Adventure Office

We went with this software because none of our trips, though routinely run on a daily or seasonal basis, are never one-size-fits-all so it was important to have the automation enough to allow people to place bookings online, but also remove all the automation so we could have more hands-on interaction with our clients after they placed a booking so that we could vet them and their ability to participate safely. This software helps us book and organize daily local full day and half day trips in Colorado as well as big mountain multi-week expeditions in Alaska and on all 7 continents, so that gives you a good idea of how robust and customizable the system is. I can run my Colorado program completely independently of the expedition business on the same platform, same database, totally side by side. We were able to set up the system to cater to the most intensive parts of our climbing programs and then set custom settings for the types of activities we run which require the least amount of hand-holding and let those bookings pile in! Support at AO has been totally phenomenal and helpful, and they understood that we were an outside the box organization for them, and they seemed to jump on the chance to use our needs as a tool to help them develop in new directions. If they can't make a feature request happen immediately, they are certainly open to putting the request into development when the busy season is past!

This system is not as simple to set up as the likes of Fare Harbor or other really nicely designed platforms, nor as aesthetically pleasing, but the ease of use was exactly what drove us away from Fare Harbor or similar. What is perhaps a con for some in this regard is a total plus for us. We needed customizable and comprehensive, and that's what we got with Adventure Office. I needed scheduling for my guides as well, which others couldn't provide. All of the functionality and ways to arrive at the same outcome in Adventure Office make it a lot to learn at first, but it makes the platform simply very good at what it does. There are a couple of things that the system does only moderately well, but those aspects will be developed into better modules I'm certain. Also, when first learning the system, it would be nice if support and the onboarding staff could start with helping new users and admin understand the overview of the various distribution channels (A nice feature), the possibility to link live to booking agents like Viator, and the overall structure of the system so that you understand what you're building when you build it. That would save some lengthy head scratching on the phone with support if I had picture in my head from the outset exactly what the information structure was (having a hard time describing this, but all I can say is I'm a visual learner and this system is very not visually intuitive and it takes a while to learn where everything is buried).

The reports. It is easier to stay on top of things .

Scheduling on a daily bases. Having to set up inventory every year seems a bit cumbersome.

I love that we can customize reservations, because we offer unique adventure experiences for people involved.

Only working in the back office makes it difficult to know what the experience is like for our customers in the front office and ease of use might be a bit compromised. It is also a complicated process to update and manage pay rates and to know what is seen from the front office.

I like the fact that customer correspondence stays organized in an easy way to locate. Once you learn the online booking flow, it is easy to use and make changes if necessary.

We don't use all the features that are available, so I have to tell my employees to just ignore a bunch of different options and focus on the ones that we use.