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How to start your online Tour and Travel Startup Business?

How to start your online Tour and Travel Startup Business?

Published on Oct 23, 2018

Last updated: Mar 27, 2026

Tour and Travel industry is an evergreen industry which will not see any downfall. People love travelling and always want to explore the different places depending on their preferences. This industry, however, sometimes see less traffic. While on some specific seasons, its demand reach on its peak.

So, you never need to sit idle. Only you need to have some patience when there will be less peak season time.

But, during this time period even, you can reach out to your new travellers through your especially crafted tour packages.

What is the process of starting a new tour travel startup?

Let's continue to discussing the process of starting your new tour travel agency. Here, we'll call it a startup because it will add value to your business and since we're going to discuss some new ways rather than typical local travel agency model.

So, I believe you are serious about it having as your new plan for your source of income.

Please note that if you want to have it as your part-time business, you can also take it that way. But, in that way, you wouldn'the able to please your customers. Customers in this business want your attention and care.

Every business success depends heavily on its customers. If customers will remain happy, growth will start reaching into an automatic mode. I'll however try to write an article on this topic as well. Once, I'll be done, I'll add its link in the Useful Links section of this blog.

Sorry for adding little different content in between. Let's continue again..

First of all, you need to identify the tourist places you know about. Let's say you know about Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. So, you need to create itineraries surrounding different tracks on tourist places within these 3 states.

Note: Starting with what you know is the best approach. Otherwise you may be lost.

If you do not know much about Jargons I've used above for this industry, don't worry, I'll explain those in next section for your convenience.

Designing tour plans for specific tourist places will help you in attracting more customers. May be you will lose some customers although whose preference is out of these places. But don't worry. When you will add those new places in your catalogue, you will be able to get those as well by the word of mouth publicity from your existing customers.

Tie-up with Hotels and Restaurants

The next step should be to speak to some renowned and few low-budget hotels and restaurants. With low-budget, I'm not talking about cheap hotels. Customers want best service at affordable price with no negative impact on their reputation and security.

So, have some hotels and restaurants in your bucket list and design packages including those wherever applicable. Keeping mix of renowned and low-budgeted hotels in your packages can help you adjust your revenues in an efficient way. It all depends what your customers like and how much are they willing to spend.

Travel Insurance

It's a good idea to be in touch with a travel insurance agent of any 2-3 insurance companies. It will attract more customers and will also make you more preferred choice over other competitors.

Having insured tourist will also ensure you that you are having genuine people on the trip, not any criminal person. It will make an auto-verification of their real identity.

Such acts will make you a preferred travel agency in India or abroad. When I'll be writing on business ethics then you'll be able to better know the positive outcomes of these activities.

Lead Generation/Branding

Once you are ready with everything you need, let's proceed to generating leads or enquiries to grab new customers. Getting customers is the most important aspect of any business whether it is a startup or a well-established enterprise.

Without Sales, you cannot make revenue. And, without revenue, there is no point of doing a business.

So, to grab new customers, we'll be using technology. Let's start with your website.

Why do I need a website for my tour travel business?

You need a website to showcase your tour packages and their itineraries.

With an online portfolio, you will be able to grab customers from diverse locations. And, with an interactive website, showcasing you as a brand identity will boost your startup growth rate.

In addition, if I will be asked to design and develop this portal for you, then I'll also suggest you a mechanism to manage your entire business from your web application itself.

If you want to know further about it, you can personally submit your request for a one-on-one meeting. I am not going to promote anything about my full-stack development services here as other readers might dislike this.

So, few of the features you can ask a developer to code for you. These are:

Designing of tour packages
Managing/Tracking leads/enquiries
Send newsletters
Blog for sharing additional information for readers
Enable the account management for customers
For Customers:
- Manage their profile
- Track their trip
- Submit reviews about trip
- Manage their invoices
- Make online payment
- Submit request for any changes
- Pre-plan their future trip
- Share track/tour package with their friends

All these are just some features which you can ask your developer to develop for you.

However, your business model or process could different than what I just outlined. So, write down your business model and discuss with developer to craft a creative and innovative solution based on your preferences.

Your business success will depend on how efficiently you manage your business operations.

If you have any questions related to business operations or execution of your tour travel startup, you can ask me in comments.

Business Registration

After your business model, web portal, marketing plans get ready, the next step comes is the legally registration of your firm.

You can register your startup in either of the following types:

Sole Proprietorship
Partnership Firm
Limited Liability Company
One-Person Company
Private Limited Company
Public Limited Company

The sole proprietorship is the easiest and cheapest way to start with. Annual filing expenses and accounts management is quite easy in a sole proprietorship firm rather than those of limited companies or LLC firms.

If your plan is to reach out to VCs or angel investors for fund-raising then you should go for Private Limited Company.

There are so many pros and cons of these different types of business registration mechanisms which I am not going to discuss in this article.

About Deepak Jain

Deepak Jain is an AI Consultant and Leadership Coach with 14+ years in digital transformation and leadership. He works with founders, CXOs, and senior leaders to build AI-native organisations and leadership teams. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)® and the creator of the AI-Native Leadership Program.

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