How to Sell Easia Self-Guided Tours?

Are you a professional Travel Agent? If so, how would you go about pitching and selling the Easia Self-Guided Tours (ESGT) to your audience? Just in case you’re unsure on how to answer this, we’ve listed a few tips to help you better understand and visualize some natural opportunities for adding or embedding ESGT to your future proposals.

Discover what you’d like to offer

First things first. To gain a comprehensive understanding of what is possible and what would work best for your business, it is beneficial we have a virtual call to align on your business needs and analyze together how our self-guided tour range could help you expand your current travel offerings.

If you’re ready and interested to do so, contact us today at [email protected] to schedule your call and we’ll take the time to talk through the options to fit your needs.

© Easia Travel

A few sample scenarios on how to add or propose a self-guided tour

As our self-guided tours and excursions are versatile by nature and are designed to appeal to a large section of buyers, it would be hard to give examples of each possible application for selling them.

To give you some ideas or scenarios on the ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ to sell or include our self-guided tours into your traveler’s itineraries, we’ll be taking a look at some sample scenarios for some of the buyer personas as explained in our earlier article ‘Who Are Self-Guided Tours For?’

1. Millennials

Let’s say you receive a request from a Millennial couple for a honeymoon in Southeast Asia. Instead of creating a packed and ‘passive’ program, we could suggest adding in some days of slightly more ‘active’ exploration. By inserting the exploration of a neighborhood or city through the use of their smartphones, you’d be able to allow the couple more privacy, freedom, and flexibility, all the while adding in an unexpected element of fun.

2. A young family with preschoolers

While designing a journey for a family with kids – let’s say they’re interested in visiting Cambodia and the ancient civilization of Angkor Wat – why not add a creative twist, and turn the visit to the world-famous archaeological park into a fun family activity? By opting for a self-guided exploration of the park by bicycle, let the kids lead the way, while the parents take a backseat and absorb the history of the ancient wonder. By doing so and adding this element of gamification for the younger ones, there’s something in it for every member of the family, allowing them to get so much closer to the local people and culture in a fun and natural way.

3. Cycling and hiking fans

For this example, envision an adventurous group of 4 cycling enthusiasts (perhaps 2 middle-aged couples), who’d like to learn more about Vietnam, its history, its cuisine, and its vibrant culture. They wish to visit 3 main cities and their most famous historical landmarks, while still having a few full days of cycling (60 to 90kms daily) to explore the Vietnamese countryside and the local way of life. They’d like to stay in comfortable hotels (4-star and above) for the cities, but don’t mind living the ‘local experience’ while out in remote regions. They have no interest in guided excursions and are looking to travel as privately as possible and entirely at their own pace.

With traveler requirements like this, we’d recommend suggesting or proposing a ‘fully autonomous’ self-guided tour:

  • By adding half-day self-guided city excursions for Hanoi, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), you would enable your prospects to visit all landmarks independently, at their own time, and mostly on foot
  • Adding professionally designed self-guided GPS cycling trails for the surroundings of Hue and Hoi An, including a digital roadbook packed with info and points of interest, would add a great way to explore the authentic countryside and experience local life up-close
  • The prospect of completing a ‘fully autonomous’ self-guided tour will provide the couples with a fun sense of achievement.

4. Digital-savvy Baby Boomers

For our last example, targeting the digital-savvy baby boomer, we’ll take a more wide approach by generally targeting the Baby Boomer demographic as a whole. Usually well accustomed to and expecting higher standards of service and accommodation, Baby Boomers are, on one hand, likely to demand comfort and convenience while on the other are likely to long for moments of adventurous exploration, keeping them feeling young.

This is where suggesting ‘Hybrid’ self-guided tours perfectly combines the best of both worlds by offering a well-balanced mix of both guided and self-guided excursions.

The self-guided excursions will elevate the feelings of adventurous exploration and freedom, while adding guided excursions will allow your Boomers to ask more questions and delve deeper into the local history and culture, through the guidance of a local expert guide.

By proposing ‘hybrid’ itineraries, you’ll be able to provide your clients with an enjoyable dose of adventure, while added services (luggage transportation, vetted accommodation, well-arranged transportation between destinations, and more) will keep their journey comfortable and convenient.


Of course, these scenarios are just a sample of the many ways to embed or propose a self-guided excursion or module into your travelers’ itinerary. For more tips and ideas, reach out to us directly!

© AbsolutVision

Important information to mention to your clients

  1. Your travelers will be welcomed and thoroughly briefed by our local ESGT agent upon arrival
  2. Throughout their journey, your travelers will receive support from their local ESGT agent by phone and chat (eg. for the booking of additional services on the spot, emergencies, etc.)
  3. A SIM card with a local internet package will be provided, removing the need for international roaming
  4. All GPS routes come with offline access, so your travelers can still navigate themselves even in places without internet coverage
  5. Clients can download and access their private tour before arriving at the destination
  6.  Your travelers’ digital roadbook includes:
    • GPS routes
    • Points of interest with information in text and audio format
    • Additional tips on local culture, cuisine, and more
  7. The local ESGT agent will book and double-check any logistics (hotels, transfers, bicycles, etc.)
  8. The app and its digital roadbook are currently available in FR & ENG, and more languages will be added in the future

 

© Keila Hötzel

Self-guided tours as ‘building blocks to tailor personal journeys

One of the main benefits of our continuously expanding catalog of self-guided modules & excursions is that it enables you to design a wide variety of itineraries to suit your travelers’ personal requirements and vision of your travelers as well as your brand.

The options for creating a tour that will wow and brings back your travelers for a repeat purchase are vast. For more tips and ideas, reach out to us directly!


Conclusion

Aside from all the reasons mentioned above, the success of adding ESGT to your product portfolio will depend on your business model, as well as the individual wishes of your travelers. It will be up to you and your team to determine the right solution for your travelers; be it guided tours, self-guided tours, or a ‘hybrid’ mix of both.

As stated in our first article; here at Easia we love guided tours and always will. It’s what we do and what we do best. Our self-guided tours should be seen as complementary to guided tours and not as a replacement. Aside from providing you with additional innovative options to crafting creative and interesting journeys in Southeast Asia, our self-guided tours are designed to enable you to reach new markets, without compromising on quality, safety, and cost.

Sound interesting?

Or perhaps you’re still puzzled as to how this could help your business?

Why not simply leave us your email and we’ll get in touch with you shortly


     

    Interested in reading more about Easia Self-Guided Tours (ESGT)?
    Check out the other informative articles in our ESGT explainer series:

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