger growth in one year
  • 20 years in travel industry across multiple roles: rep, guide, marketing, sales, managing director

Angela Shen is a proven business builder with deep roots in entrepreneurship and brand management.

Angela founded Savor Seattle in 2007 and grew it to a $1M business in under 5 years without outside investment. During the COVID shutdown in 2020, she pivoted the business from food tours to curated food boxes and grew revenues more than 2x her best tour year! Angela was named in Puget Sound Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40, and started a second tour business Savor the Wild Tours in 2023.

Angela’s expertise in business strategy and operations hails from the consumer packaged goods sector where she previously worked in brand management at PepsiCo and looked after iconic brands including Quaker Oatmeal and Life Cereal. Angela is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and serves on the board for Visit Seattle.

Ana stumbled into tourism backwards in the 1990s—first as a guide in remote Northwest Argentina mostly because she spoke English where few others did. As a horse rider, mountaineer, and fitness trainer, she naturally fell into adventure guiding, learning the hard way by doing first and studying later.

Everything began to click when she attended her first ATTA Adventure Travel Trade Summit in 2014. Suddenly, the entire structure of the travel industry made sense—the difference between operators and travel advisors, how B2B relationships actually work, or how marketing for a B2C audience is so different. That clarity saved her years of trial and error.

Since then, Ana has built her own travel company, Adentrando, initially as an active inbound tour operator for Northwest Argentina serving multi-day B2B clients, and since 2023 as an Argentina DMC and also operating trips in Latin America, working together with trusted partners. She’s become an ATTA trainer, developed Adventure Travel Guide Standards, and spoken at major industry events about responsible tourism and community partnerships.

Ana brings her hard-earned industry knowledge to Guest Focus members, particularly those starting out or pivoting their business models. Her specialty is multi-day trip design—creating itineraries that tell a story and have a positive impact, rather than just connecting attractions. She helps operators avoid the mistakes that cost her years of learning, turning complex industry relationships into clear, actionable strategies.

Accomplishments

  • First woman adventure travel guide in Northwest Argentina, driving Land Rovers across deserts
  • Been an ATTA trainer since 2016, traveling to Jordan, Chile, Colombia working with suppliers
  • Co-creator of Adventure Travel Guide Standards (2015) – one of 15 people who developed industry standards
  • ATTA business partner since 2012 and trainer for their Adventure EDU program
  • Speaker at major industry events like Pure, Lata in London, ATTA World Summit, Adventure Elevate on responsible tourism and adventure travel product design.

Casey spent 14 years at Zegrahm Expeditions, climbing to VP of Marketing Communications where she managed a million-dollar budget. Through her leadership, Zegrahm increased business with travel advisors by 10% and cut direct mail costs by 23% – real money when working with those numbers.

After Zegrahm, she spent a decade at the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), growing net revenue by 30% and profit margins by 60%. Through COVID and its recovery, as President of the ATTA maintained a 90% team retention rate by keeping people engaged and motivated.

Now running Casey Hanisko Coaching and Consulting in Seattle, she’s doubled her own revenue in one year while becoming ACC certified through the International Coaching Federation. She’s also Dare to Lead and DISC and EQI assessment certified, bringing structured tools to her approach.

Casey specializes in strategic planning and getting tour operators out of the daily grind so they can work on their business instead of in it. She helps solo entrepreneurs and small teams document knowledge, define roles, and build growth systems. Her Guest Focus clients have hit major milestones – one reached a million in revenue, others doubled income, and several Guest Focus members have brought on new team members, consultants, and partners.

She’s passionate about supporting women leaders and purpose-driven operators focused on responsible tourism.

Accomplishments:

  • Grew ATTA net revenue by 30% and net profit margins by 60%
  • Maintained 90% team retention rate during COVID challenges
  • At Zegrahm Expeditions: managed million-dollar marketing budget, increased travel advisor business by 10%
  • Cut direct mail costs by 23% (significant savings on million-dollar budget)

Jess quit her high school teaching job for what she thought would be one fun summer guiding bike tours around Paris. Eleven years later, she’s still there. Turns out, trading lesson plans for tour routes was the best career move she never planned to make.

She worked her way up from tour guide to director at Fat Tire Tours, learning every role – designing tours, training guides, managing ticketing, overseeing operations. This ground-up experience taught her what works for staff. She now works as Europe Head of Retail, as well as overseeing Paris/Versailles operations.

Her biggest win? Maximizing operational efficiency while keeping the human element intact. She redesigned scheduling systems to reduce labor costs and spoilage, automated data processes, and streamlined operations without losing Fat Tire’s family-friendly culture.

What she’s most proud of is her team development approach. Using her teaching background, she focuses on staff satisfaction and growth, helping guides and managers build confidence. Many told her the training changed not just their work performance, but their lives outside the company.

Jess brings this dual focus – operational efficiency plus people development – to Guest Focus coaching. She works with operators from solo startups to multi-million dollar companies, helping them increase profitability while maintaining authentic culture. Her coaching clients especially appreciate her reminder to take breaks and prioritize self-care.

Accomplishments:

  • Worked way up from tour guide to director at Fat Tire Tours over 11 years
  • Maximized operational efficiency – redesigned scheduling systems to reduce labor costs and spoilage
  • Automated data entry processes and streamlined operations without losing company culture
  • Developed team management systems with 60+ guides, created buddy system and quarterly reviews
  • Created staff retention program with traditions, events, and ‘dominate’ t-shirt recognition system

Fieldbook focuses on one thing: simplifying all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into delivering a tour.

The Fieldbook platform makes it easy to:

  • Publish stunning, interactive itineraries digital and paper itineraries
  • Equip guides with a comprehensive run-sheet
  • Streamline supplier management and track reservations and rooming lists
  • Bring all your tours into one connected workspace

Unlike other platforms, Fieldbook is simple and easy to use. And because it’s a small business just like you, you’ll get the kind of support big software companies can’t offer. That means getting up and running in days, not weeks.

If you want to give Fieldbook a try for your next tour, you can sign up here or if you want to have a chat feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected].

More About Fieldbook

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