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Tour operators and DMCs

Tour operator software for departures, itineraries and agent sales

Plan every departure with its seats and minimum to run, build trips day by day with hotels, transfers and activities, and sell them on your site, in your office and through agents.

  • Departures board
  • Itinerary builder
  • Guaranteed departures
  • B2B agent portal

The departures board

See every departure, then build the trip day by day

Each departure shows seats sold against capacity and turns guaranteed once it reaches its minimum. Pick a tour to open its itinerary.

Departures board3 to 16 May 2027
  • Guaranteed: minimum reached
  • Open: still below the minimum
  • Full: stop sell
Length
3 days, 2 nights
Seats per departure
16
Minimum to run
8
  • CAP · Mon 314/16Guaranteed
  • CAP · Fri 79/16Guaranteed
  • CAP · Mon 105/16Open
  • CAP · Fri 1416/16Full
Length
3 days, 2 nights
Seats per departure
24
Minimum to run
10
  • EPH · Wed 518/24Guaranteed
  • EPH · Wed 127/24Open
Length
3 days, 2 nights
Seats per departure
12
Minimum to run
6
  • IST · Tue 412/12Full
  • IST · Sat 88/12Guaranteed
  • IST · Tue 113/12Open
  • IST · Sat 156/12Guaranteed

Sample screen with sample tours and figures

Itinerary builder

Cappadocia 3-day highlights

  1. 01Day 1: Arrival and Göreme

    Hotel
    Cave hotel, Göreme, 2 nights
    Transfer
    Kayseri airport to hotel, shared
    Activity
    Sunset walk in the Rose Valley

  2. 02Day 2: Balloons and valleys

    Hotel
    Cave hotel, Göreme
    Transfer
    Hotel pickup at 04:30
    Activity
    Balloon flight, then open-air museum

  3. 03Day 3: Underground city

    Hotel
    No hotel, departure day
    Transfer
    Hotel to Kayseri airport
    Activity
    Derinkuyu underground city

Ephesus and Pamukkale

  1. 01Day 1: Izmir to Selçuk

    Hotel
    Boutique hotel, Selçuk
    Transfer
    Izmir airport to Selçuk, private
    Activity
    House of the Virgin Mary

  2. 02Day 2: Ancient Ephesus

    Hotel
    Thermal hotel, Pamukkale
    Transfer
    Coach, Selçuk to Pamukkale
    Activity
    Guided walk through Ephesus

  3. 03Day 3: Travertines

    Hotel
    No hotel, departure day
    Transfer
    Pamukkale to Denizli airport
    Activity
    Travertine terraces and Hierapolis

Istanbul old city weekend

  1. 01Day 1: Sultanahmet

    Hotel
    Old city hotel, 2 nights
    Transfer
    Istanbul airport to hotel
    Activity
    Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque

  2. 02Day 2: Palaces and the Bosphorus

    Hotel
    Old city hotel
    Transfer
    Walking day, tram passes
    Activity
    Topkapı Palace and a Bosphorus cruise

  3. 03Day 3: Bazaars

    Hotel
    No hotel, departure day
    Transfer
    Hotel to Istanbul airport
    Activity
    Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar

Every service is a supplier record with its own cost, so the trip price and margin update as you build.

Sample screen with sample tours and figures

What it is

What tour operator software does for your business

Tour operator software is the system a tour company uses to create its tours, open departures, sell seats, deliver the trip and get paid. It replaces the mix of a booking widget, a departures spreadsheet, supplier emails and a separate agent price list with one record per departure that sales, operations and accounts all read.

PHPTRAVELS is self-hosted travel booking software. The Tours & activities handles your own day tours and multi-day trips, the Group Tours adds fixed departures with minimums, rooming lists and payment plans, and the B2B travel portal lets agents book your departures at their own rates. It all runs on one installation that you host and own.

If you run destination services for other operators, read the Destination management system page as well. If you want to see the admin screens behind this page, the Tour operator back office guide walks through them.

PHPTRAVELS for tour operators at a glance
Hosting
Self-hosted on your server or cloud account
Source code
Included with every plan, under a commercial licence
Licence
One-time payment
Sales channels
Your website, your office and a B2B agent portal
Products
Day tours, multi-day trips, private groups and fixed departures
Languages
24 languages, including right-to-left
Limits
No per-booking fee and no cap on tours or departures

The departure lifecycle

One departure, from the day it opens to the final settlement

The timings are examples. You set your own cut-offs, release dates and payment deadlines per tour.

  1. 01 · Months ahead

    Open the departure

    Pick the date, set capacity and the minimum to run, and attach the itinerary, prices and cancellation terms.

  2. 02 · While on sale

    Sell on every channel

    Website, phone and agent bookings all draw from the same seat count, so nothing is sold twice.

  3. 03 · Minimum reached

    Guarantee it

    Once sold seats reach the minimum, mark the departure guaranteed and tell travellers and agents it will run.

  4. 04 · Before cut-off

    Release or confirm allotments

    Confirm hotel rooms and coach seats with suppliers, or release what you do not need before their release dates.

  5. 05 · Days before

    Close sales and print the manifest

    Stop sell at the cut-off, chase unpaid balances and send the manifest and service sheets to guides and suppliers.

  6. 06 · Departure day

    Run the trip

    Guides work from the manifest, pickups and add-ons. Changes on the day are noted on the booking.

  7. 07 · After return

    Settle and report

    Pay suppliers, settle agent commissions and compare the margin per departure with what you planned.

Who it is for

Match the features to the tours you run

Tour companies differ. This matrix shows which parts of the platform each type of business tends to lean on.

FeatureDay toursMulti-dayInbound DMCPrivate trips
Time slots and several start times a dayCoreRarely neededUsefulRarely needed
Day-by-day itinerary builderRarely neededCoreCoreCore
Minimum to run and guaranteed departuresUsefulCoreUsefulRarely needed
Hotel and coach allotmentsRarely neededCoreCoreUseful
B2B agent portal with markupsUsefulCoreCoreUseful
Pickup points and add-onsCoreUsefulUsefulUseful
Quotes and proposalsRarely neededUsefulCoreCore

  • Day tour and activity companies

    Walking, food, sightseeing and adventure tours live on start times, pickups and add-ons. Seats per slot and cut-offs matter more than hotels.

  • Multi-day and fixed departure operators

    Coach tours and small-group trips need capacity, a minimum to run, deposits and allotments that match each departure date.

  • Inbound operators and DMCs

    Ground handlers quote hotels, transfers, guides and activities for overseas partners, so the B2B portal and quotes do most of the work.

  • Private and tailor-made trips

    Every trip is different, so the itinerary builder and proposals carry the sale, and seat control matters less.

Two ways to work

A booking widget and spreadsheets, or one tour system

Many operators start with an online booking widget and keep everything else in spreadsheets and email. That works until departures, suppliers and agents grow.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsOnline seats live in the widget, phone and agent bookings in a spreadsheet, and someone reconciles them by hand.

    One tour operator systemEvery channel books against one seat count per departure, with stop sell when it is full.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsWhether a departure will run is a judgement call made late, often by checking several files.

    One tour operator systemThe minimum to run sits on the departure, and the board shows which ones are guaranteed.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsItineraries are written in documents and re-typed into vouchers and supplier emails.

    One tour operator systemThe itinerary is built once from services and feeds the tour page, vouchers and service sheets.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsAgents email for availability and get a PDF price list that goes out of date.

    One tour operator systemAgents search and book live departures in their portal at the rates and credit you set.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsDeposits, balances and supplier payments are tracked in a separate accounts sheet.

    One tour operator systemDeposits, balances, commissions and supplier costs sit on the booking and roll up per departure.

  • Widget plus spreadsheetsCustomer and booking data is spread across tools, each with its own export.

    One tour operator systemOne database on your own server, which you can back up, query and extend.

Costs and licensing

Per-booking fees or a one-time licence

Hosted booking tools often charge a share of each booking. Enter your own figures to see what that adds up to, next to a one-time PHPTRAVELS licence.

Sample figures, change them to yours

Fees per month
–
Fees per year
–

One-time licence

A rough guide, not a quote. Your own hosting, payment gateway fees and any custom work come on top of a licence. See Pricing for what each plan includes.

Before you go live

A go-live checklist for tour operators

Gather these before setup. Tick them off as you go; the list stays on this page only.

0/8ready

Book a tour operator demoSee pricing

FAQ

Tour operator software questions

What tour operators and DMCs ask before moving off spreadsheets and booking-only tools.

Talk to sales

It is the system a tour company uses to create tours, open departures, sell seats on every channel, manage suppliers and payments, and report on each trip. PHPTRAVELS does this in one self-hosted web application.

Each departure has a capacity and a minimum number of travellers to run. When sold seats reach the minimum you mark it guaranteed. If a departure stays below the minimum, you can move or cancel its travellers under your terms.

Website, office and agent bookings all take seats from the same departure. When the departure is full or reaches its cut-off, sales stop on every channel.

Yes. You build a trip day by day with hotels, transfers, activities and meals. Each service carries its cost, so you can set the margin, then issue proposals, vouchers and service sheets from the same itinerary.

Yes. The B2B portal lets agents search, book and pay for your departures under their group's markup or commission, credit limit and payment terms.

Yes. Day tours use start times, pickup points and add-ons. Multi-day trips use itineraries, allotments and deposits. Both can run on the same installation.

PHPTRAVELS is a one-time licence, with the source code included and no per-booking fee. You pay for your own hosting and payment gateway.

Yes. Every plan includes the full source code under a commercial licence, so your developers can extend modules, workflows and supplier connections.

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