Rezgo Vs Other Online Booking Systems
10 questions to ask yourself and competitors when comparing Rezgo to another reservation software
1. How long has your company been in business?
We’ve been in business since 2005.
You’ll probably get answers like “That doesn’t matter, older doesn’t mean better” or “We’re young and hungry for your business”. As a business owner, you already know the statistics. The majority of new businesses fail within 5 years with most of those failing within 3 years. And the amount of money they have raised from investors is no indication of success. So at the end of the day, you want a technology partner who has been there, done that, and knows the ins and outs of the tour and activity industry. Rezgo is an established, debt free, profitable business with over a million dollars invested in its development, hundreds of customers, and processes tens of millions of dollars in bookings per month.
2. What is your background in tours & activities?
We are developers who specialize in building software for tour and activity businesses since 2005.
It’s not surprising to find that most tour booking systems out there were designed and built by a tour operator who thought it would be a great idea to build a reservation system for themselves and figured they could make more money by having other operators pay to use it too. The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t make for very good software. Why? Because, as we have learned over the years, tour operators are all different and the system they use needs to support both their specific business requirements and industry best practices.
Rezgo was built by professional developers in consultation with a community of tour operators. Over the years, we’ve worked with hundreds of operators who offer everything from balloon rides, bicycle tours, boat tours, sightseeing, and excursion companies. We add features and functions based on the collective needs and requirements of a large group of businesses rather than just our experience. We have also pulled from our collective team experience working with online travel agencies, suppliers large and small, other booking engines, XML APIs from various travel and non-travel providers, as well our extensive e-commerce experience.
3. What have you done for the industry?
A lot actually. Check out the list.
We realized early on that the businesses in the tour and activity segment need help. So, since that time, we’ve committed ourselves to helping the industry get the recognition it needs in order to grow both online and in the real world. Here are just some of the ways we’ve given back to the travel industry and the tours & activities segment in particular.
- Launched one of the first tourism technology blogs in 2007
- Founded the first travel industry blogging community
- Published the first travel technology blog compilation book
- Rezgo CEO is a founding contributor at Tnooz.com
- Published the “Social Media Strategies for Tour & Activity Operators” ebook
- Sponsored three ground breaking research studies into the in-destination tour & activity market
- Rezgo CEO is past Chair of the Board of Directors of OpenTravel Alliance.
- Donated XML messages to the Open Travel Alliance
- Donated hundreds of hours of volunteer time to travel industry associations
- Presented at dozens of conferences Worldwide
4. Does your system support accommodations like hotels, motels, & lodges?
No, Rezgo does not support lodging.
If the answer you get is yes, then you have to ask yourself if YOU sell accommodation products? If the answer is no then you have to ask yourself if you want to use a system that has a whole bunch of features that are totally irrelevant to you. What’s worse is that systems that do support accommodation products tend to drive most of their revenue from accommodation customers and so the bulk of innovation and development tends to happen on the accommodation side. It’s not unusual to find tour and activity functionality added on as an afterthought.
Some of our competitors would argue that the booking functionality required for a hotel room is not much different from a tour, so why not take advantage of cross over and offer a system that supports both? We don’t agree. In fact, we believe that the accommodation booking flow is very different from the tour and activity booking flow. Travelers looking to purchase an excursion don’t shop for them the same way they shop for a hotel room. Rezgo, for example, is specifically designed to optimize the purchase flow for tours and excursions. You won’t find any fields or descriptions in Rezgo that refer to rooms or occupancy.
5. Does you support general purpose scheduling for things like classes, spas, and doctors appointments?
No. Rezgo is designed for tours, activities, excursions, events, and attractions.
This may seem like a strange question, but it is an important one. There are loads of scheduling apps out there that support booking spas and doctors appointments, some even offer support for tours and activities claiming that the booking flow is the same and the underlying requirements are similar. I think you would agree that selling a winery tour or a kayak adventure is quite different from accepting a appointment for a doctor’s visit.
We are big believers in the idea that to be really good at something, you have to focus. Rezgo is specifically designed for tour and activity businesses. We don’t offer a system that supports camera rentals, fitness classes, or doctor’s appointments. Although you may find a way to use Rezgo to do these things, we don’t encourage it and we certainly don’t advertise it. We are focused on providing the best possible system for tour and activity operators.
6. How do my customers pay me?
Your customers pay you directly.
As a reservation system, Rezgo is dedicated to making it easy for your customers to pay you. This is why we have focused on making payments a seamless process for your customers. Did you know that reservations that use an off-site payment process (where payment doesn’t happen on the reservation website) have a 10x higher abandonment rate than integrated payment. That’s why Rezgo is directly integrated with 40+ leading global payment gateways. These gateways connect your Rezgo account directly with your bank account so that you receive payments from your customers at the time of booking.
7. Do you have a marketplace that can help sell my tours or activities?
No, we don’t and we don’t plan on building one.
Having a marketplace may sound like a great idea but they seldom, if ever, deliver on their promise. Less than 4% of total revenues are made through marketplaces and the two largest marketplaces are Viator/TripAdvisor, and Expedia. Connecting to these two global marketplaces is key and that is what we have focused on.
8. Do you have an API?
Yes, JSON and XML, and it’s been around since 2008.
This question may seem a bit technical, but it’s important. An API allows developers and third parties to build applications and extend functionality on top of Rezgo and, more specifically, your account. Having a fully transactional API means that third parties can actually push bookings directly into your account through their own applications.
The Rezgo XML API is recognized as the most advanced and well developed API of any dedicated tour and activity operator software. In fact, we developed our XML API first before building our consumer facing booking engine. This allowed us to ensure that the quality, reliability, and performance of our API would live up to the two million requests a day it now handles.
Whether you use the Rezgo hosted booking engine, the mobile optimized booking engine, the Rezgo WordPress plugin, or the Facebook App, the Rezgo XML API is there connecting your interface of choice to the core Rezgo system.
9. How do I know you have my best interests at heart?
Simple, if you don’t make money, we don’t make money.
Our motivation to ensure you are successful is simple, we only succeed if you succeed. Our pay for performance model depends on our ability to help you generate direct bookings. Our competitors like to brag that they don’t charge a commission but we believe a pay for performance model based on a percentage transaction fee or a commission is a good thing. As a business owner, it means that your technology costs are variable and grow only as your revenue grows. As a transaction fee based system, we are motivated to find ways to increase your direct, mobile, incremental, and point of sale bookings. We want to help you generate more sales and will support you any way we can in the process.
10. What is your support like?
Call, live chat, or email us and find out!
Call us during our regular office hours (9am – 5pm GMT – 7) and we would be happy to talk to you in person. In fact, we work really hard to provide the best possible customer service. We offer live chat, email, an extensive knowledgebase, and even one on one webinars… at no extra cost.
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