One of the most important criteria when booking a tour is having a good picture. In this article, we explain you everything about the types of tour pictures that most bookings generate, with very creative examples!
If you want to know how to take and retouch your tour pictures, we also recommend you to read this other complementary article.
You will see, you don’t need to take a picture on each tour, but just a few that are very good! If you don’t want to take pictures during your tour, no worries. You can always organize a photoshoot session with your friends 😉
| Cover photo Real case of cover photo Other tour pictures What is the right time to take tour pictures? Good examples |
Content
Cover photo
The cover photo is the most important of all. It’s the main picture of your tour, the one that appears on the page of your city. It’s this photo that will make travelers want to know more about your experience.
This picture must be a summary of your guruwalk: what could be the best way to represent it? And very important: it must sell! Travelers should not hesitate a second when booking your tour.
There are 4 main ingredients to consider for the perfect cover photo that result in more bookings: travelers + emblematic background + good experience + good picture
1. It should be a picture with travelers
Future travelers have much more confidence when they see that other travelers have already taken your tour. Moreover, they can imagine themselves in the place of these travelers doing the tour.
- Normal group size. Try to put a photo of a group that has a size that you usually have, because that’s how travelers are going to imagine your guruwalk. You can create false expectations if you put a photo with a group of 5 people when almost all your groups are of 30 people.
- Type of travelers. The type of travelers you want to attract (families, couples, retirees, young people, …) should appear in your picture. Try not to show only one gender in the photo.
2. with the background of an emblematic place
Travelers have in mind some famous images of your city, even if they do not know it yet (ex: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome …). When they book a guruwalk, they expect to see this place, so it encourages the traveler to click on your tour if they recognize it in your cover photo.
3. that shows a good experience
People go on vacation to have fun. The same goes for the tours, they look for an interesting but fun experience too, not a history class. That should also be reflected in the main picture of your tour.
- People laughing / smiling. It’s important to see that the travelers in the photo are having a good time, smiling or laughing.
- Good weather. Don’t put a picture of a rainy day or with many clouds. Depending on the season of the year, you could also put different pictures to be more faithful to the temperature (eg: a photo with travelers wearing t-shirt and flip flops is not sending a good information for a tour during the winter season).
4. and take a good picture
Although your photo has everything that we have already mentioned, it’s important to take it the right way, with a good resolution, a lot of light, not blurred, without exaggerated filters, etc.
It’s important to see the face of the people that appear in your picture. No one can transmit trust from the back.
In this post, we explain all the secrets to take and retouch the best tour pictures.
For the group picture, you can ask someone on the street to take it for you, although you never know how it will be taken. However, you appear in the photo, which is important too.
Be creative with your cover photo
In most free tours, a boring group photo is taken where travelers barely gather. Why not taking the picture as part of the tour, as something fun? This way it will make travelers want to be on it, save it as a souvenir and then share it with their friends.
We’re going to give you many examples, but possibilities are endless!
Selfie
Create a more intimate photo, focusing on travelers. However, the emblematic background is lost, which is also important.
According to the theme of your tour
In this case, we have a picture of a ‘dark legends’ tours. Travelers are trying to kill each other, which creates something fun during the tour, and reflects well the topic of the guruwalk and its schedule (by night).
Jumping in the air
It gives a lot of movement, creating something fun during the tour. It has the background of the main square of Madrid, a well-known place in the capital. The weather is perfect too.
Grimacing
Why not?
Writing the name of your city
In this picture, they wrote ‘Madrid’ with the travelers’ bodies.
Taking a funny pause
Doing a dab
It can be any kind of dance step or other movements that inspire fun.
Making part of a monument
In this case, travelers are making part of one of the monuments explained during the tour, which makes a very special picture. Neverthless, it lacks dynamism, maybe because travelers are sitting.
Imitating a monument of the tour
Using arms
Arms give a lot of movement to the pictures.
Saying “hello”
Any traveler looking for a tour would feel trust with the picture of a group that greets him/her.
Doing a typical gesture of your country or tour topic
In this guruwalk in Milan, they made a well-known Italian gesture.
In this tour based on Harry Potter in London, travelers are acting as if they had a magic wand.
More ideas
You could take a picture according to the place you explain. For example, in Athens, you could take a picture of travelers as if they were athletes in front of the Olympic stadium
Another idea would be a photo according to a famous event of your city. For example, in Pamplona, bulls run on the streets in San Fermines. Why not take a picture with people running in front of the bullring?
Moreover, a good picture would be to base it on a legend or a story that you tell during the tour.
Is there a famous painting of your city? For example in Paris, travelers could pose as the Mona Lisa of Da Vinci.
Maybe a place you show was used in a famous movie. It could recreate the scene of the movie with your travelers.
Real case of a cover photo
Antonio from Rome created an amazing guruwalk about the Vatican and had put a group picture in front of the Vatican. With this picture, the tour had a conversion ratio of 18%, which means that of every 100 people that entered the page of his tour, 18 booked.
Then he changed the picture for another one, which shows a great time he had with travelers after the tour, but that has no relation with the tour itself: eating with travelers.
The conversion rate of his tour went down to 6%, just by changing the cover photo! Of course, there are many other factors that impact the conversion rate of your tour (number of tours available in your city, schedules, …) but as you can see, just changing the photo can already have a big impact!
Other tour pictures
As you now know, the most important one is the cover photo. However, you can put many other tour picture on your tour profile and that helps travelers to get a better idea of what they are going to see.
The other pictures should be a mixture of the following:
- Group pictures, like the cover photo.
- Pictures of key monuments of your tour. The pictures of the places that travelers are going to see during your guruwalk are also very important. It allows them to see in advance the buildings, squares, streets, monuments etc … that they know if they book your experience.
You can take them yourself (look carefully at the article we mentioned before to take good pictures). Otherwise, you can take public domain pictures, but they will be less personal. You can find them on sites like Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash. Moreover, you can search on Google Images. You have to click on ‘Tools’ and select in ‘Usage rights’ the filter ‘labeled for reuse’.
Aerial pictures of your city could also be an attractive way to catch travelers’ attention.
- Pictures during the tour. They can be pictures of you explaining, of you showing something, walking with your group, etc. Give life to your guruwalk.
What is the right time to take tour pictures?
We recommend to take the group picture only if you see that people are going to have a good time. If you have a less enthusiastic group, chances are it will also be reflected on the picture.
- It is better to take the picture (almost) at the end of the tour, when the ice has already been broken and people are more relaxed.
- Take light also into account. If your guruwalk ends very late in the day, perhaps it will not be the best time to take it.
Good examples
- Andrea, guru in Barcelona, Spain
She did a photoshooting during a tour. You can see her explaining, focused, with the group, walking,… there is a great diversity of pictures as you can see below.
- Free Spirit Walking Tour in Zadar, Croatia.
The same as before, you can see the group during the tour, with lots of sun and perfect weather. You can even see the professionalism of the guide, showing something on the map to a traveler.
Other good examples:
- Mortour in Barcelona, Spain.
- EstAdventures in Tallinn, Estonia.
- Alicia in Trujillo, Spain.
What’s next?
So the picture’s topic is all crystal clear for you? Then check out this full post on how to improve all your profile of GuruWalk to get more bookings!
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