Ticket Tailor, a leading self-serve event ticketing platform, works with Amsterdam Tulips Tour, a small start-up that has evolved from a niche tour operator to a company that has given a private tour to Barack Obama. Recently, the firm interviewed founder Rory to find out what drives his business forward.
Every spring, wide swathes of the Netherlands countryside are filled with rows and rows of flowering tulips of many different colours. Rory, a member of the Ticket Tailor community has made a successful tour business out of these precious weeks in bloom, taking visitors on backroads tours of some of the most spectacular tulip fields and on a visit to a private tulip farm. Thanks to his friendships with the local farmers, he is able to offer his groups a relaxed trip without the crowds.
Social proof is key
For small and independent tour guides, social proof is key, and gathering positive reviews is an important marketing tool.
“As a small, niche operator it’s all about social proof,” says Rory. “Initially for a few years that came in the form of reviews on Tripadvisor. My reviews were fantastic and I had a steady stream of clients.
“However, in 2019 I realised that Trip Advisor was starting to monetize its own content and that you’d effectively have to pay a large commission to retain your visibility. That didn’t work for me and with the onset of Covid, I assumed my tourism career was over. During the pandemic, at some point out of pure boredom I redesigned my site and made some SEO changes. Something worked, and when things started opening up again in early 2022 I noticed that I was getting much more traffic organically from Google! Over time that has compounded.
“Now my site works as its own social proof. It’s full of photos of small groups of visitors having a blast in a private field of tulips, and it’s very clearly a small tour company.”
The power of SEO
SEO can be a very effective marketing strategy, and it doesn’t always require a significant investment. Rory optimised his own website after studying the basics on YouTube, and the consequences of this are now clearly visible.
“Somehow my site has gotten ranked pretty highly on Google for terms such as Amsterdam tulips tour and certain variants thereof. I don’t spend a penny on marketing and am not listed on re-sellers like Get Your Guide or Viator, or anything like that. Previously I relied on Tripadvisor reviews, but now I only ask for Google reviews.”
“For next year, Spring 2024, armed with the Obama photo and impressive online reviews, I will seek to partner with a couple of hotels in Amsterdam to offer their guests the backroads experience. And hopefully, I can expand that way quite sustainably.”
Ticketing that works
Sometimes, less is more. Rory used to believe that he should seek to expand the number of people on his tour from eight to 12 to 16. He has subsequently understood that the smaller, more personal gatherings are what make his tours so enjoyable.
On choosing Ticket Tailor, Rory says: “Ticket Tailor doesn’t charge a percentage of my sales and its interface looks and feels fantastic. When I was looking for a ticketing company, it seemed that all other competitors that looked comparably professional were all charging a percentage AND a flat fee, and I was like, sod off! (but perhaps I phrased it differently).
“With Ticket Tailor the software works fantastically well and the pricing is fair.”
Finally, on his most famous guest, he adds that Obama is just like he comes across on TV – relaxed, gregarious, and inquisitive.
Last month, Ticket Tailor announced its new integration with Square, a technology company that makes commerce and financial services simple and easy to access. Event organisers selling tickets on the Ticket Tailor app can now accept online payments with Square.
