How to Price Your Best In Travel Group Trip

So, you’ve created your perfect Best In Travel group trip to an amazing destination! The next step is something that can cause a lot stress for hosts, and that is working out how to price your group trip so that you can convert your audience’s interest into bookings.

Setting the right price for your trip is crucial to ensuring it’s both attractive to travellers, and aligns with your goals for how much you want to earn from it as host. Let’s take a look at some of the key points to think about when coming up with that final price tag and getting ready for a successful trip launch.

1. How Much Does the Trip Cost to Run?

We will provide you with a cost breakdown of what it costs to run your trip, based on different guest numbers. This pricing will always include you as host (and any co-hosts) built in for free.

The cost of a trip can vary greatly depending on a number of factors:

• The destination (for example SE Asia vs Europe)
• The length of the trip
• Inclusions (activities, meals etc)
• Level of accommodation (hostel vs 5 star hotel)

If the initial cost price of your trip is coming back higher than you expected, we might want to look at ways to lower it before going any further.

2. Cover Your Costs

The trip cost breakdown will include hosts attending the “trip” for free, but it won’t include things like flights and additional expenses you might incur whilst on the trip (like meals that aren’t included in the itinerary etc).

So first, take these expenses into account. What will it COST you to host this trip?

3. Add Your Margin

How much profit do you want to make from your trip? Are you happy just to cover your travel costs so that you are essentially travelling for free, or are you looking to earn money?

The main goal is to get your first few trips up and running successfully, and you can build your brand from there. So, we strongly advise new hosts to be conservative with their profit expectations for the first few trips.

Some of the key factors that you should think about when considering what margin to add are:

• What are your travel costs (including time away from work)?
• Are you offering any extra value-adds as host, like content creation workshops/sessions, or classes that you are facilitating?
• Is the trip already expensive?
• Are there other similar trips out there to compare the final price to?

We can send you a calculator that will allow you to adjust the trip sale price to see how it affects your potential profit. You can also use this to determine what the minimum number of guests required are to make the trip viable.

4. Determine Minimum Guest Numbers

For some trips, it will be very clear how many guests are required for the trip to be viable. In the vast majority of trips though, it will become viable at the guest number where you see an estimated profit you are happy with.

When pricing your trip, it’s important to strike a balance between required guest numbers and trip cost. Lower price means you will likely need more guests, but is the price low enough to encourage those extra guests? Or are you better off pricing slightly higher so that you can make the trip viable with lower guests numbers?

5. Does Your Trip Price Fit With Your Audience Budget?

One of the best ways to find out whether or not you are in the right price ballpark for your audience is to simply ask them! Once you have arrived at the trip price you think works best, ask a few trusted people (or people that have indicated interested) what their thoughts are.

If you want, you can also get an idea of your rough audience budget early on in the process. We can set you up with a survey link (which can also be used to determine where your audience most wants to travel if you aren’t sure) – and include a question about budget range. When planning your trip, it’s also important to consider the cost of getting to the destination for your audience. For example, if your audience is in the USA and you want to organise a trip to Bali, the trip itself may be cheap but the cost of getting there is going to be more expensive.

If you go out with expressions of interest early, you can also give your audience soft updates as you go, including letting them know roughly where the price is coming in at. Tip: Aim to come in with a price close to or below what your audience is expecting!

6. Discount Codes

Discount codes are a great way to incentivise your audience to book early. We highly recommend building in scope to include discount codes, and you can then offer these as a bonus for those who sign up for your trip when you go out with your expression of interest campaign.

7. Back Your Pricing with Promotion

This is important. Get ready to promote the value of your trip to your audience – it’s a unique opportunity for them to travel with you!

And equally as important, your guests only need to put down a 25% deposit to confirm their spot. The rest is paid in instalments (usually 2 instalments, 90 and 60 days before the trip). Your guests can pay off their own instalments amounts in the meantime as they wish.

Summary

This is the key info on how to price your trip, but it isn’t an exact science, and every trip is different. Remember, we are here to give you advice and help you to come up with the solution that works best for you and your trip. Our goal is for your trip to be as successful as possible. Let’s go!