Web and brand work for tour operators and travel brands.
Sites that sell the trip without sounding like a TripAdvisor listing. Brand work that doesn't look like every other mountain-silhouette logo. Founder-led — by someone who actually understands seasonal businesses, OTA dependency, and how travelers really book.
The same three problems, in every tour operator's marketing.
Your site reads like a brochure
Pages full of "Unforgettable experiences in stunning locations." That's what every competitor says. Travelers can't tell you apart from the operator running the same route, because nobody's actually written what makes your trip different.
Every adventure brand looks the same
Mountain silhouette. Earth tones. A compass icon. Maybe a topo line. Your logo could be on any competitor's van and the guest wouldn't notice. Differentiation isn't a longer about page — it's how you show up before the booking.
OTAs own your customer relationship
You're paying 15-25% to Viator, GetYourGuide, or Expedia for bookings that should be direct. Your own site converts at half the rate. There's no time to fix it between the spring rush and shoulder-season ops.
Marketing assets that actually drive direct bookings.
Not generic deliverables — work scoped to how tour operators sell. Direct booking pages, partner enablement, OTA-independence, and the brand work that holds it all together.
Tour operator marketing sites
5–15 page builds in WordPress + Bricks. Trip pages that say what you actually do, itinerary detail that closes, booking forms that integrate with your reservation system.
Trip-specific landing pages
Custom landing pages for each itinerary, departure, or destination — each with its own conversion path, separate from your main site so you can run paid ads and email campaigns without polluting your homepage.
Brand refresh or rebuild
A logo and identity that doesn't look like every other mountain-silhouette tour brand. Color, type, photo direction, deck templates. Sized to your stage — small system if that's what you need, full guidelines if you're scaling guides and franchisees.
Trade shows & travel-agent decks
Decks for ITB, IPW, and travel-agent FAM trips that don't look like Word documents. Familiarization packs, agent commission sheets, group quotes — branded, editable, designed so your sales team can update them without breaking the layout.
Booking portals & guest dashboards
Branded portals where guests can manage reservations, fill pre-trip forms, sign waivers, and message you directly. Pairs cleanly with FareHarbor, Rezdy, Bokun, or Checkfront.
Ongoing seasonal marketing graphics
On Workbench: monthly social graphics, seasonal launch creative, OTA listing photography, ad creative for paid campaigns. Built once, used everywhere.
Real projects, shipped for real tour operators.
A selection of recent tourism and travel work — sites, brand systems, decks. Click through for the full case study.
RTJ Wellness Website
Cobble & Commons Website
CCRR Website
TaxStache Website
Prairie Vintage Revival Website
TaxSolve Website
Where the work is designed to take you.
No guarantees on numbers — too many things outside a designer's control move that needle (weather, exchange rates, seasonality). What I can do is set the marketing up to actually support growth instead of fighting it. Here's what that looks like in practice.
A site that wins the direct booking
Most tour sites bleed bookings to OTAs not because the trip is wrong, but because the booking flow is buried, the photos are stale, and there's no reason to book direct. Fixing those isn't magic — it's measurable. We'll set the page up so direct gets the better deal.
Trip-specific pages your team can actually link to
Each itinerary or departure gets its own page with its own conversion path. Easier to send to a warm lead, easier to run paid ads to, easier to track. You can't optimize what doesn't exist; this puts the surface area in place.
A brand that earns trust before the deposit
Whether someone books a $4,000 trip with you often comes down to the 30 seconds they spend on your site. A current, credible-looking brand removes one reason to bounce to a competitor. It won't close every booking — but it stops killing them silently.
Honest note · Marketing is one input among many. Pricing, sales process, market timing, and the actual service all matter more. M13 is built to remove the marketing bottleneck — not to fix the rest of the business.
Booking-engine questions, scope questions, honest answers.
If something's not here, send an email — I read every one.
Do you understand tourism?
Yes. I’ve shipped marketing for tour operators, lodges, adventure outfitters, and DMOs. I’m not going to pretend I’ve personally guided every type of trip — but I’ll write copy that sounds like an operator wrote it, not a marketing intern.
Can you integrate with our booking engine?
Yes — most common ones (FareHarbor, Rezdy, Bokun, Checkfront, Peek) have widgets, APIs, or iframes I can hit. For deeper integrations — embedded checkout, custom availability calendars — that’s a scoped apps project.
Do we have to use WordPress?
It’s what I recommend for tour operators — ownership, ecosystem, longevity, real CMS. If you’re already on Webflow or Squarespace and committed to staying, I’ll work with whatever, but I’ll be honest about tradeoffs.
Can you help us reduce OTA dependency?
Yes — that’s a big chunk of why operators come to me. The marketing side: better direct booking flows, retargeting, email capture, loyalty. The business side (commission negotiation, OTA strategy) is yours to drive; I make sure your direct channel doesn’t leak.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, mutual NDA before any scope conversation involving guest lists, supplier contracts, or pricing strategy. Standard part of how I work with tourism clients.
Do you do paid-ad management?
No. I build the landing pages, ad creative, and conversion paths — but media buying, audience research, and bid optimization is a different specialty. I’ll refer you to travel-focused agencies who do that well.