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Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide is a specialist pilgrim travel agency. The business has been using WeTravel for a couple of years to help optimize its payment processing and backend administrative tasks.
We recently caught up with Michael L. LaBaw, the founder of Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide, to see just how much WeTravel has helped their business grow.
About Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide
Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide is a travel company dedicated to organizing pilgrim tours. The company is run by a husband and wife duo and was born from their passion for travel and an urge to offer life-changing travel experiences.
After starting a more general travel agency, the founders soon realized they wanted to create a division focused on something a little different. They took their first pilgrimage to Israel where they became inspired. Thus decided to focus on pilgrimages in the travel industry.
Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide was formed as a subsidiary of the main travel agency to focus on these pilgrimage tours to Israel. At first, it was just pilgrimage tours to Israel, but now the company operates globally. The company is expanding to many different countries and offering a wider range of pilgrimage experiences around the world.
Why WeTravel?
The challenge
What were some of the most challenging things about running a travel company in terms of payment collection?
When we started Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide, we had no systems in place at all for payment collection. We started with a manual system and it was incredibly clunky. It got the job done but it became overwhelming when we had multiple tours going on.
This caused a lot of administrative work that took up a lot of our time. We were handling all of the back-end accounting and payment systems manually, which was a challenge for a company run by only three people.
The solution
How did you come across WeTravel?
We were looking for a solution that didn’t solely focus on payments, but rather on the backend administrative tasks, like keeping track of clients, as well as on the front end to help with promoting each tour.
We could tell straight away that WeTravel was the right solution given the wide array of features and offerings.
Due to the ramifications of COVID-19, we had to postpone and then replan all of our tours. This meant we had multiple areas to cover (and we were working manually). WeTravel helped us rebuild all of the tours far more efficiently.
How was the adoption process of WeTravel for you and your customers?
I could tell before we even started that WeTravel was going to hit the nail on the head, and indeed the solution helped us right across the board from the get-go.
WeTravel made building itineraries and creating brochures easier, the platform also helped us cut out redundant time-consuming work, and streamlined our manual processes.
We were also able to build things with WeTravel that we didn't have available on our website before (like offering add-ons to customers).
The customer interface works extremely well. I was thrilled with how the backend operates and how easy it is to extract information from our bookkeeping system. The payment system is also amazing with all of the different payment options on offer.
Using WeTravel made payments easier for customers, as well as making payments easier for us to manage. All the email alerts that are transmitted from the platform are also key for more effortless business admin.
The impact
How do you think your business has improved with WeTravel?
We’re tremendously more efficient since using WeTravel and the platform allows us to promote our business much better. For example, we can simply send a URL to a prospective client and they can go into one of our existing tours and see exactly how it is all set up.
They can easily look at the itinerary and see how we operate. A lot of our competitors do not have this functionality and use systems that are outdated and pretty clunky.
WeTravel is very efficient and shows our customers exactly who we are and what we do. WeTravel also allows us to keep track of all the details and makes us more efficient on both the front end and the back end.
We can easily monitor all backend details and payment information through the platform. It has cut out work hours on the back end compared to dealing with a manual system.
How WeTravel Became Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide’s Secret To Successful Booking & Payment Management
Since using WeTravel, Pilgrimage Tours Worldwide has seen a significant increase in efficiency while eliminating many time-consuming and unnecessary manual processes. The solution has been ideal for the small three-person business, as it allows them to get a lot more done with a lot less effort.
Interested in trying WeTravel for your travel business? Book a demo to see how the platform can help you optimize your operations and improve your customers’ experiences.
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