The brochure goes out, and then silence
A retired couple request your printed brochure through the website and tick an interest in walking holidays in Italy. Someone posts it. Another person emails asking whether the Lake Garda walking tour is suitable for someone with a knee problem, and gets a helpful reply. A third rings to ask about September dates on the Puglia tour, and is told there are places left.
None of them hears from you again. In the season, the office is full of rooming lists and supplier chasing, and the enquiry list is a column in a spreadsheet that nobody has time to work through. Some of them book. Many of them book with someone else, or simply do not get round to it.
Enquiries are answered, not managed
Answering an enquiry is a job someone does immediately. Following it up is a job for later, and later in a small tour operator's office is always busy. Without a system that does the remembering, follow-up depends on goodwill and quiet days.
- Brochure requests and enquiries arrive through the website, email and phone, and are recorded in different places.
- Which tour or region the person is interested in is not captured consistently.
- Follow-ups are written from scratch, so they are rarely sent.
- Nobody sees when an enquirer's chosen departure is filling up, which is a natural reason to get in touch.
- Bookings are not linked back to the original enquiry, so you cannot tell what works.
Interested people drift away
Someone who has requested a brochure or asked a specific question has already shown real interest. Specialist holidays are a considered purchase, and many people take weeks or months to decide. An operator who stays helpfully in touch during that time has a better chance than one who replied once.
The cost is invisible, which is why it persists. You never see the bookings that went elsewhere, only the ones that came to you.
Enquiry tracking with follow-ups that know the tour
We build enquiry tracking connected to your website forms, inbox and booking system.
- Every brochure request and enquiry is recorded in one list, whether from a website form, the enquiries inbox or a phone call logged by staff, with the tours, regions and dates the person mentioned.
- An AI step reads email enquiries and suggests the tours and interests to tag, which the person answering confirms.
- Follow-ups are scheduled by type: a brochure request gets a note after it should have arrived, with links to the tours they ticked; a specific enquiry gets a later message about that tour.
- When a departure an enquirer asked about reaches guaranteed status or is nearly full, they are told, which is useful news rather than a sales push.
- Warm enquiries (a specific date asked about, a second visit to the website, a reply to a follow-up) appear on a short daily call list for staff.
- When someone books, the booking is linked to their enquiry, and follow-ups stop.
- People can opt out at any time, and follow-ups respect the permissions they gave, under your own marketing policy.
| Enquiry type | First follow-up | Later |
|---|---|---|
| Brochure request | Check it arrived, link to ticked tours | News about those tours |
| Question about a tour | Answer, then a note on dates | Departure status updates |
| Specific date asked about | Call list for staff | Told if it fills or is guaranteed |
| Replied to a follow-up | Call list for staff | Personal contact |
| Booked | Follow-ups stop | Linked to the enquiry |
If you already use a CRM such as HubSpot, or your booking system has enquiry tracking, we build on that rather than adding another system.
Follow-up that happens even in August
In the middle of the season, the follow-ups carry on without anyone writing them. Each morning, one member of staff looks at a call list of five or six warm enquiries and spends a short time phoning them. The couple who requested a brochure get a note a week later with links to the Italian walking tours they ticked, and a message in spring when the September Garda departure becomes guaranteed.
At the end of the season you can see which enquiries turned into bookings, from which source, and after how long, which helps you decide where to spend on marketing.
Are enquiries going cold?
- Brochure requests are posted and never followed up.
- Enquiries are recorded in several places or not at all.
- Follow-ups are written by hand when there is time.
- Enquirers are not told when their chosen departure fills or is guaranteed.
- You cannot say how many enquiries became bookings.