Podcast episodes, webinar recaps and practical takeaways from the operators and experts shaping the tour and activity industry.
Overview Summary Aubrie Canfield and FareHarbor’s Community Manager Rebekah Costley break down FareHarbor’s “Beneath the Surface” market report and the five booking patterns that should reshape how tour operators price, sell, and market for 2026. The session covers what changed across regions in 2025, how operators captured demand through event-driven…
Overview Summary Nick Vannello and Jen Fein (YouLi) walk tour operators through “taming your Frankenstack,” meaning the patchwork of tools, spreadsheets, inbox threads, and manual workarounds that keep trips running until you try to scale, a staff member leaves, or a crisis hits. They explain how to diagnose where your…
When AI bots can generate endless facts and flawless narrative, what’s left for human tour guides? Mitch sits down with VoiceMap founder Iain Manley to explore the future of storytelling in travel, from his perspective as a journalist and developer of a self-guided audio tour app powered by human creators.…
Every tour operator has an opinion about their DMO, but few actually understand how one works, what it can offer, or how to get anything useful out of the relationship. Mitch Bach talks with Jenn Barbee, co-founder of Destination Innovate, about the real inner workings of DMOs. Jenn has spent…
How do you scale a company without losing your soul or passion? Mitch Bach talks this week with Paul Whitten, founder of Nashville Adventures, about how a former combat veteran, Peace Corps volunteer, UK Parliamentary Fellow, and Amazon project manager translated the learnings from his winding life path into a fast-growing tour company built at the intersection of passion, profitability, and…
Overview Summary Peter Syme and Jerome Bajou (CaptainBook) walk through how to use workflow automation to cut the repetitive operational work that eats your week. The session covers specific automations you can set up now for payments, waivers, reviews, team scheduling, partner bookings, and customer communications, plus how to decide…
Overview Summary Mitch Bach talks with Xose and Simon from Boldest, plus operator Sergio Martin of TA Scotland, about replacing static website content with interactive maps to stand out on price-driven comparison sites and close more bookings. The session includes real before-and-after metrics from an operator running 6 million in…
This is an episode all about the hard stuff. Politics. Disagreement on tour. Tour sites where the truth itself is in debate. Confronting places with complicated, dark histories. Most of the advice out there is: avoid this stuff at all costs. People just want to have fun, they’re on vacation.…
Overview Summary Mitch Bach talks with Josh Halpern and Ben Sann from TourOptima about how to stop treating operations as a cost center and start using it to drive revenue. The session covers specific tactics for upselling, cross-selling, protecting reviews, retaining revenue through disruptions, and communicating with guests across the…
What if the most powerful segment in travel has been hiding in plain sight for decades? Tourpreneur’s Mitch Bach talks with Carolyn Ray, CEO of Journey Woman, about her transformation from corporate executive to full-time traveler and advocate for the 50+ woman traveler—a demographic that represents half the world’s population…
