How to set up a WooCommerce tour booking page using plugins (2023 guide)

Do you want your customers to book tours directly from your WooCommerce site?

WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce platform. However, it doesn’t have the in-built functionality you need to create tour booking pages. To do this, you’ll need to use WooCommerce plugins that integrate seamlessly with your WordPress site and give you the exact set of features you’re looking for.

In this article, we’ll recommend our top picks for the best plugins for WooCommerce to help you create the ultimate tour booking page. We’ll explain how to use each plugin included in this article, step by step.

What features do you need on a tour booking page?

Different tour booking systems and travel agencies have different sets of requirements. Mostly, it depends on what kind of tour you’re running. For example, if you sell expedition tours as part of a vacation package, your needs will be somewhat different from someone who sells museum tours to schools.

Let’s take a look at some essential features for any tour booking page and some bonus features that could be beneficial to your specific business:

• Booking calendar. A booking calendar lets customers select the day, time, and period of their tour. They should also be able to specify how many people are in their tour party or group.
  
  There are scenarios where you may need to set up multiple booking calendars, such as if you offer different tours. And, if you offer accommodation, rental equipment, or other activities as part of your services and you want to keep these separate from the tour itself, you’ll also need to create them as separate bookable products with their own booking calendars.
• Add-ons. You might want to include product add-ons to include in the tour options. For example, you might want to let customers select if they want lunch as an extra option in their tour.
• Flexible payment options. It’s important to set up easy payment gateways so customers can select their tour and checkout seamlessly. Depending on the type of tour you run, you might want to allow customers to pay a deposit first and then the remaining amount at a later date.
• Discounts. To maximize your tour sales, you may want to set up discounts that are automatically offered when customers select certain options. For example, if a customer books a minimum number of people for the tour, you might want to offer them a 5% discount.
• Easy backend management. The tour booking system you set up should be easy to manage from the WordPress backend. You should be able to see exactly how many people are booked for a specific tour and what their specific requirements and add-ons are.
• Online gift shop. If your business has the right branding, you can also set up an online gift shop on your WordPress site where people can buy souvenirs, either before or after the tour.
• Thank you page. A thank you page on your WordPress site is perfect for sharing specific tour information with customers after they have checked out and made their booking.

What plugins do you need to set up a tour booking page on WooCommerce?

Now that we’ve discussed some of the most essential features a tour booking page needs, let’s look at the best plugins to set up those features in WooCommerce.

Some of the plugins in our list are essential for a tour booking page, while others are nice to have but may not be necessary to your business. We’re including them anyway so you can see what you think would be useful to you, and allocate your budget accordingly.

Bookings for WooCommerce

The Bookings for WooCommerce plugin is essential for your tour booking page as it lets you set up booking calendars for your tours.

You can choose to create a single booking calendar or set up multiple booking calendars, depending on the types of tours you run. For example, if you have different tour options, you can let customers book as many tours as they want at once.

Bookings for WooCommerce gives you plenty of options to set up booking dates in WooCommerce:

• Booking units are set as days, nights, or weeks.
• Block out dates from being booked and set start dates. This feature is particularly useful if you only offer tours on specific days of the week.
• Add a buffer period between bookings and a notice period before the booking can start. This ensures your tour doesn’t get overbooked.
• Decide how far in advance to take online bookings.

This WooCommerce tour booking plugin also lets you set up different prices for different periods of the year. If your tour is more popular in the summer, you can set up the plugin to charge premium prices automatically.

The Bookings for WooCommerce plugin lets you set up discount offers that are triggered automatically when customers select certain options. For example, if customers book at least 5 people for the tour, they get a 10% discount.

If you have a set number of places on a tour, you can track the number of available places directly from the backend to ensure the tour doesn’t get overbooked.

When customers select a tour, it goes to their cart and they can check out directly as they would for any other WooCommerce product.

WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate

If you can afford another premium plugin to enhance your WooCommerce tour booking page, we recommend going to WooCommere Product Add-Ons Ultimate. This plugin lets you customize product pages and it integrates seamlessly with Bookings for WooCommerce.

With the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin, you can include extra travel booking options for customers to select from. For example, if you operate a skiing tour, customers can select the size of the rented equipment needed for each member of the party.

You can use this plugin to create product add-ons and insert them as extra fields to complement your booking calendars. There are 16 field types to choose from including dropdowns, checkboxes, and image swatches.

The plugin lets you add a textbox to describe each product add-on. This is a great way to let customers know about each option and help them decide what they need.

Finally, you can assign prices to each product add-on field if you want to charge extra money for it. For example, you might want to give customers the option to include a packed lunch in their tour or have a dedicated tour operator accompany them. The plugin also lets you set up discounts for customers who select many tour extras.

WooCommerce Deposits and Part Payments

Using the WooCommerce Deposits and Part Payments plugin, you can let customers pay a deposit for their tour. This is a great way to encourage more people to book your tour as they won’t need to make the full payment right away.

You can set the deposit payment either as a percentage or as a set price:

• Percentage – For e.g., customers first make an online payment of 20% of the tour price
• Set price – For e.g., the tour costs $200 and the initial payment is $75

The plugin lets you set your payment options so customers can choose whether they’d like to pay the full amount right away or pay a deposit instead. You can also disable the option for customers to pay in full if you’d like.

The WooCommerce Deposits and Part Payments plugin lets you set discounts for customers who choose to pay the full amount from the start. This is an easy way to encourage customers to pay in full. The final payment order will automatically be scheduled when the deposit is paid.

WooCommerce Thank You Pages

Although this isn’t an essential plugin to set up your WooCommerce tour booking page, it offers a great way to make your customers feel good about their booking.

Tours involve human interaction and sending customers to a personalised thank you page on your WordPress site can establish a rapport with your customers before the tour begins.

You can use the WooCommerce Thank You Pages plugin to create a thank you page that outlines some important information about the tour. This may include the time the tour will start and what customers should bring with them. If you don’t offer accommodation as part of the tour package, you can use this space to provide a list of nearby hotel booking options.

If you offer different tours that customers may be interested in, you could use your thank you page to offer customers a discount code for the next tour they book with you.

How to create a tour booking page with these WooCommerce plugins

Here, we’ll show you step-by-step how to set up a tour booking page in WordPress using the plugins we mentioned above.

Step #1: Get the WooCommerce tour booking plugins

To get started, get the plugins you need to set up your tour booking page in WordPress. At the minimum, we recommend getting the Bookings for WooCommerce plugin that lets you set up booking calendars in WooCommerce.

If you’d like to offer extra options, you can also get the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin that integrates seamlessly with Bookings for WooCommerce.

Depending on the type of tour you run, you might want to give customers the option to pay a deposit for the tour instead of making the full payment right away. For this, we recommend getting the WooCommerce Deposits and Part Payments plugin.

And, if you want to set up a thank you page to make customers feel good about their upcoming tour and share important information, get the WooCommerce Thank You Page plugin.

Once you’ve decided on which plugins to get, purchase them and install them on your WordPress website. Next, activate the plugins and enter their license keys to start using them.

Step #2: Set up tours as WooCommerce booking products

Now that you have the plugins, you can start setting up tours as booking products in WooCommerce and display them on your tour page. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to ‘Products’ > ‘Add New’ to create a new tour product.
2. Enter a title, content, and images as you wish.
3. In the ‘Product data’ section, select ‘Booking’ using the dropdown.
4. Set the parameters for the tour product:
   1. Booking unit – This determines the length of the booking. You can choose from day, night, or week.
   2. Bookings start – Specify a day of the week when a booking must start.
   3. Min booking length – Specify a minimum period for the tour.
   4. Max booking length – Specify a maximum period for the tour.
   5. Postpone start – Prevent bookings from starting immediately.
   6. Buffer period – Block off time at the end of a booking period.
   7. Standard cost – Set the base cost of the tour.
   8. Last bookable date – Set how far ahead customers can make bookings.

1. Set non-standard costs as necessary. You can use this option to block out specific date ranges, or set peak or reduced prices for tours.
2. Optionally, you can set discount rules by specifying the minimum duration required to qualify for the discount offer and applying it to the entire booking period or a partial period.

At this stage, your WooCommerce booking tour page should look something like this:

Step #3: Create product add-ons to a tour booking

If you get the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin, you can create product add-ons to give customers even more options to choose from.

For example, you can give customers the option to opt-in for a lunch box at an additional $7.50 per person by creating a checkbox. Here’s how:

1. From the ‘Product data’ section, click on the ‘Product Add-Ons’ tab.
2. Click on the ‘Add Group’ button and enter a title and group description.
3. Click on the ‘Add Field’ button and select ‘Checkbox’ from the ‘Field Type’ dropdown.
4. Set a ‘Field Label’ and ‘Field Price’.
5. Tick the ‘Price per booking unit?’ checkbox.
6. Optionally, add a field image and description.

Step #4: Create a relevant thank you page

With the WooCommerce Thank You Pages plugin, you can create a relevant thank you page for customers in a few simple steps. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Navigate to ‘WooCommerce’ > ‘Thank You Pages’ and click ‘Add Thank You Page’.
2. Give the thank you page a suitable title.
3. In the content area, add the [[order_custom_content]] shortcode and enter the custom content. This can be a simple thank you message along with some information on the next steps.
4. Close the custom content area using the [[/order_custom_content]] shortcode.

You can also use this space to:

• Recommend other tours to customers using the [[order_cross_sells]] shortcode.
• Add downloadables (e.g. a map) using the [[order_download]] shortcode.
• Show social share buttons using the [[order_social_shares]] shortcode.
• Offer discounts using the [[order_coupon]] shortcode.

Preview

Your WooCommerce tour booking page should look something like this on the front end:

Create the ultimate tour booking page in WooCommerce

If you work with a tour agency and want to make the booking process engaging and straightforward for your customers, you’ll want to set up a really good tour booking page in WooCommerce. However, you’ll need plugins to do this.

We’ve recommended four plugins that you can use to set up a really solid tour booking site. The plugin that’s absolutely necessary for this is Bookings for WooCommerce.

If you need to offer more options as add-ons, WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate is a game-changer. You can boost more sales by letting customers pay a deposit for their tour, and to do that you’ll need WooCommerce Deposits and Parts Payments. And, if you have the budget for one more plugin, WooCommerce Thank You Pages is a great way to connect with your customers ahead of their tour.

Get started with Bookings for WooCommerce today (all purchases are covered by a 14-day money-back guarantee!).