There's a feature sitting inside your booking platform right now that Peek Pro says can generate 18% more revenue per booking - and most tour operators have never turned it on.
It's not a new upsell page. It's not a loyalty program. It's a simple sequence of automated pre-arrival emails and SMS reminders - messages that go out between the time a guest books and the time they show up at your tour.
This article breaks down exactly how these sequences work, what to include in each message, and how to set them up inside the most common booking platforms. If you're running tours, activities, or experiences and you're not doing this yet, this is the fastest revenue lever available to you.
Most tour operators think about automated emails in one of two ways: the booking confirmation (which they have) and maybe a post-tour review request (which they might have). The space in between - the period from booking to arrival - is almost universally ignored.
That's a mistake, because the window between booking and arrival is the highest-value moment in the entire guest relationship. Here's why:
Peek Pro's benchmark data, drawn from thousands of tours across their platform, puts a number on this: operators running automated pre-arrival reminder sequences generate 18% more revenue per booking than those who don't. That's not revenue from new bookings - it's additional revenue extracted from bookings you already have.
Peek Pro published this finding in operator-focused communications to their customer base. The mechanism behind the 18% lift comes from three compounding effects:
This isn't conjecture - it's aggregate platform data from operators across dozens of tour categories. The feature exists. The ROI is documented. The only question is whether you've activated it.
A standard pre-arrival sequence has three messages. Each one has a job.
This goes out automatically the moment a booking is made. Most platforms send this by default. What matters is what's in it. A strong booking confirmation does more than confirm the reservation. It:
This is the workhorse of the sequence. It goes out two to three days before the tour and does the heavy lifting on both logistics and revenue.
Subject line formula: "Everything you need to know before [Tour Name] on [Date]"
What to include:
This email reduces last-minute calls to your inbox, reduces no-shows, and converts add-ons at a higher rate than checkout upsells because the guest is now imagining the experience in detail.
Short. Practical. Text only.
"Hi [First Name], we're looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for [Tour Name] at [Time]. Meeting point: [Address]. Questions? Reply here or call [Phone]. See you then!"
This message has one job: ensure the guest shows up. Text open rates hover around 98%. If you send one SMS in your entire pre-arrival sequence, make it this one.
The difference between a reminder sequence that drives revenue and one that gets ignored comes down to four principles:
1. Personalization at the basic level. First name, tour name, date, and time should be dynamically inserted. Generic messages feel like spam; specific messages feel like service.
2. One clear CTA per message. Don't ask guests to do six things. Pick one. The pre-arrival email's job might be "click here to add the photo package." The SMS's job is "show up."
3. Helpful, not salesy, tone. Every upsell should be framed as information or care, not a pitch. "Many guests bring sunscreen and a light jacket - and if you want to take home professional photos, we have a package for that" lands better than a hard sell.
4. Mobile-first formatting. Most of your guests will read these on a phone. Short paragraphs. No walls of text. Single-column layout. Large tap targets on any buttons or links.
Every major tour operator booking platform has some version of automated messaging. Here's where to find it:
Peek Pro: Go to Setup > Communications > Automated Messages. You can configure email and SMS sequences by trigger (booking confirmation, X days before, etc.). Peek Pro calls these "pre-arrival notifications" and the 18% revenue lift data cited in this article comes directly from their analysis of operators who have this enabled.
FareHarbor: Navigate to Dashboard > Company > Communications. Automated emails can be set up per activity with custom timing and content. SMS requires the add-on messaging feature.
Rezdy: Under Settings > Notifications > Customer Notifications. Rezdy supports email sequences with merge tags for personalization and allows timing triggers based on days before the booking date.
Bokun: Communications > Automated Emails. Supports HTML email templates and conditional logic (e.g., only send add-on pitch if guest hasn't already purchased an add-on).
If you're not sure where to find this in your platform, search your platform's help docs for "automated messages" or "pre-arrival notifications" - or contact their support and ask them to walk you through setup. Most platforms have this feature and under-promote it.
The 18% revenue lift from Peek Pro's data is a per-booking figure. But the real compounding effect happens over time:
A tour operator running 200 bookings a month at an average booking value of $150 is generating $30,000/month. An 18% lift on revenue per booking - captured through add-ons, upsells, and no-show reduction - represents up to $5,400 in additional monthly revenue. From an automated sequence that takes a few hours to set up once.
Not if they're useful. The key is making sure every message has a clear reason for existing - logistics, a helpful tip, a direct piece of information the guest actually needs. Reminder spam happens when operators send generic messages. Genuinely helpful messages get clicked and appreciated.
Three is the sweet spot for most tours: confirmation, 48-72 hour email, and day-before SMS. For multi-day tours or high-ticket experiences, you can add a one-week-out email. Anything more than four messages is likely to generate unsubscribes.
Early morning (7-9 AM in the guest's local time zone) or early evening (6-8 PM) tend to perform best. Avoid midday and late-night sends. If you can't control timing precisely, a morning send is the safer default.
No. Start with a template for each message type, then personalize the tour-specific details. Most booking platforms provide starter templates you can edit. If you'd like a set of plug-and-play templates calibrated to your tour type, that's something a marketing partner can build out in a single session.
That's why the SMS exists. SMS doesn't require an open - it lands on the lock screen. Open rates for SMS are consistently around 95-98%. Even if your pre-arrival email goes to the promotions tab, the text message gets through.
Tour operator email automation - specifically the pre-arrival reminder sequence - is one of the lowest-effort, highest-return improvements available to any activity business running a modern booking platform. Peek Pro's benchmark data puts a concrete number on it: 18% more revenue per booking.
If you're running Peek Pro, FareHarbor, Rezdy, Bokun, or any comparable platform, the infrastructure is already there. You just have to turn it on and write three emails.
If you want help building out your sequence, setting the right timing, or crafting messaging that actually converts add-ons - that's exactly what BeaconPoint does for tour operators and experience businesses. Start a conversation with us.