The name of your tour business can make or break your company. This is why you should dedicate the same time and care that you would put into naming a newborn child into naming your business. After all, for tour operators, your tour or travel business is your baby, right?
But what goes into a name and why is it important? A good tour business or travel company name should help you stand out from the crowd, differentiate yourself from your competitors, and build strong brand recognition with your target market.
Choosing the Perfect Name for Your Tour or Travel Company
A lot goes into choosing the perfect name for your tour or travel company. The journey to discovering your brand name is one that will require some research and creativity. As you think up potential names for your business, make sure you’re checking to see if they’re still available online. This means website domain names and social media handles. If they are, nab them up quick before someone else does. Having varying handles on your socials can be confusing to your customer. Even if you don’t have immediate plans to use a specific social media platform, it’s still best to register your desired username to prevent another business from claiming it or in case you change your mind. Consistency across all your platforms is crucial for building a strong brand.
Today, we’ll be sharing 5 rules for choosing the best tour company name. We encourage you to use these helpful tips and reminders to guide your next brainstorming session.
1. Keep It Simple
Sometimes, less is more. When it comes to naming your tour business, a simple and easy-to-remember name will benefit your brand in the long run. It’s usually wise to opt for a business name that is clear and succinct, rather than one that is convoluted and perhaps too clever for its own good.
Your tour business name isn’t a puzzle and your customers shouldn’t have to decode obscure puns to understand the services your brand provides. Stay away from overly-complicated names and choose one that is easy to pronounce. Keep it short and sweet by avoiding creating a name with too many words. Three to four is ideal, anything more and you risk becoming a mouthful.
2. Be Creative
Simple doesn’t mean boring. In order to stand out from the crowd and from your competitors, it’s important to be creative. If you choose to incorporate wordplay into the name of your tour business, do so wisely. Puns and alternative spellings of words can certainly make your travel company feel more fun, but don’t forget that they shouldn’t detract from your tour business name. If you use a pun, make sure it makes sense to your business. The use of rhymes, alliteration, or visually interesting letters or words are some other effective ways to spice up the name of your tour company.
3. Stay True to Yourself
You may come up with excellent tour business name ideas that are simple and clever, but take a minute to think about whether they actually fit your business. Does the name accurately reflect what you have to offer and what your tour company is all about?
Finding a name that truly encompasses your tour business is crucial to its success. You want to choose a name that not only gives your customers a clear idea of the services you provide, but also the type of experience they can expect to have. Avoid using adjectives or fluff words in your name that serve no purpose other than sounding fancy. Instead, try looking to your unique selling proposition (USP) for inspiration. Give yourself an edge by understanding what sets you apart from your competitors and finding the words you can use that they can’t.
4. Give Yourself Room to Grow
An important thing to consider early on in the process of choosing a tour company name is whether you’re giving your business enough room to grow. Planning for the future can save you from headaches later down the road.
For example, say you’re a tour company that offers bicycle rentals on your guided tour around the city. You may think that including the words ‘bicycle’ or ‘bike’ in your business name is an obvious decision, but not so fast! What if you decide to expand your rentals to include scooters, Segways, or mopeds? Now your business name doesn’t fully encompass what your company has to offer and customers looking specifically for Segways won’t even bother checking out your website if they think you only have bicycles for rent.
The same logic applies when it comes to including a location in your business’ name. If you have dreams of growing and opening up offices in other cities, then including the name of your current city can be limiting.
Last, but not least, if you’re planning to grow and expand your business, make sure you’re not choosing a name that is too similar to any of your competitors’ so that you avoid creating brand confusion or even worse, legal issues. If you hope to be the top search result, you’re going to have to choose a name using strategic SEO keywords while also being unique enough to rise above the sea of competitors.
5. Ask For Feedback
A great way to figure out whether you’re on the right track with the names you come up with is to ask for feedback. Seek out the opinions of your trusted family members, friends, and potential customers to learn which of your ideas are working for them and which aren’t. They may be able to provide a different perspective or raise questions that you hadn’t thought of.
If you’ve narrowed down your list of names to your top choices, a poll on a social media platform (Instagram Stories, for example) can help you make the final decision and crown a winner.
Tour and Travel Company Name Suggestions and Name Generators
If you need some additional help or inspiration coming up with good travel company name ideas, there are plenty of helpful resources online. For starters, check out these 100 travel company names to get your creative juices flowing.
An algorithmic tour business or travel agency name generator such as BizNameWiz or Looka can be useful in helping you brainstorm ideas for naming your business by using a couple of keywords that you provide. If you happen to find a business name that you like, many of the name generators are linked to GoDaddy, making it easy for you to check whether relevant domain names are available and then purchase them if they are.
Making the Big Decision
Choosing the perfect name for your tour business or travel company is an important decision and can feel like a daunting task. The name that you choose is going to stick with your business and of course you want to make a good first impression. That being said, a name is just a name. Don’t spend too many sleepless nights agonizing over your decision—you’ll need some of that energy to actually run your tour business.
Remember, keep your name simple, easy to pronounce, creative, memorable, and unique to you. Follow our 5 rules for choosing the best tour company name above and you’ll discover one that helps your tour business stand out, sticks in the minds of your customers, and increases your bookings. Good luck!
Written By | Edward Nieh
