Tour & Activity Operators: Your 2026 Offseason Guide

Jarod LaFalce

Co-Founder / COO of BookingTerminal

Published on: November 20, 2025 | Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

The offseason hits, your tours slow down, and suddenly you're staring at a to-do list that's been waiting for months. But this is actually one of the most valuable times of your year. A good offseason sets the tone for a smoother, more profitable busy season—and helps you walk into next year with way less stress.

Here's a simple, practical guide to make the most of your "downtime".

1. Review Your Booking Software

Your booking system is at the center of your operation—so the offseason is the ideal time to make sure it's still doing its job well. Think back on your season. Did your software slow you down during peak days? Were you surprised by fees? Did employees struggle with it? Were you stuck manually fixing things your system should automate?

If your booking software isn't supporting your growth (or is creating friction for you or your customers), exploring alternatives now gives you plenty of time to switch before next season without the pressure of daily operations.

If switching is something you're thinking about, here's a step-by-step guide to switching booking software for tour operators. And if you don't have booking software yet, chat with the BookingTerminal team about how we can help.

2. Review Last Season's Performance & Adjust Your Pricing/Offerings

Before you adjust pricing or add new offerings, spend a little time looking at what actually happened this past season. Which tours consistently sold out? Which ones struggled? Did certain times of day book better? Did you notice patterns with group sizes, private tours, or certain add-ons?

Use that performance data to shape your pricing and offerings going into next season. A few ideas:

• Increase prices on high-demand tours
• Introduce "premium" or private options
• Remove (or rework) low-performing tours
• Adjust start times or durations based on what guests booked most
• Add new options based on customer behavior and feedback—not guesswork
• Benchmark offerings against local competitors

Small tweaks here—rooted in actual data—can make a big difference next season.

3. Set Up Offseason Revenue Opportunities

Slower months don't have to equal slow revenue. There are plenty of ways to create offseason sales without running full operations. A few examples:

• Gift cards
• Offseason promotions
• Early-bird discounts for next season
• Offerings marketed to locals
• Private events or custom experiences

These not only help cash flow—they keep your customers thinking about you even during the slower months.

If you want inspiration on how to smooth out your revenue, check out our list of offseason revenue ideas for tour operators.

4. Work on Marketing

Most marketing efforts take time to pay off, which makes the offseason the perfect time to actually do them. This could include refreshing photos, posting more consistently on social media, updating your online profiles (like Google Business and Tripadvisor), creating content like blog posts, or building partnerships with other local businesses.

The name of the game is getting your offerings out there for customers to find, so the more effort you put in now, the more visible your tours will be when peak season rolls around.

If you want to explore a few marketing strategies that tend to work well, explore our list of effective marketing strategies for tour and activity operators.

5. Improve Your Website for SEO

SEO updates often take weeks or months to make an impact—so doing this work in the offseason sets you up to benefit right when your season starts.

A few worthwhile tasks:

• Rewrite or expand offering descriptions with relevant keywords
• Refresh your homepage content with updates for the upcoming season
• Improve page speed and mobile experience
• Build backlinks from reputable sites

These small improvements compound over time and help get more eyes on your business before the busy season hits.

If you want a more in-depth list of SEO ideas, check out our SEO guide for tour and activity operators.

6. Administrative Work

It's not the most exciting part of running a tour business, but the offseason is the perfect window to handle the admin tasks that are hard to get to during peak months.

This might include:

• Renewing business licenses
• Updating insurance policies
• Cleaning up your bookkeeping
• Reconciling payouts and taxes
• Making sure your permits are in order
• Reviewing safety procedures
• Updating cancellation or weather policies

Getting the "boring stuff" done now means you won't be scrambling to fix something right as operations ramp back up.

7. Relax — Avoid Burnout

Running a tour or activity business is exhausting—long days, back-to-back groups, constant communication, equipment to maintain… it's a lot. So make sure you actually take time to rest.

Your customers get the best version of your business when you're recharged. Taking the offseason to reset is just as important as any operational or marketing improvement.

Conclusion

The offseason is one of the most powerful tools tour and activity operators have. With a little intentional planning—reviewing your systems, refining your offerings, tidying up the backend, and giving yourself time to breathe—you set yourself up for your best season yet.