Every morning, someone on the team ends up answering the same call. “Hi, just double checking—what time is our tour? And where do we meet again?”

Sound familiar?

The information was technically in the confirmation email… somewhere. But if a guest has to dig through previous emails to find the one with the detail that applies to them, they’re probably going to call instead. Or worse—miss the tour entirely.

The Hidden Limits of Custom Fields

Custom fields come in handy here.

FareHarbor gives operators a way to collect extra info during booking—things like hotel pickup location, preferred language, or age confirmation. The problem is, once that info is collected, it kind of just… stays there.

You can see it in the dashboard, but you can’t automatically drop it into reminder emails or use it in workflows. So unless you’re manually sending those one by one, guests don’t get the most relevant version of the details they actually need.

What Happens When You Can’t Use the Data You Collected

It might not seem like a big deal—until it is.

Maybe you run the same tour from three different meeting points, depending on the day. Or your private groups have different instructions from public ones. Without a way to automatically pull that custom info into reminder emails, every guest gets the same generic message. Some will figure it out. Others will call. And some… won’t show up at all.

Three Scenarios That Could Work Better

Now take something like gear rentals. Let’s say a guest books a kayaking tour but skips the optional dry bag rental. You’ve got their booking info and their choice saved in a custom field—but your reminder email can’t use it.

With the right setup, you could trigger a short email the day before: “Still thinking about that dry bag? Here’s why it might come in handy.” It’s helpful. It’s timely. And it nudges revenue in the right direction without feeling pushy.

Or maybe you’re collecting each guest’s relationship to your destination—are they local, on vacation, visiting family? That field seems small, but it changes your post-tour strategy. A local might want a promo code for their next visit. A vacationer probably won’t come back—so after you get a review from them, you might want to remove them from your email system altogether.

Without access to that field, everyone ends up in the same bucket. Which means you’re either missing opportunities… or wasting time on the wrong ones.

How TourAdvantage Handles It Differently

That’s exactly where TourAdvantage comes in.

Every custom field from your FareHarbor bookings—whether it’s meeting point, gear rental choice, or trip protection—can be pulled straight into your emails. No workarounds. No weird formatting. Just clean, specific data that you can use to personalize messages, trigger campaigns, or segment your audience.

✅ Want to send a different reminder email to locals vs. tourists? Easy.

✅ Want to follow up only with guests who skipped a gear rental? Done.

✅ Want to follow up only with guests who skipped a gear rental? Done.

✅ Need to show a completely different meeting point depending on the tour date or guide? You can do that, too.

If it’s in your booking, you can use it—before, during, or after the tour.

What That Unlocks for You (and Your Guests)

When your emails reflect the actual experience your guest is about to have, things run smoother.

No more last-minute calls asking for details that should’ve already been clear.

No more missed upsells just because someone forgot to follow up.

Guests show up on time, with the right expectations—and sometimes, the right gear.

On the backend, your team stops wasting time digging through bookings or chasing down no-shows. And long after the tour’s over, your follow-up emails actually make sense for who that guest was. Which means better reviews, smarter marketing, and a lot less noise in your inbox.

Lesli Peterson
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