Switching from FareHarbor: What the Migration Actually Looks Like

Jarod LaFalce

Co-Founder / COO of BookingTerminal

Published on: March 30, 2026 | Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

FareHarbor is one of the most well-known names in tour booking software — and for a lot of operators, it was a natural first choice. It's feature-rich, widely used, and backed by Booking.com.

But as your business grows and your needs shift, FareHarbor doesn't always grow with you. Maybe you've been waiting too long for support on a simple change. Maybe you've realized you're only using a fraction of the platform and the rest is just getting in the way. Or maybe you just can't rationalize the fees any longer.

Whatever the reason, the decision to switch usually isn't sudden — it builds over time. And the thing holding most operators back isn't whether they should switch, but what the switch actually looks like.

This post walks you through the entire process of migrating from FareHarbor to BookingTerminal — from the first conversation to the moment you go live.

Why Operators Leave FareHarbor

We've onboarded a number of operators who came to us from FareHarbor, and the reasons tend to fall into a few consistent buckets.

Support doesn't feel personal. FareHarbor offers 24/7 support, which sounds great on paper. But many operators tell us it can take multiple rounds of back-and-forth to get a change made — and the person helping you doesn't always know your specific setup. At BookingTerminal, you work with a dedicated account manager who knows your business, your dashboard, and how your offerings are configured. When you reach out, you're talking to someone who already has the context.

The platform is more than you need. FareHarbor is a powerful system with a lot of depth. But for many operators, that depth often shows up as complexity. If you're spending more time navigating the dashboard than running your business, the software isn't doing its job. We built BookingTerminal around a simple idea: operators should spend as little time in the software as possible, and everything they need should be easy to find when they're there.

The fees don't match the value. FareHarbor charges a 6% fee on online bookings. If you don't meet their minimum booking volume, you'll also get hit with a 6% fee on offline bookings — the ones you process manually over the phone or in person. For operators who are fully leveraging the platform's depth and don't need much hands-on support, that fee can make sense. But if you've found that the support isn't as responsive as you need and the platform is more complex than your operation requires, it's worth asking whether that cost is working for you. At BookingTerminal, we charge a simple 5% fee on online bookings only — no direct booking fees, no OTA API fees, no monthly subscription, no setup costs — and that fee comes with dedicated support and a platform built to stay out of your way.

There's No Contract — So the Timing Is Up to You

One of the most common misconceptions we hear from operators considering a switch is that they think they're locked in. With FareHarbor's booking software, that's not the case — there's no contract tying you to the platform.

That means the decision to switch is entirely on your timeline. That said, we always recommend timing your migration during a slower period if you can. It's not that switching mid-season is impossible — we've done it plenty of times — but a quieter window gives you a little more breathing room to get comfortable with the new system before things ramp up.

If you're heading into your busy season and don't want to wait, that's fine too. We'll make sure you're supported every step of the way.

Export Your Data Before You Go

Before fully switching from FareHarbor, take a few minutes to download anything you might need going forward. FareHarbor lets you export most of your data — booking history, customer information, and financial reports.

Even though you may not need all of it right away, it's smart to have it saved locally. Think about what you'll want for tax purposes, customer follow-ups, historical reference, or just your own records. Once you leave the platform, you may lose access to that information, so it's better to grab it now rather than wish you had later.

This step takes ten or fifteen minutes and will save you potential headaches down the road.

The Migration: What It Actually Looks Like

Here's where most operators expect the process to be painful. It's not. Here's what the process looks like from start to finish:

Step 1: Demo and Discovery

We start with a demo call to learn about your business — what you run, how your bookings work, what's been frustrating you, and what you're hoping to get out of a new platform. We'll walk you through a custom example dashboard built specifically for your operation so you can see exactly how BookingTerminal would work for you.

Step 2: Onboarding Kickoff

Once you decide to move forward, we schedule a quick onboarding meeting to map out the timeline and next steps. No surprises — you'll know exactly what we need from you and how much of your time it'll take. Spoiler: it's not much.

Step 3: We Build Your Dashboard

This is where migrating from FareHarbor gives you a real advantage over starting from scratch. If you're comfortable with it, you can give us access to your FareHarbor dashboard and we'll use your existing offerings, schedules, and pricing as a starting point to build out your BookingTerminal dashboard. Instead of filling out forms from a blank slate, we're working from what you've already set up — which significantly reduces the amount of work on your end.

If you'd rather not share access, that's completely fine. We'll walk you through our standard onboarding process, where we pre-fill as much as we can from your website and you fill in the rest through a simple onboarding form. Either path gets you to the same place — a fully configured dashboard, ready to go.

Step 4: Connect Stripe

While we're building out your dashboard, you'll connect your business to Stripe for payment processing. This takes less than ten minutes and ensures you'll get daily payouts once you're live.

Step 5: Dashboard Review

Once everything is set up, we'll hop on a call to walk through your dashboard together. This is your chance to tweak anything — adjust pricing, modify schedules, update policies — before going live. By the end of this step, your setup is ready to go.

Step 6: Migrate Future Bookings

If you've got bookings already on the calendar in FareHarbor, we'll bring them over into BookingTerminal so your availability is accurate from day one. You won't have to manually re-enter anything or worry about overbooking during the transition.

Going Live

Once your dashboard is set up and your bookings are migrated, the final step is updating the booking links on your website. We'll provide you with a simple code snippet and the URLs to embed the BookingTerminal widget — or, if you'd prefer, we can add them for you.

After that, you're live and bookings will start flowing through your new system.

We recommend keeping an eye on things for the first few days in case you want to make any tweaks — whether that's adjusting a schedule, updating pricing, or fine-tuning how something is set up. Your account manager is always a call or email away to help with changes.

Conclusion

The biggest barrier to switching isn't the process — it's the fear of the process. In reality, migrating from FareHarbor to BookingTerminal is straightforward: there's no contract holding you back, your data comes with you, and our team handles the heavy lifting.

Most operators are fully live within a few days — some within the same day they demo. We work on the timeline that is best for your business. And once you're set up, you're not on your own — your dedicated account manager stays with you long-term.

If you've been thinking about making the switch, the hardest part is already behind you. You've done the research. Now it's just a conversation.