FareHarbor (owned by Booking.com) is a popular online booking system for tours, activities, and rental providers. They have a partner network to help grow your business, the platform has a modern interface with user-friendly features, and it appears free to use.
However, many tour and activity companies look for alternatives because they reportedly charge a 6% booking fee, making them one of the
highest in the category. (Note: They’ve also reportedly started charging fees for Viator bookings in certain countries meaning if you don’t accept the fees on these bookings you may not be able to use the platform).
It’s important to note: FareHarbor passes booking fees to the end customer. The platform is free to use for the tour or activities company,
which is why it can seem appealing.
Customers can see the 6% fee during checkout — and many FareHarbor users report that these high fees can negatively impact the booking experience and conversions.
Customers may be deterred by high booking fees — these fees can have a significant impact on pricing, generally, but this is particularly true during cost of living increases. If customers don’t want to pay the extra cost, it could send them in another direction and result in less bookings for your business.
We put together this FareHarbor alternatives guide to compare six online booking and reservation management software. We begin by reviewing our solution, Bókun, and explaining the features to support tour and activity operators worldwide.
You can also
explore our online booking solution with a 14-day free trial. Build a customised website; add your tours, activities, and equipment; begin selling across partner channels. Our team is here to help you make the switch and tailor Bókun to your requirements.
Our booking platform,
Bókun (a Tripadvisor brand) is a popular FareHarbor alternative because it has very similar feature sets and partnerships with top OTAs — but many of our customers say there are two reasons they choose Bókun over FareHarbor:
Let’s walk through Bókun’s features and how they compare to FareHarbor.
The Bókun platform includes:
Here’s what that looks like…
When starting with Bókun, you can
build a bookable website to represent your brand and offerings.
FareHarbor offers a website building service where they’ll design and optimise your site for you. While there are perks to this, there are also cons — you’re limited to what FareHarbor’s team designs, they don’t cover your domain charges (you have to purchase that separately and transfer the site), and they remain in control of your site.
From there, you can
add tours, activities, rentals, and other offerings to your product dashboard.
Our platform walks you through the steps: create the product and include all the important booking details (pricing, duration, pick-up/drop-off times, etc.). You can specify the number of bookings you can accept per product and choose which channels you want to list products.
Real-time inventory management tracks reservations, resources, and availability to prevent overbookings. You can always see your status and adjust as you go.
The Bókun dashboard lets you oversee all bookings (online and offline) in a central hub.
We also have a seamless connection with Viator, so you can push products between accounts and import Viator data with a click. If you already have a Viator account, set-up in Bókun is nearly instant. Then, you can use either platform to manage Viator listings; if you update products in Viator, the changes will push over to Bókun. (And since we’re both owned by Tripadvisor, we’re the only tour operator software with this complete integration.)
Our Marketplace lets you explore and
create partnerships with similar tour operators in your area; you can resell and receive commissions from partners and earn new bookings from resellers.
Bókun Reporting lets you report on bookings and manage business operations.
We show you:
You can use this data to refine business strategies like investing more in the products that generate the most revenue, tracking finances, and making smart changes to your day-to-day operations.
Note: Our platform also has a
CRM system to store and organise customer data. You can access these details and filter by region, activity, age, etc., to learn about your audiences, re-target customers, and sell new tours and activities.
Our platform doesn’t overcomplicate booking management; the website builder is straightforward, and it’s easy to connect OTAs, navigate between dashboards, and manage products and reservations. Our team is around when you need help, but most can design their site and learn the ropes without trouble.
Bókun also simplifies the booking experience for your customers, making booking with you an easy and fast process. Customers can:
Note:
Bókun automatically sends booking confirmations, reminders, and follow-up emails to improve customer satisfaction. (You can format and edit these in the Bókun platform.) Reminders can prevent last-minute cancellations and no-shows, and follow-up emails allow you to offer discounts and share review links.
Read more on our features page.
We offer a free 14-day trial plan which can be either continued into our Pro subscription for $49 per month or downgraded to our limited free plan (restricted to Viator and offline bookings).
Our Pro plan charges the lowest booking fees in the category:
We recommend continuing onto the Pro plan to access the Advanced Website Builder, connections to dozens of OTAs and the Bókun Marketplace, free Viator product checks (four per month), mobile app, API, and more.
We offer a
14-day free trial (no credit card required) so you can build your site and explore our platform. Our team is available to answer questions as you get started. You can upgrade to the Pro plan at any time and adjust your Bókun dashboard with ease.
Peek Pro is a worthwhile FareHarbor alternative for teams focused on growth — they work primarily with large or scaling tour operators and attractions. While they may not be any more budget-friendly than FareHarbor, Peek Pro does offer extra features to retarget, upsell, and retain customers.
Peek Pro offers essential features like:
Peek Pro doesn’t share pricing online, but research tells us it's on par with FareHarbor.
Peek Pro charges 6% booking fees and (some users say) a $199 one-time set-up fee. Many reviewers note Peek Pro’s expensive pricing — they report high fees and say fees can unexpectedly fluctuate.
Trekksoft is very similar to FareHarbor in terms of features, usability, and pricing, but they’re a more popular tour operator software for teams based in Europe. Trekksoft, as the name suggests, is marketed towards teams and travel agencies selling adventure tours (hiking, cycling, sightseeing), excursions, and destination getaways. They have packages to suit small and large companies.
Trekksoft features include:
Trekksoft has an initial learning curve; they offer website resources to support adoption, but onboarding and training staff members requires time. However, reviewers say it’s not too complicated once you spend time in the software and learn the ropes.
Trekksoft offers three packages — the more advanced the plan, the more advanced the features. Pricing is as follows:
Speaking of Rezdy…
Rezdy is a FareHarbor alternative for large, enterprise, or global teams. When they first debuted, they were popular primarily in Australia, but now they work with tour and activity operators, attractions, charter businesses, rental providers, and travel companies across dozens of countries.
They’ve also merged with Checkfront and Regiondo to expand their reach further — more on this below.
Rezdy’s core feature set includes:
Rezdy offers three plans and a free 21-day trial to get started:
Checkfront and
Regiondo (merged with Rezdy) are often mentioned in review guides with Rezdy because the software solutions have overlapping features and functionality, and pricing across platforms is now very similar — so you might also consider one of these options if you’re shopping for a FareHarbor alternative.
We have a guide on
tour operator software with more detail on these options, but here’s a quick summary:
Trytn markets themselves as “tour operator software made by tour operators” — they work primarily with small (one- or two-person) businesses and market their solution for activity providers (hiking or cycling tours, helicopter tours, kayak tours, fishing charters, and adventure activities). That said, Trytn also offers solutions for growing teams with multiple locations.
Trytn offers:
Trytn does not disclose any information about pricing on their site — you have to book a demo to discuss your requirements, and then they provide a custom quote. Based on user feedback, we can assume Trytn is pricey:
users report 5% fees for all online bookings (almost as high as FareHarbor), and custom website development comes at an added cost (sometimes thousands).
The last alternative on our list, Xola, is online booking and marketing software with strong resource management features. They don’t market their software to one particular category — but teams in the tourism, leisure, and entertainment industries commonly use it. Reviews suggest they have options for small, mid-size, or large organisations.
Xola features include:
Xola does not share the details about pricing online — we’ve read in online reviews that they charge a 6% booking fee, like FareHarbor. Some say it’s a good value for the money, but more often than not, reviewers say it falls on the pricier side.
Bókun is a popular FareHarbor alternative because:
We charge a flat rate of $49 and offer perks like 0% booking fees on Viator and offline bookings. We also have a seamless connection with Viator so you can sync systems — and Viator offers four free product reviews for Bókun customers each month.
See how Bókun makes it easy to expand your business online by
starting a free 14-day trial.
Online Booking Engine • Channel Management
Inventory & Resource Management
B2B Marketplace • Reporting • Websites