Top-earning travel blogs do two things right. They offer great content, so people want to use them as a go-to resource when planning trips and cultural outings. And with the website traffic this creates, they put tools and offers in place to maximize their travel blog income. In other words, top-earning travel blogs know how to turn readers into revenue.

As international travel comes back strong, a lot of people are looking to travel blogs to help them plan and book their adventures. Right now is the prime time for travel bloggers and websites to put the tools in place to help make the most of travel blog income. If you work with an online travel agent (OTA) like Tiqets, you already have access to these tools. It’s just a matter of taking advantage of them. 

Bundled passes, which offer admission to multiple museums and attractions with one ticket, are a win-win solution for you and your readers. Sightseers like passes because they can organize an itinerary with less effort and consolidate the entire experience on one electronic ticket, readily available within an app.

Giving users this option benefits museums, attractions, and tour operators because it creates a good customer experience. International travelers, in particular, tend to buy passes to simplify their planning. And with international travel making a return, this is an important crowd to consider.

And there is another radical upside to bundled passes: the elevated revenue opportunity.

The benefits of passes for travel blogs

Aside from the streamlined customer experience you offer by featuring passes on your travel blog, the types of passes Tiqets enables carry a few major benefits. 

Up to 3x more commission per transaction

Because customers are buying multiple tickets at once, Tiqets passes allow you to earn up to three times more commission per transaction! The inclusion of the pass also helps you to create longer, more immersive itineraries for your customers – while giving them the chance to save time and money by buying one product that includes multiple tickets. 

Easy implementation

Passes are designed to be easily integrated into Tiqets affiliate tools such as affiliate links, availability widgets, and discovery widgets. There’s no technology barrier to including them on your travel blog. And with 3,500+ of the best museums and attractions worldwide in the Tiqets database, you have flexibility in how you create passes. 

Higher conversion rates with availability widgets

When you promote a pass with the availability widget on your site, you get the highest possible conversion rate. The availability widget, which directs visitors to specific museums and attractions, generally converts well because visitors who use it have “high intent,” meaning they already know they are interested in passes to a particular attraction. When the products available with the pass match the content of the blog, even better. 

Availability widgets are not the only way to promote passes on your site. You can also promote passes via links within your content and as call-to-action (CTA) buttons on your pages.

For all of these reasons, most top-earning travel blogs that team up with Tiqets take advantage of the elevated revenue opportunity that passes provide. Here are a few examples.

The top-earning travel blogs that use Tiqets passes to increase their income

For a quick visual of how top-earning travel blogs integrate API passes into their sites, here are three examples from Tiqets’ network of affiliates. With all three, a great customer experience is interwoven with the opportunity to make more sales. 

An easy way for readers to upgrade to a pass

RomeSite.com offers several passes for touring the Eternal City in different ways. Their Rome Tourist Card, for example, grants entrance to the Colosseum, the Forum Romanum, Palatine Hill, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel for a consolidated price that starts at €85.00. In some cases, the pass includes priority access, skip-the-line entry, or a guided tour – all an excellent deal for the traveler.

For the travel blog RomeSite.com, the advantage of this sort of bundled pass is twofold. Offering better options and deals attracts more customers, and the revenue from these passes is higher than it would be for single-ticket options. For this reason, RomeSite.com offers passes as an alternative option on websites for single museums and attractions.

They’ve built easy access to passes into their content so that readers will be encouraged to take advantage of the bundled tickets – and the site earns more.

Bundled premier tickets, laid out clearly for customers

Barcelona.com makes it easy for visitors to the Spanish City to buy preferential, skip-the-line tickets and transportation entirely online, with access to Spain’s most popular tourist attractions. From the travel blog’s homepage, the initial ticketing options include the Barcelona City Pass and skip-the-line passes.

Readers who click on a pass get a very clear breakdown of what the pass promises – often a lot more than simply entry to a museum. The Barcelona City Pass, for example, includes skip-the-line entry to Sagrada Familia and Park Güell, along with a hop-on hop-off bus tour, Aerobús transfer from the airport, an included audio guide app, and 10% off other main attractions.

This clear breakdown of what the visitor gets with each pass – and exactly how it works in practice – means that Barcelona.com sells more tickets with less customer handholding.

A complete Colosseum experience with one push of a button

Another top-earning travel blog that takes advantage of passes is Il Colosseo. A dedicated page promotes the Rome Tourist Card, which includes tickets to not just the Colosseum and its associated sights, but other must-see attractions in Rome, including a guided tour of St. Peter's Basilica.

This Tiqets affiliate partner implemented its pass through the availability widget, which is the best-converting widget when it comes to promoting passes.

Now that you know what’s possible, here are some of the best practices we recommend for building passes into your revenue repertoire.

Best practices for implementing passes

There are four ways you can maximize the impact of the passes you create with Tiqets. 

1. Check your reporting to find out which of your products typically convert best, and create specific venue pages for each. Your users are already buying tickets to these venues from your site, so if you recommend they “upgrade” to a pass from here, they’re more likely to see it and take advantage of the opportunity.
2. Make the benefits of the pass really clear beyond just potential financial savings. Convenience, guaranteed entrance, and flexibility around visiting time are typically the top three.
3. Within your body content, mention travel passes directly, with inline links so that readers can easily convert their interest into tickets “in hand.”
4. Create an additional page on your website for all your travel pass options, embedding availability widgets, so visitors can easily take advantage of them once they’ve caught on to the virtue of passes. 

Remember, your website visitors are looking for easy ways to create memorable experiences. The more clearly you break it down for them, and the easier you make it to buy bundled tickets, the better, in their opinion. And the more lucrative, in yours!

A chance to increase your travel blog income and offer your customers better experiences

Bundled passes for multiple experiences make it easier for your readers to plan their travel and sightseeing. Easier and better customer experiences make for more loyal and happy readers. Loyal and happy readers – combined with the higher revenue – make passes a valuable tool. Take a tip from current top-earning travel blogs and incorporate bundled passes into your content, too.

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