Reducing Friction in Tour Selection: The Importance and Power of A Decision Tree

 
Brian Nicholson

Some tour companies offer visitors a lot of tours. Even if they have only a few categories of activities, they create a lot of variations.

It sounds great. After all, a certain amount of choice makes it more likely that visitors will find what theyโ€™re looking for. The classic 5-zipline tour pairs nicely with the extreme 9-zipline tour precisely because one size doesnโ€™t fit all.

The Paradox of Choice Applied to The Booking Process

The problem is that too much choice can lead to decision paralysis, as discussed in Barry Schwartzโ€™s book The Paradox of Choice. The anxiety and lack of confidence visitors feel when confronted with a page full of tours (or a seemingly infinite side-scrolling list of activities) introduce friction into the booking process.

You may not think that your 12-20 choices are overwhelming. You know how theyโ€™re similar and different. You know that you really have just 3 core experiences with a bunch of variations. You know which ones are the most popular, and which 1-2 tours would be the best choice for any given individual browsing your site. But your visitors donโ€™t know what you know.

You may not think that your 12-20 choices are overwhelming…but your visitors don’t know what you know.

Creating Confidence Through a Decision Tree

If you offer at least 12 total tours or variations, be intentional about leading your visitor to the right decision with minimum time, effort, and anxiety, ultimately creating confidence that theyโ€™ve found the right tour. There are 2 main tactics you can use, and you can use one or both of them, depending on your situation.

1. Lead With Categories or โ€œAnchorโ€ Tours

The simplest way is to lead with categories so that visitors are making a series of smaller, easier choices, rather than trying to select 1 option out of a list of 12-20. Try to keep each level of the decision tree at 2-4 items.

Coral Crater, an adventure park in Oโ€™ahu, offers ziplining, ATVs, and adventure tower activities. But in total, they offer many variations. Through a/b testing, we found that when we led with categories instead of their full list of tours, we saw better results. So when we rebuilt the site, we fully embraced the concept of a decision tree. Notice how easy each decision becomes, and how much easier it is than picking from a list of 12-20 choices.

Decision 1: Pick from 3 Categories

Decision 2: Pick from 3 Activities

Decision 3: Book Or Bundle

2. A Tour Finder

If you offer several tours, how do you help people make a decision if they call you or stop by your office? Surely you donโ€™t just hand them a full sheet of all your tours, leaving the customer to figure it out on their own. Instead, you ask questions and give your recommendation. So which questions do you ask first? Thatโ€™s exactly what we asked Lake Geneva Cruise Line so that we could quickly narrow down the list of 12 lake cruises. It turns out that they mainly needed to know 2 things: 1) whether kids were joining the cruise, 2) how long of a cruise someone was looking for. We worked those questions into the website via a Tour Finder, so that website visitors received the same recommendations that they would get if they called a team member.

We still offer a full list of tours for those who want it, but we also offer this Tour Finder for those that just want a tailored recommendation with minimal effort.

The Full List of Cruises

The Tour Finder Questions

The Tour Finder Results

Each result set has a subheading indicating that we know what theyโ€™re looking for. In this case, we say, โ€œFamilies who want to hit the highlights love these options.โ€ This is precisely what the visitor told us when they answered the questions. This is how you create confidence during the decision process.

As a bonus, we track the Tour Finder usage, and we have a report that shows exactly how people are answering these questions, which provides insights into what our website visitors are looking for. We can even create advertising audiences from this data to ensure that weโ€™re showing the most relevant ads to each person. Itโ€™s valuable to know, for example, that someone is planning to travel with kids. Thatโ€™s something that the ad platforms donโ€™t know unless we feed them that data.

The Pearl Harbor Tour Finder

We took a similar approach for pearlharbor.org. The exact problems we were solving were a little different, but we worked with the team to identify the 2 simplest questions that people needed to answer in order to narrow down their options.

3. A Package Builder

Royal Gorge Epic Adventures had a different problem than just too many tour variations. In addition to multiple lodging options, they offer 2 types of activities, each with 2 intensity levels. And the total price depends on how many people are coming and how many nights people are staying.

Instead of simply telling people that packages are available, we wanted people to be able to quickly get an estimate of what their getaway would cost. We wanted to reduce the load on the sales staff by letting people get some of their own answers, but also making them better-informed customers when they do need to contact the sales team. This carefully organized set of questions not only collects what we need for calculating a quote but also serves as a very simple framework to help guests understand what their choices are.

Expect More Of Your Website

You expect your salespeople to help guide people to the right decision, and you should expect your website to be able to do the same. If your website functions more like a brochure than a salesperson, rethink how youโ€™re using your website. Bring your sales savvy to your web visitors to boost their confidence as they browse, so that you can win more bookings.

Feeling Like Youโ€™re Stuck With Your Website? We Can Help.

Weโ€™re proud of how weโ€™ve helped dozens of tour and activity companies make a lot more money by improving their websiteโ€™s conversion rate. If youโ€™d like help taking the next step towards optimizing your website,ย weโ€™d love to hear from you.

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About The Author

Brian Nicholson

Brian is a partner at Blend Marketing. He focuses on brand strategy, positioning, and analytics for the tourism industry.

Email Brian

About The Author

Brian Nicholson

Brian is a partner at Blend Marketing. He focuses on brand strategy, positioning, and analytics for the tourism industry.