Best Practices for Creating Tour Booking and Reservation Confirmation Emails

The Flybook has recently released a new Email Template feature. This has us wondering, how can YOU leverage the 65% open rate of confirmation emails to help you grow, educate, upsell, or inspire the already captured customer.

In this post, you will learn about the best practices for you to take advantage of your confirmation emails.

Learn about how the Flybook is setting you up for success with confirmation emails through our updated email template setup.

In this post, you will learn about the best practices for you to take advantage of your confirmation emails.

Key Takeaways

• Why Are Confirmations Valuable To Your Business?
• How an Online Tour Booking System Supports Confirmation Emails 
• Best practices for designing confirmation emails
  • Confirm the purchase
  • Say thank you
  • Provide a next-step
  • Use images
  • Provide an add-on/promotion
  • Include contact information
• Where To Start With a Reservation Confirmation Email?

Why Are Confirmations Valuable To Your Business?

Your customers have a problem. They are receiving hundreds of emails daily. Your marketing emails and even subsequent reminders are likely being lost in the continuous ping of every other email showing up for their attention.

However, confirmation emails do not suffer that same fate. Not only are confirmation emails among the highest opened they also have one of the highest click-through rates at roughly 15%.

In a distracted world, having these types of metrics means you have a captured audience. And, given they have already purchased something from you (hence receiving the confirmation email) you already have a level of trust. This is why being intentional and strategic about what is included in your confirmation email is so important.

A couple of other reasons why confirmation emails should be valuable to YOU (and worth doing well):

1. Meeting an Expectation: Regardless of the purchase amount, people expect a confirmation email. So you can do more with something they are expecting to receive.
2. Offering a Reference: Confirmation emails become the reference for contact and details and thus are opened multiple times, providing your customer with an easy place to find the information they need.
3. Building Trust: A confirmation email should build on the trust you’ve earned that has led to a purchase decision. A well-crafted confirmation email should encourage the contact to read future outreach from your business. 

How an Online Tour Booking System Supports Confirmation Emails 

Creating effective confirmation emails manually can quickly become difficult to keep up with as your business grows. An online tour booking system helps automate the process while ensuring customers receive consistent, accurate, and timely information after every booking.

Instead of sending one-size-fits-all emails, modern booking software allows operators to customize confirmation emails based on the activity, rental, package, or experience purchased. This helps create a smoother customer experience while reducing the amount of manual follow-up required from your staff.

For tour operators and activity businesses, an online booking system for small business operations can also support:

• Automated booking confirmations and reservation updates
• Custom email templates for different tour types or locations
• Waiver, payment, or pre-arrival reminder emails
• Upsells for add-ons, upgrades, merchandise, or photo packages
• Personalized guest communication before and after arrival
• Mobile-friendly confirmation emails guests can reference on the go

This type of automation is especially valuable during busy seasons when teams are managing a high volume of reservations and guest communication. Instead of relying on manual emails or inconsistent messaging, an online tour booking system helps ensure every guest receives the right information at the right time.

What should an online tour booking system include in confirmation emails?

A strong online tour booking system should include automated confirmation emails with essential booking details, contact information, waiver links, next steps, and optional upsell opportunities. The goal is to provide guests with a clear reference point while reducing manual communication for your team.

Can an online booking system automate reservation confirmation emails?

Yes. Most modern reservation systems allow operators to automate booking confirmations, reminders, payment requests, and pre-arrival communication. Automation helps improve consistency while saving time during busy booking periods.

Best Practices for Confirmation Emails

Let's remember, the confirmation email has a singular priority purpose: to confirm a purchase. Knowing this, it's obvious that you will need to include information about what the customer has bought.

But how much information is useful? When is too much just overwhelming?

Below are some recommended best practices for creating your confirmation email:

1. CONFIRM THE PURCHASE

Customers will use the confirmation email as a reference for everything they purchased. Asking them to save or flag this email is also a great way to keep the information relevant and useful. Sharing the essential details will make sure the customer is aware of what is required of them.

This is where sometimes, less is more. The essentials for you may seem like every detail of the itinerary however for the customer keeping this to the bare minimum will ensure they remember and can be easily reminded by re-reviewing the confirmation.

Share things like:

1. Time
2. Place
3. General expectation
4. Receipt

1 Sharing some details is useful but stay away from writing paragraphs of information. If you have more information to share offer an attachment or share details in the reminders so the most important info does not get lost.

Remember to keep it simple!

Sharing everything your guest needs to know in the confirmation can be tempting. However, even though most people are opening this email, you want to keep them engaged.

Include only the essential information and whatever next steps that are most important for them to do for you.

2. SAY THANK YOU

 A confirmation email is a place for you to build rapport. So, regardless of the purchase amount, thanking the customer for choosing you will show that you value their business.

1 Saying thank you can happen in multiple ways 

2 Show who you are as a brand in the words you choose. "Thank you" does not have to be the focused text as long as the feeling is conveyed.

3. PROVIDE A NEXT STEP

Unlike an upsell (although this is also on the list of recommended best practices and covered in #5), providing direction on what they can expect next keeps them engaged and allows you to capture all required information prior to their arrival.

The Flybook online tour booking system prioritizes conversions in the website reservation flow. This means the customer will be asked to provide a minimal amount of information prior to payment in order to create ease of paying/converting. Because of this, there is still information that needs to be collected post-payment but the first step, the sale, is set.

Here are a few "Nest Steps" examples:

4. USE IMAGES TO INSTILL MEMORY

According to BrainRules visualizing information commits details to memory 6x higher than reading text.

Creating booking confirmation emails that are more visual in nature can help reinforce the confirmation as the go-to resource for reference or contact. Provide images that create brand recognition or promote an action you want from your customer.

Resources say adding images can assist with the following:

• They improve your brand recognition and consistency since recipients can easily identify your brand and quickly scan purchase-related information.
• Consequently, branded order confirmations tend to stick in the memory for a longer time of period.

In practice, this means that customers are using order receipts as a reference point for future email engagement.

Here are a couple of key things to think about when including images:

1. Is this "on brand" — meaning, does this image bring the customer back to who we are?
2. Does this image create a useful reminder?
3. Does having this image still keep the sentiment of being simple and useful?

One of the first and highest-priority images to include is your logo. This will keep your customers recognizing who you are.

1 The logo is the first image seen. Unlike having a title that states your business name, a logo will create brand recognition.
The image of the kayaks also includes the logo to reaffirm the brand.

2 Showing images of what the guest will see and using the image they clicked on through the website reaffirms brand recognition. Including the logo will keep you as the focus if they choose to share the photo.

5. PROVIDE AN UPSELL, ADD-ON, OR PROMOTION

With a 65% open rate and up to 15% click-through rate, offering your already won customer other ways to purchase from you becomes essential.

Here are a few ideas on what to offer:

• Products: Do you have hats, water bottles, sunglass, or other products that you sell that are great for memorabilia or essential for the activity, rental, or tour that they are doing with you? Even if shipping is something you do not offer you can provide them an opportunity to add the product to their reservation to be picked up on-site.
  
  
• Photos: Outdoor experiences are becoming a highly desired way to spend family vacations. Give the gift of memory by offering pre-ordered photos. The Flybook integrates with Fotaflo and PicThrive, two photo solutions that you could offer for the purchase or complimentary to your customers.
  
  
• A Cause: Patagonia certainly isn't the first business to prioritize a cause but they have helped create the awareness that giving back is good. Do you have a cause that you promote or give time or money to? Provide a way for your customers to help in your cause either by donations or by sharing more details for them to learn.
  
  
• Promotion: Giving customers a benefit through a discount or other promotional item provides them with an incentive to look to you for other activities to enjoy while in your area. It also allows them to see what else may be available. This could look like a percentage (%) discount code or a buy-one-get-one deal for a rental, product, package, or other offerings you may have.
  
  
• Gifts: If you provided a great service, your customer may want to share the experience. Offer gifting options (like gift cards or certificates) that your customer could get for loved ones during the holidays.  

6. INCLUDE THE BEST CONTACT OR RESOURCE INFO

The reservation confirmation email may become the primary resource for your customer to refer back to. This means they tend to "star" or save this email so they can return for details, questions, and contact information.

Make sure to provide clear and visible contact info so that if your customer has a question they can get help quickly. This small action provides a perceived level of service that can help you stand out.

Sharing contact and resource information can be done in the following ways:

• Include the location, phone number, and email in the footer of all emails.
• Use a section of the email both at the top and bottom to share contact info.
• Provide a map or google map link with directions.

Use visual icons to display contact info (image of a phone, website, waypoint). 

1 Include a map image and a google maps link for ease of communication. This is especially useful if you have a hard-to-find/spot location.

2 An optional caption for the image that will be added to the gallery. Enter any descriptive text for this image that you would like visitors to be able to read.

3 An optional caption for the image that will be added to the gallery. Enter any descriptive text for this image that you would like visitors to be able to read.

4 An optional caption for the image that will be added to the gallery. Enter any descriptive text for this image that you would like visitors to be able to read.

5 An optional caption for the image that will be added to the gallery. Enter any descriptive text for this image that you would like visitors to be able to read.

Where To Start With a Reservation Confirmation Email

If you are wondering if making these updates is worth the time, the answer is yes. According to @chamaileon, 50% of people make a purchase from marketing emails at least once per month. By updating your booking confirmation email to be a go-to resource for additional purchase items, information about their trip, or contact details for making adjustments to their reservation you are opening yourself up to:

1. Increase revenue opportunities
2. To be perceived as a valuable resource for information
3. Representing yourself as a professional

Many operators use their online tour booking system to automate confirmation emails, reminders, waivers, and pre-arrival communication so guests always know what to expect. Begin by reviewing your current reservation confirmation emails and incorporating as many of the best practices as possible.

Don't have a confirmation email after someone books with you? Flybook can help you build a template and start using one today.

A useful and efficient booking confirmation email helps you stand out to your already-won customers, so they remember who you are. Remember to keep the information simple and make adjustments, trying different tactics to see what works.

Additional Resources:

Order Confirmations

Confirmation Emails Ultimate Guide

Looking for an online tour booking system that helps automate guest communication and confirmation emails?