If your best operations person walked out tomorrow, would your business still know how to run a tour?
This session covers PaxFlow, an operations platform for tour and activity companies focused on everything that happens after a booking: staffing, vehicles, pickups, guest info, and day-of disruptions. That gap matters because booking software runs the sales side, but the coordination work behind it doesn’t scale the same way: every new booking adds more decisions, not just more work, and most operators run that layer out of spreadsheets, calendars, and one person’s memory.
Soffia Kristin Thordardottir, PaxFlow’s founder and CEO, walks through how the platform turns booking demand into an automated staffing and resource plan, what breaks when that operational knowledge lives in someone’s head instead of a system, and where she expects software to take over the planning work versus where a human still has to step in.
Resources:
- PaxFlow. Operations management platform for tour and activity operators; Soffia can be reached directly at soffia@paxflow.io or on LinkedIn to discuss an operational audit
Key Takeaways
- Booking software and operations software solve two different problems, and roughly 90% of the work happens after the booking. 00:02:09 – 00:02:39 Booking systems control availability, pricing, payments, and channel distribution. Everything after that, staffing, vehicles, pickups, and absorbing day-of changes, is a separate, much larger job that most tour software doesn’t touch.
- Coordination doesn’t scale the way sales does. Every departure has to be re-matched against people, vehicles, and rules. 00:04:15 – 00:04:45 Selling a tour is a straightforward, linear problem. Operating it isn’t: each new booking multiplies the combinations of who’s available, who’s qualified, and what equipment is needed.
- If your most experienced operations person didn’t show up tomorrow, would the system know what they know?. 00:07:18 – 00:07:53 Most companies run an informal “operational intelligence layer” that exists only in one person’s head, translated by hand into Excel or a calendar. That knowledge disappears the moment that person is unavailable.
- Availability doesn’t equal suitability. 00:09:05 – 00:09:36 Knowing which guides are free isn’t the same as knowing who should actually be assigned. Language skills, certifications (including ones that have quietly expired), and the specific needs of a tour (kids, a guest with a disability) all determine fit, not just open slots on a calendar.
- Scheduling has to account for real workforce constraints, not just a shared calendar. 00:10:12 – 00:11:14 Union and rest-hour rules, a mixed workforce of permanent staff who need guaranteed hours and freelancers who submit availability separately, and the goal of distributing hours fairly all have to be built into the system before it can recommend anything reliably.
- Operational rules like guide-to-guest ratios and seasonal vehicle limits need to be codified, not remembered. 00:12:15 – 00:12:48 Ratios (e.g., one guide per 20 guests), which vehicles are usable in which season, prep and wrap-up time buffers, and preferred resource assignments are the kind of rules that live in someone’s head until they’re written into the system.
- A single departure’s staffing needs can escalate fast as bookings roll in. 00:16:12 – 00:17:12 PaxFlow’s own walking-tour example: a month out, 6 guests and 1 guide; a week out, 18 guests, still 1 guide under a 1:20 ratio; a few days out, 31 guests, still within 2 guides; one day out, 47 guests, now needing a 3rd guide and a 2nd vehicle, with the guest groupings reshuffled to match.
- PaxFlow automates staffing assignments up to a month ahead, in either draft or published mode. 00:17:42 – 00:18:42 Operators can review and approve a generated plan before it goes live, or let it publish automatically. Tours that fall short of a minimum can be merged with another departure, or the affected guests can be offered a spot on a different one.
- One change shouldn’t create five manual follow-up tasks. 00:20:55 – 00:22:23 Take a pickup-location change, a sick guide, or a weather cancellation: the system propagates the change automatically and notifies affected guests over SMS or WhatsApp, which get meaningfully higher open rates than email, especially close to departure time.
- Guest-side data collection (dietary needs, waivers, health qualifications) is built into the same workflow, not handled separately. 00:23:22 – 00:23:56 Adventure operators can require a health statement to qualify a guest for a tour; if someone doesn’t qualify, PaxFlow can auto-cancel and refund the booking with minimal manual handling.
- Guides get their own portal (“En Route”) that becomes their actual working day. 00:25:20 – 00:26:26 Guides see their schedule, can claim or request open shifts, and use a ticket scanner that checks whether a guest’s waiver and required info are complete before letting them board.
- The loop closes with post-tour reporting and automated guest follow-up. 00:26:56 – 00:27:32 Guides file end-of-tour reports (incidents, notes for the office), and the system can automatically trigger guest surveys and review requests afterward.
- A time audit at most tour companies finds a 9:1 ratio of hours spent on operations versus business development. A strong operator is closer to 7:1. 00:30:38 – 00:32:03 At small operators, the same person is often doing both jobs, so operational overhead directly steals time from the sales, itinerary-building, and marketing work that actually grows bookings.
- Every hour reclaimed from operations and redirected into business development tends to grow the business. 00:32:28 – 00:32:58 PaxFlow’s stance: they haven’t seen an operator increase hours spent on business development, more channels, more inquiries answered, more partnerships, better SEO and social, without seeing the business grow as a result.
- Automate the whole workflow, not individual tasks. 00:34:49 – 00:36:20 A workflow is a chain: for guest-info collection alone it’s identify what’s needed, message the guest, monitor and send reminders, confirm receipt, verify at check-in with the ticket scanner, then route unqualified guests into a separate queue. Automating one step in isolation without the rest creates fragmented, “bitty” automation.
- Getting good data out of people’s heads requires a structured intake, not just software. 00:39:40 – 00:41:42 PaxFlow runs a roughly 20 to 30 minute operational assessment (a detailed questionnaire, sometimes an AI-chatbot interview) before setup, specifically to surface tribal knowledge that would otherwise never make it into the system.
- PaxFlow’s multi-day support is currently focused on staff and resource scheduling across the itinerary, not full trip-logistics management. 00:42:49 – 00:45:05 It handles rest-time rules and shift variation across multi-day tours, attaches hotel and itinerary details to the staff portal, and can split or share a departure when a multi-day group joins a single-day activity alongside day-tour guests.
- PaxFlow estimates it can cut season-ahead shift planning time by roughly 90%. 00:47:33 – 00:48:36 A plan that used to take a week of manual work (about 40 hours) comes down to about 4 hours, with that remaining time spent on manual tweaks and exceptions rather than building the plan from scratch.
- The 3-year outlook: operators become reviewers, not planners. 00:49:38 – 00:51:00 Soffia expects operations managers to function more like air traffic controllers. They watch a dashboard, approve system-generated plans, and step in only when something the system can’t handle, with staff scheduling also trending toward employee-driven shift preferences.