Photography is the art of expression through the freezing of moments. It can inspire various emotions which makes it a very powerful tool to use. In today’s mostly virtual world, photography plays a huge role. Social media is turning into the biggest source of information and its main hook is the images used.
Photographs can turn a prospective client into a buyer or drive them further away from the sale. They can be the convincing turn or the reason not to buy. In the case of tours, Photography functions as a trustworthiness measure, as well as the ultimate instrument to have a preview into the tour and realize if it is worth booking.
Why photography makes tours more attractive
In today’s world, everything is going digital and virtual. To keep up, a consistent online presence is required because it is the new form of effectively communicating messages and creating a brand personality that connects with the prospective customer. This way, you can also increase followers and traffic to your website, which automatically increases the chances to get more bookings.
Evocative photography allows the client to imagine what it would be like to take part in one of your tours and can make a brand easily recognizable and trustworthy. According to Viator’s Product Quality Standards research, six or more high quality photographs can significantly boost tours sales.
Photography tips for tour operators to boost tours
To use photography effectively to boost your tours there are certain things to keep in mind before and after shooting the photographs. Before, it is important to understand what kind of photographs you want and need as well as what the planning really entails.
Consistency
- Make sure all your photos align with your brand values and message. Be consistent with the quality you show as well as the style that you show.
What to include?
- Include friendly shots of your staff, tour or activity highlights and visually appealing settings and landscapes.
What to avoid?
- Avoid shots of staff or customers looking directly into camera or looking frightened or overexcited, pictures of empty spaces and overly busy compositions. Also, the formats wide angle or panorama are not very attractive to the customer.
Value for customers
- Mind the kind of pictures you post. They should tell your prospective customer something about the tour and the company, so they also need to have informational value for them in order to actually book the tour.
Planning
- Keep in mind the lighting when you plan for a shooting. Bad lighting makes for poor quality photographs. On the other hand, plan for good and stunning locations to take the photographs, that way they’ll be a magnet for travelers. Nevertheless, planning also entails the logistics, props you may need and models.
Composition and framing
- These two are characteristics that will make your photographs more interesting and attractive to boost your tours. The easiest path is to use the “rule of thirds” which tells you to frame the photograph in a way that the main points of focus stay within the grid. You can look up the details online.
Storytelling and message
- To effectively communicate a message that boosts your tours through photography, you need a clear idea and transform it into storytelling through visual elements. It also should be eye catching and understandable, so you really need to think about the image that you want to transmit.
Patience
- Photography takes time, a good photo has to be made patiently and thought through. In order for them to boost the sales of tours, photographs need to be patiently chosen so they can be exactly the ones that transmit your philosophy.
Smartphone’s full potential
- You will get better photos with a camera, however smartphones are getting better technology, so if you have one that allows for great photo quality, learn how to use it properly to get the best photos with your phone. And of course, always bring it with you to capture every great moment.
Example
- Airbnb is a great example of photography that boosts sales. They have a very real and aesthetic approach, so their Instagram account could be a good source of inspiration. Another example could be the Instagram account for the Tour Eiffel.
Photography editing tools for tour operators
Overediting the photographs is not the solution. Usually, when you feel like you need to edit too much of the picture it is because it is not a good photograph, so better to use another one. Nevertheless, a few retouches can make it far more appealing, even adding a few titles to the photo or even your logo. Here are a few mostly free tools to edit from your phone or laptop.
- Canva
- Basic editing tools for photography and video, creation of infographics and animations, templates, texts, stickers and photo, audio and video archive.
- Picmonkey
- Basic editing tools for photography, tools for adding texts and stickers.
- Infogram
- Creation of professional infographics.
- Befunky
- Photo editing tools, collages, texts and stickers.
- Piktochart
- Charts, infographics and video, editing all information into a visual product.
- DesignWizard
- Photo editing tools, templates, infographics.
- Snapseed
- Filters and effects for photographs.
- Adobe Photoshop Express
- Photo editing tools that are almost as professional as regular Photoshop.
On the other hand, providing photographs of their tour for your visitors can give you an added value for customers. That way, they leave having learned and experienced and getting those awesome memories frozen into photos to take home. These are the kind of extra miles that will get you more and better reviews.
In order to manage all your reviews, TourReview has the utmost software that unifies all your reviews from different platforms into one dashboard that allows you, as a tour operator, to filter, analyze and manage all the reviews. Check out everything that TourReview has to offer!
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