Bidding on your 'Company Profile' tour allows you to receive custom quote requests. Please ensure your company profile settings are accurate before bidding, since incorrect settings can lead to receiving expensive quote requests that are difficult to convert. We strongly advise scheduling a meeting with our team to verify your settings before you begin bidding.
What are custom quote requests?
Potential clients can request a custom quote from you. They will do this through your company profile page (not through your tour pages).
Pictured below is an example of a company profile page from which potential clients can request a custom quote.
When they click on the button, ‘Get a Free Quote’ they will see a calendar that shows them the available dates they could book.
If you want to limit the days that potential clients can book a custom tour, you need to change the availability. Then the calendar (pictured above) will reflect these changes.
When a potential client makes a selection on the calendar, they only select the tour's departure date. There is a separate space to choose the tour duration (1 to 15+ days).
As a result, you will be changing the availability of the starting dates of a tour.
How to update availability
You must navigate to and log in to your operator profile here. Next, click on ‘Account’ in the top right corner, then click on ‘Company Profile’. Several settings on this page will affect your custom tours
The countries you operate in
Navigate to and log in to your operator profile here. Next, click on ‘Account’ in the top right corner, then click on ‘Company Profile’.
In the ‘Jump to’ menu at the top of the screen, click on ‘Countries’. You’ll be taken to a section of your profile where you need to select which countries you offer tours in. It should look like this:
Click on the checkbox to the left of the country name to select it. It will then turn green and have a blue checkmark. Do this only for the countries in which you offer tours. If a country is not listed, click on the ‘+ Add other country’ button at the bottom left corner. You will then need to type in the name of the country and click ‘Add’.
It’s very important that you only check the countries in which you operate or have a trusted partner.
Private tours
Can you arrange custom tours for private travel groups of two people to all parks and destinations in a certain country? Even if the parks or destinations aren’t included in your standard tours? If this is possible, check each country in which you can do this.
If not (or if you only cater to groups larger than two people) you should not select the country.
If you do not provide this service for any country, please check the box ‘We don’t offer custom tours to all parks or destinations’ at the bottom left.
Accommodations
Do you accept bookings for individual accommodations? Can you book all accommodations in a certain country? Even if it isn’t part of your standard tours? If yes, please check the applicable countries by clicking on the checkbox.
On the SafariBookings website, you’ll be listed as a tour operator who, upon request, can book all accommodations in the countries you’ve selected.
If you do not provide this service for any country, please check the box ‘We can’t book all accommodations and/or don’t accept bookings for individual accommodations’ at the bottom left.
Price ranges of tours
In this section, you will need to state the rough price ranges of your custom tours per day.
- The ‘price range‘ is shown on your company profile page to indicate tour costs
- The ‘usual rate‘ is your most common rate for the tour types listed below and must be within your price range
- The ‘usual rate’ is not shown to clients. It is only used to estimate the booking value of quote requests received via your company profile.
- The ‘price range’ and ‘usual rate’ are per day and person (based on a travel party of two people)
- The ‘price range’ and ‘usual rate’ should include:
- Park fees and/or gorilla/chimp permits for nonresidents (if applicable)
- Accommodations and transportation during the tour
- A tour guide and wildlife-viewing activities (if applicable)
- All taxes/VAT, levies, charges (e.g. surcharges)
You will need to do this for the different types of tours you offer. They are namely camping tours, budget tours, mid-range tours, and luxury tours. Each tour type also has a price-range section for private and shared group tours.
You can select the currency you prefer by using the dropdown menu ‘Currency of the rates’. This is in US dollars (USD) by default. This currency will apply to all of the tour price ranges.
A private tour is organized exclusively for a client. It can be booked by a group of people, such as friends or family, but won’t be shared with strangers.
The price range consists of the lowest and highest rates that you charge for private tours. Rates must be per day and per person (based on a travel party of two people).
The usual rate is your most common rate for private tours. It must be within your price range, be per day and per person (based on a travel party of two people).
The usual rate is not shown to clients. It is only used to estimate the booking value of quote requests received via your company profile.
On a shared group tour, clients will join a group of other travelers.
The price range and usual rate are calculated in the same way as for a private tour.
If you do not offer a type of tour (private or group tours) you can select the checkbox at the bottom of each section. For example, in the image below, the checkbox ‘We don’t offer shared group tours that use mid-range accommodation’ is ticked. This will grey out the price range options.
Repeat this process for the remaining three tour types (Budget Tours, Camping Tours, and Luxury Tours).
Availability
You can now set date ranges for custom tours. The availability settings are for when someone requests a quote through the form on your company profile page (not through your tour pages).
The ‘Availability’ section of your profile looks like this:
Please keep in mind that you are indicating availability for start dates, as mentioned previously. There are four availability statuses.
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Available: This status is selected by default and should be used for start dates when it is (almost) certain that you’ll have availability for a group of seven or more people. Clients are able to request quotes for ‘available’ start dates. You are not allowed to decline these requests if it turns out that you haven’t got availability.
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Uncertain: This status should be selected for start dates when availability is uncertain. Clients are able to request quotes for ‘uncertain’ start dates and when it turns out that you haven’t got availability, you are allowed to decline these requests. The downside, however, is that we won’t show your tour (or will rank it lower) on start dates where we have sufficient ‘available’ tours.
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Not Available: This status should be used for start dates when the chance of being not available is substantially greater than being available. Clients won’t be able to request quotes for ‘not available’ start dates.
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Blocked: This status is automatically selected when a start date is blocked because you haven’t provided rates for this date, or the start date is blocked by the short-notice setting (see below). Clients won’t be able to request quotes for ‘blocked’ start dates.
If you want to change the availability status for a single day, double-click on that date and change the status.
If you want to select several days, click on the starting date and drag the mouse over the days you want to select. Click again to confirm your selection.
You will then see a pop-up menu where you can select between the statuses. You can leave a note if you wish. To confirm the changes, click on the red ‘Apply’ button.
Blocking quote requests
You can block quote requests from certain types of tourists and companies. Let’s take a look at what you can block.
Short notice quote requests
If a client wants a quote for a tour that would start the next day or even within the next month, you can select to block those types of requests. Short notice means something different to every tour operator and this will allow you to customize requests according to what suits you.
You can select the period (between 1 day and 6 months) by using the drop-down menu pictured below (default is set to 4 days).
Solo travelers
If you prefer all your bookings to be for two or more people, you can block requests from solo travelers. Please be aware that 16% of all quote requests are for solo travelers. By blocking these quote requests, you will miss out on this business.
Large groups
You may want to limit the size of a group of potential clients. You can do this by making a selection using the drop-down menu pictured below. Select between a minimum of two and a maximum of 30 people.
Please note: we charge a maximum of four people when calculating the costs of quote requests. Therefore, blocking groups larger than four people will have no impact on the costs.
Tour lengths
You can select which tour lengths suit you by using the menu below. You need to select a range. The default range is set between 4 and 15+ days.
Please note: we charge a maximum of seven days when calculating the costs of quote requests. Therefore, blocking tour lengths of more than seven days will have no impact on the costs.
Quote requests from travel agents
You can block quote requests from travel agents. Please note that this setting will be applied to both your company profile and your tours.
Tour types
In your operator profile, there is a field named ‘Tour Types’. This gives clients an idea of the tours you specialize in. See the image below.
For this reason, you need to select an option from the list pictured below (on your operator profile) that best describes your most popular tour type.
Please read all options before making your selection. If more than one option applies, you should select the one that best represents all of your tours.
If none of the options apply to you, please send an email to contact@safaribookings.com and tell us why. We’ll consider adding a new option. For now, we recommend you select the best available option so that you can continue.
Luxury level
Selecting a luxury level can help you show up in the correct set of search results for potential clients. In this section please select the luxury level that is most applicable to the majority of the tours you sell.
Payment per quote request
To advertise your company for custom tours on the SafariBookings platform, you need to pay for the quote requests that you receive through SafariBookings. The default percentage is 0%, which means that your company profile is not advertised on SafariBookings. Your tours are still advertised even with this setting on 0%!
You pay SafariBookings a percentage of the total booking value of the quote request. When offering payment, the minimum percentage is 1% and the maximum is 2.5%. A higher percentage means that your tours will get more exposure on the SafariBookings website.
To change this percentage (and advertise more aggressively but also spend more money to do so), use the drop-down menu and select a higher value. Read more about the payment per quote request system.
Please keep in mind that the payment per quote request settings mentioned above are only applied to custom quote requests that are received from clients requesting quotes from your company profile - NOT the tours you have uploaded to SafariBookings. If you are unsure whether you want to accept custom quote requests, we usually recommend keeping this percentage at 0% until you are sure you would like to receive custom inquiries.