Skip to content
Free AI visibility check: does your brand show up in ChatGPT and Gemini answers?Apply →

Get a proposal

Travel and tourism marketing agency for tour operators, DMCs and travel agencies

Travellers search for the tour, not the company. Corporate buyers send an RFP. We plan when to advertise in each source market, build the pages each buyer needs, and measure what each inquiry costs and whether it turns into a booking or a signed programme.

  • A ferry crossing the Bosphorus in front of the Istanbul skylineTour operatorsGeorgii Eletskikh · Unsplash
  • Hands talking over a laptop and a tablet at a meeting tableDMCs, incentives and MICENo Revisions · Unsplash
  • An aircraft wing over a city at sunset, seen through the windowTravel agenciesEva Darron · Unsplash
By Zehra Adaş · Reviewed by Yunus Meran · Updated: 20 October 2026 · Sources (7)
View as Markdown

Signature tool for tourism · live

Every source market has its own season and its own booking window

In tourism, the timing of your ads follows the booking date, not the travel date. A German group travelling in July may choose its tour months ahead; a traveller from a nearby market may pick the same tour a few weeks before. A corporate incentive programme reaches the proposal stage much earlier still. If the budget opens in the travel month, the decision has already been made.

About half of Türkiye's foreign visitors arrive between June and September: in 2025 those four months took 49.2% of arrivals, while January and February took 4.1% each. KAYNAK: Ministry of Culture and Tourism border statistics, 2025 DOĞRULANACAK: the Ministry's 2025 annual bulletin This curve is for the country as a whole; your markets may follow a different one. For each source market, the planner below takes your travel months, the average booking window from your own booking data, your spend, and your inquiry and booking counts. It then shows which month to start advertising in each market, your cost per inquiry and per booking, and the weakest step of the sales funnel. The sample values are examples; enter your own data.

Season demand planner and cost per booking

gross margin · set-up time
  • Germany B2Cads · from early Marchtravel Jun–Sep
  • United Kingdom B2Cads · from mid-Januarytravel Apr–Oct
  • Corporate (incentive) B2Bads · from mid-Februarytravel Sep–Nov
set-up (14 days) booking period: ads on travel months
Türkiye overall, foreign visitors by month in 2025 (context)DOĞRULANACAK: Ministry of Culture and Tourism 2025 bulletin
  1. 4.1%January
  2. 4.1%February
  3. 4.4%March
  4. 7.4%April
  5. 9.5%May
  6. 10.9%June
  7. 13.5%July
  8. 13.2%August
  9. 11.5%September
  10. 10.8%October
  11. 5.3%November
  12. 5.2%December

Markets

TypeTravel months
Travel months, Germany: Jun–Sep
Travel months, Germany
TypeTravel months
Travel months, United Kingdom: Apr–Oct
Travel months, United Kingdom
TypeTravel months
Travel months, Corporate (incentive): Sep–Nov
Travel months, Corporate (incentive)

Up to 8 markets · the booking window has no default: enter the average number of days between booking date and travel date from your own data

Türkiye overall: 49.2% of foreign visitors in 2025 arrived between June and September (Ministry of Culture and Tourism). Your market curve may differ.

Enter the booking window from your own data: the average number of days between booking date and travel date. The national arrivals curve is context, not your market's curve. The sample values are not sector averages. The calculation runs in your browser; no data is stored.

mid-January

first market to start · United Kingdom
travel starts in April, booking window 60 days

₺580

per inquiry (total)

₺6,633

per booking

3.9

gross-profit ROAS

Start advertising for the United Kingdom in mid-January: travel starts in April, your average booking window is 60 days and set-up takes 14 days.

In Germany, inquiries are expensive (₺500 per inquiry), but conversion to sales is good (10.0%). The weak step is the cost of inquiries: narrow the keywords and the targeting.In the United Kingdom, inquiries are cheap (₺400 per inquiry, average ₺455), but only 7.0% of them turn into bookings (average 8.6%). The weak step is not the ads but the offer and the follow-up: look at response time, price clarity and WhatsApp follow-up.

In the Corporate (incentive) market, the ad cost of one won deal is ₺50,000; the break-even amount is ₺300,000. low data Fewer than 5 sales: the result shows a direction, not a verdict.

Market table

Market table
MarketStartPer inquiryConversionPer bookingRevenueROASGross-profit ROASBreak-even per booking
Germany4 March50010.0%5,0005,400,00018.03.618,000
United Kingdom17 January4007.0%5,7142,800,00014.02.816,000
Corporate (incentive)low data19 February7,50015.0%50,0004,500,00030.06.0300,000
Total—5808.75%6,63312,700,00019.53.9—

Start = the first day of the first travel month − booking window − set-up. B2B rows are compared only with B2B rows.

ROAS calculator

Definition

What does a travel and tourism marketing agency do?

A travel and tourism marketing agency helps tour operators, destination management companies (DMCs) and travel agencies sell their tours and programmes online: Google Ads on destination and tour searches, Meta and YouTube campaigns that create demand, SEO in each market's language, proposal pages for corporate buyers, and tracking from the first inquiry to the booking.

Tour operator
B2C
DMC
B2B and B2C
Inbound / outbound agency
TÜRSAB licence
Incentive and MICE
proposal

If you run a hotel or resort: hotel marketing agency.

Hands talking over a laptop and a tablet at a meeting table

Challenges

Why tour and travel companies find growth hard

A tour operator or DMC sells to individual travellers and to organisations. The traveller compares the tour, checks the price and books within days, or asks on WhatsApp. The organisation (a company planning an incentive trip, an association organising a congress, a partner agency abroad) sends an RFP, and the deal closes weeks later by phone and email. The two buyers search with different words, decide on different timelines and need different tracking; one campaign and one contact form serve neither well.

Every source market has its own holidays, school breaks and booking habits. A budget spread evenly across the year pays for clicks in one market after people have decided, and in another before anyone is searching. The plan has to run backwards from the travel month, by booking window.

Most tourism sales close in WhatsApp, on the phone, by email or in a booking system, not in a website checkout. Marketplace sales (GetYourGuide, Viator) show up in yet another dashboard. If those sales are never sent back to the ad accounts, Google and Meta optimise for form fills and clicks, and you can't see which market or which tour makes money.

01 · One company, two very different buyers.
02 · Demand moves by market and by month.
03 · The sale happens where the ad platform can't see it.

Channel plan

A channel plan for tour operators and DMCs

ChannelWhat it doesWhenBuyerHow it's measured
Google Search (destination × tour type)Shows your tour page for searches like "Cappadocia balloon ride" or "Ephesus day tour"In each market's booking windowTravellerInquiries, bookings, cost per booking
Google Search (brand)Brings people searching your name to your own siteAll yearBothInquiries and sales from brand search
Google Things to doShows tours and activities in Google's experiences results; free listings or pay-per-click adsAll yearTravellerClicks, bookings
Meta (Instagram, Facebook)Inspiration, destination content, remarketing to site visitorsBefore and during the booking windowTravellerInquiries, WhatsApp conversations, bookings
YouTubeShows the tour and the destination on videoBefore the booking windowBothViews, then brand searches and inquiries
SEO in each market's languageLasting visibility for destination, tour and programme pagesOngoing; results take monthsBothOrganic inquiries by language and country
LinkedIn and B2B searchReaches corporate buyers looking for incentive, congress and group programmesTheir planning periodOrganisationRFPs, won proposals
Marketplaces (GetYourGuide, Viator)Reach travellers you can't reach aloneAll yearTravellerPlatform reports, net revenue after commission
Email (past guests, partner agencies)Repeat business, next season's programmesBefore the seasonBothRepeat bookings, partner inquiries

Site structure

Site structure for travel SEO: destination × tour type × language

Travellers search for the tour, not the company: a destination plus a tour type ("culture tour", "day trip", "boat tour"). So each important destination and tour type needs its own page: the itinerary, duration, what's included, the meeting point, the cancellation terms, the total price and a booking or inquiry button. Each page is written in the language of the market it targets, and the language versions are linked with hreflang. Corporate buyers get their own section: incentive programmes, congress and meeting services, group capacity, past programmes and an RFP form. The same site then gives each buyer its own path. → International SEO · What is hreflang?

Things to do

Google Things to do and marketplaces

Google shows tours and activities in an experiences section of its results. Operators can list their products for free or advertise, and pay per click for ads. For a single operator, Google recommends connecting through a connectivity provider (a booking system); a direct integration needs Google's approval and a content licence agreement. We check before set-up that your booking system supports the connection.

Marketplaces such as GetYourGuide and Viator put your tours in front of travellers you could not reach alone, and take a commission per sale. GetYourGuide says it charges commission only on completed bookings, that the rate varies by country of operation, and that the exact rate is shared after sign-up. Viator's rate is set in the supplier agreement. The goal is not to leave the marketplaces; it is to see the net revenue of each channel, after commission or after ad spend, side by side.

Meta and YouTube

Meta and YouTube: inspiration and remarketing

A tour decision often starts with a photo or a video. On Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, content about the destination, the guides, the group and the experience creates demand; travellers who viewed a tour page but did not inquire see that same tour again. Many inquiries arrive on WhatsApp, and if the start and the outcome of each conversation are not tracked, Meta cannot learn what drives sales. → Meta ads agency · YouTube ads agency · What is Meta Conversions API?

B2B

B2B: incentive travel, MICE and partner agencies

Corporate buyers plan programmes months ahead and ask several DMCs for proposals. They find a DMC through service pages that show up for what they search ("incentive travel programme", "congress organisation", "group tour"), past programmes, LinkedIn content shown to the right roles and an RFP form that gets a fast reply. The form asks for the number of participants, the date range, the cities and the budget range, so your sales team can qualify the request on day one. Partner agencies abroad get their own page, a product catalogue and a named contact. → LinkedIn ads agency · B2B SEO · CRM consulting

What we do

What we do: our service package for travel and tourism

Process

How we work

  1. 01

    Market and season map

    From two seasons of booking and inquiry data, your source markets, travel months and average booking window per market.

  2. 02

    Tracking setup

    Forms, WhatsApp, phone and booking system tracked; closed sales in the CRM sent back to Google Ads and Meta.

  3. 03

    Pages

    Destination and tour pages, corporate proposal pages, language versions.

  4. 04

    Campaign calendar

    A start month, budget and channels for each market; a separate plan for corporate buyers.

  5. 05

    Monthly review

    Inquiries, bookings, revenue and cost by market and tour; next month's budget split.

KPIs

What we measure

  • Cost per inquiry

    Ad spend ÷ form, WhatsApp, phone and email inquiries (by market).

  • Inquiry-to-booking rate

    Inquiries that became bookings ÷ all inquiries.

  • Cost per booking

    Ad spend ÷ bookings (won proposals for B2B).

  • ROAS

    Booking revenue ÷ ad spend.

  • Gross-profit ROAS

    Gross profit of bookings ÷ ad spend; better for decisions than revenue ROAS, because tour costs are high.

  • Proposal win rate (B2B)

    Won proposals ÷ proposals sent.

  • Net revenue by channel

    Revenue left after marketplace commission or ad spend.

How do you track RFPs and WhatsApp sales? When an inquiry arrives, the ad click ID (the GCLID for Google) is saved in the CRM with the form or WhatsApp record. When the sale closes, that ID and the sale value go to Google Ads as an offline conversion; Meta gets the same information through the Conversions API. Campaigns then aim for sales, not form fills. Corporate deals can take months, so the conversion window is checked at set-up. Consent rules for visitors from Europe reduce the tracking signal; the report shows that gap separately. → Google Ads offline conversion tracking · Offline conversion · WhatsApp conversion tracking · Server-side tracking

Rules

If you sell in Türkiye: rules that shape your ads

Travel agencies in Türkiye must show their licence number (from the Ministry's operating licence) and their registered name on the opening page of every online sales channel and at the foot of other pages. They must notify the Ministry and TÜRSAB of the online channels they sell through. Agency products may not be sold on e-commerce sites that sell other goods, but agencies may advertise and list there. The licence requirement and TÜRSAB membership rest on Law no. 1618. Since 2024, agencies that market accommodation must check and show the property's licence number.

In ads, the price must be the total sale price including all taxes, and anything not included must be stated clearly. Discount ads give start and end dates, and the advertiser must be able to prove the earlier price. Pre-contract information for package tours is regulated separately. Commercial email and SMS to past guests follow Law no. 6563 and the İYS register; data on travellers in Europe falls under the GDPR. Brand terms on Google follow Google Ads policies; Things to do listings follow Google's partner terms. Other markets have their own rules; your legal adviser sets the legal frame.

Who this is not for

  • Companies that sell their whole allocation through partner agencies and never sell to travellers or organisations directly: there is nothing for a campaign to sell.
  • Companies that don't log inquiries, with WhatsApp and phone sales recorded nowhere: logging comes first, otherwise no one can see which market brings sales.
  • Tour operators who sell to travellers but won't show a price on the site and won't change their quote process: travellers who can't see a price look for the tour elsewhere.

Work in the sector

Our work in travel and tourism

  • Website and SEO/AEO project for a DMC; not an advertising or sales result

    MEP

    Corporate site on Webflow with an SEO- and AEO-ready structure; published in the case: 97 performance score, 10+ CMS collections.

    Read the case

  • New website for a DMC

    Marveltour

    A DMC working with groups travelling to Türkiye; we design and build its site on Webflow. No results shown.

Travel and tourism marketing FAQ: common questions

  • Which companies does a travel and tourism marketing agency work with?

    Tour operators, destination management companies (DMCs), inbound and outbound travel agencies, and companies that organise incentive trips or congresses. Hotels and resorts, see our hotel page; clinics and companies that bring in patients, see our health tourism page.

  • What is a destination management company, and how is it different from a tour operator?

    A DMC brings together a destination's hotels, transfers, guides, venues and activities and runs the programme on the ground, mostly for agencies and organisations abroad. A tour operator packages those services into tours and sells them to travellers or agencies. Many companies do both.

  • What is MICE tourism, and what is incentive travel?

    MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (or events). Incentive travel is a trip a company organises to reward its staff or dealers. The buyer is an organisation, and the sale closes with a proposal after a process that can take months.

  • When should a tour operator start advertising?

    Work backwards from the travel month, using your booking window. Your average booking window comes from your own data: the days between booking date and travel date. Ads start that many days before the travel season begins, plus time for the campaign to learn. The planner above works this out for each market.

  • Which channels bring tour bookings?

    For travellers, Google Ads on destination and tour-type searches, Google Things to do, Meta and YouTube for inspiration and remarketing, SEO in each market's language and marketplaces. For organisations, service pages, LinkedIn and an RFP form that gets a fast reply. You see which channel brings sales once the sales are sent back to the ad accounts.

  • Should I be a GetYourGuide or Viator supplier?

    Marketplaces reach travellers you can't reach alone and charge commission per sale. GetYourGuide says it takes commission only on completed bookings and that the rate varies by country. Decide by comparing the net revenue of a marketplace sale after commission with the net revenue of a direct sale after ad spend.

  • What is Google Things to do?

    It is the part of Google's results that shows tours, activities and attractions. Operators can list for free or run ads they pay for per click. For a single operator, Google recommends connecting through a connectivity provider, usually your booking system.

  • How do I know whether corporate RFPs turn into revenue?

    When the inquiry arrives, the ad click ID is saved in the CRM. When the proposal is won, that ID and the deal value go to Google Ads as an offline conversion. The report shows inquiries, proposals sent, proposals won and cost by market and campaign.

  • Must a travel agency in Türkiye show its licence number online?

    Under Türkiye's Travel Agencies Regulation, the licence number and the agency's registered name go on the opening page of every online sales channel and at the foot of other pages, and the online channels are notified to the Ministry and TÜRSAB. For the wording of the ads themselves, ask your legal adviser.

  • How should a tour price appear in an ad?

    In Türkiye, the price in an ad must be the total sale price including all taxes; any entry fee, transfer or extra not included is stated clearly. Discount ads give start and end dates. The price in the ad and on the tour page must match.

  • Which language should I use to reach travellers abroad?

    Each source market's own language. Tour pages are written in it, campaigns target that country and language, and tracking is split by market. Each market's cost per inquiry and per booking then shows separately, and the budget moves between markets on data.

  • What is the difference between hotel marketing and tour marketing?

    A hotel sells room nights; its topics are OTA commission, Google's hotel ads and the booking engine. A tour company sells programmes and experiences to two buyers, travellers and organisations, and most sales close by proposal or message. If you're marketing a hotel, our hotel page fits better.

Related resources

Worth reading and trying

BlogGoogle Ads offline conversion tracking

Sources

  1. Regulation amending the Travel Agencies Regulation, Official Gazette 14.01.2021, no. 31364
  2. Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices, Official Gazette 10.01.2015, no. 29232
  3. Google Ads Help, Introducing Things to do on Google
  4. GetYourGuide Supply, How much does GetYourGuide charge
  5. Google Ads Help, offline conversion import
  6. Ministry of Culture and Tourism, border statistics
  7. Roicool, MEP case study
Clutch5.08 reviews (5.0 out of 5) (opens in a new tab)

Let's see which market sells, when, and at what cost.

Tell us your source markets, your season calendar and how inquiries reach you; we'll send a roadmap covering pages, campaigns and tracking.

Free strategy call