If you run excursions in Tenerife, whether that's whale watching, hikes in Anaga, trips up Teide or kayaking at Los Gigantes, a good share of your bookings probably comes through marketplaces like GetYourGuide, Viator or Civitatis. They give you visibility, and that's worth something. But every booking that goes through them pays a commission, and that customer belongs more to the platform than to you.
This article isn't about dropping the platforms. It's about what your own website needs so that people who have already found you (on Google Maps, in a review, in a hotel leaflet, or because a friend mentioned you) book with you directly.
Why direct bookings are worth it
- You pay no commission on that booking. The percentage depends on your contract with each platform: find it on your last statement and multiply it by your bookings for the year.
- The customer's contact details are yours. You can message them before the trip, warn them if the sea means changing the day and, if they want, tell them about your other tours.
- You set the terms: cancellation, deposit, groups, children.
- The review can go to your Google profile, which is what the next customer sees when they search for your name.
What each activity page has to answer
People booking an excursion always have the same questions. If your website doesn't answer them, they go back to the platform, where the answers are. Every activity needs its own page with:
- What happens, step by step, with the real duration, pick-up included.
- Meeting point with a map and, if you pick up from hotels, which areas.
- What's included and what isn't: transport, guide, equipment, food, tickets.
- What to bring and who it's for: fitness level, minimum age, whether seasickness tablets are a good idea on the boat, or a warm layer for Teide even when it's 25 degrees on the coast.
- Guide languages and group size.
- Cancellation policy, especially for bad weather or rough sea: what happens to the money if the trip is called off.
- Price per person, visible, without having to message to ask.
- Real photos of your trips. Customers want to see your boat, your guide and your group, not a stock image.
- A clear booking button, visible on a phone without hunting for it.
How to write your cancellation policy
Of the nine points, the sixth deserves a section of its own. One useful fact before you write it: Spanish consumer law excludes leisure-related services from the right of withdrawal when the contract sets a specific date or period (article 103, letter l, of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users, in Spanish). In other words, for a dated excursion, what the customer can cancel and what they get back is set by your policy. That's why it has to be written clearly and be visible before payment. If you're unsure about your own case, have your adviser check it.
A clear policy covers four situations. Example wording, made up for you to adapt to your activity:
- If the customer cancels: free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure; after that, no refund.
- If the trip is called off because of the sea or the weather: the customer picks another date or gets a full refund.
- If the customer doesn't show up at the meeting point on time: no refund.
- Large groups: a deposit when booking, the rest on the day.
The deadlines and percentages are yours to set. What matters is that they're written down, that they're the same in every language on the site, and that the customer sees them before paying, not in an email afterwards.
Phones come first
A lot of people choose their excursion on their phone: on the sun lounger, in the hotel room, the night before. If the page loads slowly or the booking button is buried at the bottom, they open the platform's app and book there. I go into this in more detail in why every second of load time costs bookings.
In your customer's language
If your customers are British, German or Scandinavian, each activity page has to be in their language, and written for them, not run through an automatic translator. A badly translated meeting point means a customer lost at the harbour. I wrote about this in multilingual websites for tourism in the Canaries.
Be easy to find by name
Before booking direct, customers search for your name on Google. The first thing they see is your Google Business Profile: the right category, recent photos, departure times, reviews with replies, and a link to your website, not to a platform. All the steps are in the Google Business Profile guide for Tenerife.
One concrete step worth checking: the booking link. Google lets you add up to 10 links per category (bookings, orders) from your Business Profile: open the booking option, select "Add link", paste the URL and save. Use the URL of the activity page on your website, not the platform's.
Google also has an activities section, "Things to do", where operators can show their tours and activities to travellers for free. To appear there, Google encourages operators to connect first through one of its approved connectivity partners. If you use booking software, ask whether it's one of them.
How to bring customers who already know you to your site
Direct bookings don't just turn up: you have to put your website where customers already cross paths with you. The simplest places:
- Receptions at the hotels and apartments you work with: a leaflet or card with a QR code that goes to the activity page, not the home page.
- Your boat, your van or your departure point: the same QR, for anyone asking about another trip or coming back with friends.
- The end of every trip: the best moment to ask for a Google review and mention your other activities.
- Your social media: the link in your bio, pointing to your website.
- Your booking confirmation on WhatsApp or email: with a link to your other trips.
One word of caution: read each platform's terms, because some limit what you can say or send to a customer who booked through them. What nobody can stop is your website being the best option for people searching for you by name.
Two ways to set up booking
- Booking by WhatsApp. The customer picks an activity and a date, sends you a pre-filled message, and you confirm. It's the simplest option and enough if you run a few trips a day. That's what the Plan Teide Esencial covers (€195 + €35/month): a website of up to 5 pages in Spanish and English, with one-tap WhatsApp. If you also need German, the Plan Teide Completo goes up to 3 languages.
- Calendar with spots and online payment. The customer sees which days still have spots, pays by card and gets an instant confirmation. It makes sense if you fill several trips a day or sell well in advance. That's a custom project, from €1,500.
WhatsApp or calendar with payment: how to decide
Ask yourself these questions before choosing:
- How many trips do you run a day, and with how many spots? With one or two trips and small groups, confirming by hand is manageable. With several full trips, the risk of selling the same spot twice goes up.
- Can you reply quickly while you're guiding? If you're on the boat for four hours without checking your phone, the customer who messaged at ten may have booked elsewhere by eleven.
- Do you sell weeks ahead or for tomorrow? Advance sales fit better with online payment and automatic confirmation.
- Do no-shows hurt you? If they do, a deposit or prepayment cuts them down, and that needs a payment gateway.
- How many languages do you confirm in? The confirmation message has to be in the customer's language too.
If you start with WhatsApp, set up the pre-filled message so you get everything you need in the first message. For example: "Hi, I'd like to book [activity] on [date] for [number of people]. Pick-up at [hotel or area]. Language: [language]." That saves you three messages asking for the basics.
If you move to online payment, check what taking the money costs. A worked example with round numbers: an excursion at €60 per person for a group of 4, €240 in total. With Stripe's standard published pricing for Spain (1.5% + €0.25 per payment with a standard European Economic Area card and 2.5% + €0.25 with a UK card; premium cards cost a bit more), taking that €240 costs €3.85 with a standard European card and €6.25 with a British one. Stripe is just an example: your bank or your card terminal provider will have its own rates. Compare that cost with the commission on your platform statement for the same booking.
Mistakes that send customers back to the platform
- A single "Excursions" page with every activity mixed together, and no page of its own for each one.
- "Price on request" or a "from" price without saying what's included.
- A meeting point in text only, with no map or Google Maps link.
- Stock photos instead of your real trips.
- Machine translation exactly where it matters: meeting point, what to bring and cancellation.
- A Google profile linking to the platform instead of your website.
- Out-of-date departure times on your site or on Google.
- Replying to WhatsApp the next day.
How to tell if it's working
You don't need expensive tools. A spreadsheet with one row per month and one column per channel is enough: each platform, WhatsApp, website, phone and walk-ups. If the pre-filled WhatsApp message is sent from your website, you'll know where each enquiry came from.
A worked example with round numbers: if you get 100 bookings in July, 80 through platforms and 20 direct, your direct share is 20%. What matters isn't a magic number but that this share goes up compared with the same month last year. Comparing July with November will fool you, because the season changes everything.
A four-week plan
- Week 1: write the page for your best-selling excursion with the nine points above, cancellation policy included.
- Week 2: real photos of your trips, and a native speaker checking the meeting point, what to bring and the cancellation policy in each language.
- Week 3: bring your Google profile up to date: booking link to your website, departure times, recent photos and replies to your latest reviews.
- Week 4: QR codes wherever people already find you, a pre-filled WhatsApp message, and the spreadsheet to log bookings by channel.
Where to start
Pick your best-selling excursion and write its page with the nine points above. If that page answers everything, a customer who already knows you has no reason to go back to the platform. If you'd like me to look at your current site, ask for a free audit or message me on WhatsApp and I'll tell you what's missing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell cheaper on my site than on GetYourGuide or Viator?
It depends on what your contract with each platform says, so read it before changing prices. If you'd rather not touch the price, you can make booking direct better in other ways: instant confirmation, dealing with you directly and clear cancellation terms.
Do I need a payment gateway from day one?
No. If you run a few trips a day and reply quickly, WhatsApp with a pre-filled message works. Moving to a calendar with payment makes sense when you fill several trips, sell in advance or no-shows are costing you money.
What happens if the customer cancels on their own?
Whatever your policy says. For leisure activities on a specific date, the consumer-law right of withdrawal doesn't apply, so your cancellation policy is what counts. Write it clearly and make sure it's visible before payment.
Which languages does the site need?
Your customers' languages. Look at where the people who book with you come from and start there. In Tenerife, the British are by far the biggest foreign market and Germans the second; you'll find the figures and their sources in the article on multilingual websites for tourism in the Canaries.
