Growing your Tour Business with Mitch Bach

The Travel Marketing Podcast

Description: Welcome to another episode of The Travel Marketing Podcast brought to you by Propellic. I am Brennen Bliss, your host, and today, I am joined by Mitch Bach, who has been in the tourism industry for over 20 years. As a previous tour operator, Mitch has built two organizations: Campfire and TripSchool, two of the most significant resources for tour operators worldwide. In today’s episode, Mich shares his vast knowledge in the travel arena while giving great advice to tour operators to increase their growth and profitability in a balanced manner, keeping in mind that their primary mission is to become even better experience creators.

Key Takeaways:

[1:08] What is Mitch’s most memorable travel experience?

[3:22] How to decide which tours you want to take on your next trip.

[4:06] A tour operator is an experience creator.

[6:01] Tour operators give better service when they have a background of experiences that can apply to enrich the customer’s experience.

[8:20] Brennen and Mitch talk about the real mission of a tour operator.

[8:43] Mitch talks about his companies: Campfire and TripSchool.

[10:15] It is important to maintain yourself inspired from the outside.

[11:01] The inside community of tour operators is unique.

[11:55] What makes tour operators different from the rest of the people involved in the travel industry?

[15:11] Mitch talks about the impact of globalization on the travel industry.

[16:33] Mitch speaks of the evolution of marketing for touristic activities in the last couple of years.

[18:46] We have seen a lot of independent operators pulling away from distribution sites and travel agencies, where are they now?

[20:25] Mitch shares the most effective and often underused marketing strategy.

[21:18] Having a diversified channel is always helpful.

[21:00] Mitch exemplifies a direct sales strategy.

[25:01] Mitch gives a great example of an OTA.

[28:24] Profitability and growth must advance together.

[29:09] What is more satisfactory for a passion-driven entrepreneur?

[29:50] What is working today for tour operators?

[35:07] What could be an email topic?

[36:43] Has Mitch noticed any trends in the travel field currently?

[41:45] Visit Tourpreneur.

[43:26] Where is Mitch going on his next trip?

Mentioned in this episode:

The Travel Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Propellic

Learn more about Mitch Bach

Tourpreneur

Tweetables and Quotes:

“As an operator, you have to remember, it is not just the commodity, just this entity that you're selling, but you're selling emotion, surprise, and discovery. The more you can bake that into everything, from your email communication to your website to the experience itself, the better you're going to be as an experience creator.”

“Responsible business ownership is about thinking in what's going on in the market today in the startup world, nobody's solely focused on growth anymore, they're focused on their magic 40, they intend to hit a percent of profitability and growth that equals a certain number, not just growth at all costs, which is, in a lot of cases, very painful and very damaging to an organization.”

“Emails are easy because there's a huge number of ways out there for you to capture an email address immediately, and once you have it, you own it.”