6 sources of web traffic for tour and activity sites

You’ve built an incredible experience — now you need more people to find it.

Think of your website as the front door to your business. But without the right website traffic, it’s like having a beautiful storefront on a deserted street. The key isn’t just getting visitors, it’s attracting the right ones: people who are actively searching for tours and activities like yours.

So, how do you attract these potential customers? And what can you do to encourage them to book?

This guide breaks down the six main sources of website traffic and how to leverage them for more bookings.

What is website traffic?

Website traffic refers to the people who visit your website, including how they arrive at your site and what they do once they’re there. It is an important metric that provides insight into your customer behavior, engagement levels and the effectiveness of your online presence.

By analyzing your website traffic, you can identify trends, optimize user experience, and refine marketing strategies to attract more visitors and encourage more conversions.

Web traffic resources

Organic traffic

Organic traffic refers to the visitors that land on your site from unpaid search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) often focuses on improving your site to capture more organic traffic.

Google and other search engines have a specific algorithm they use to find relevant pages when someone inputs a search query. That is why you should always prioritize having meaningful, niche-related keywords and content on your website.

For instance, let’s say you own a bicycle rental company in Amsterdam, NL. When someone searches on Google looking for “day bike rentals in Amsterdam,” you want to ensure your activity page is optimized so your website will pop up — and rank high on the list.

You will have to compete with a lot of other sites within your niche, so investing time and effort into your SEO strategy can help ensure you are on that first page of search results.

A few ways to build your Google ranking with SEO:

Optimize your business for local searches. According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online, so local SEO is crucial for all types of businesses.
Ensure your business is listed on the most important local directories and your contact information is accurate and up to date.
Keep your Google Business Profile optimized and up to date, including responding to reviews, posting regularly, and adding new images.

Email marketing

Email traffic comes from those who get to your website from your email campaigns. This is a great source as it comes from people who have previously engaged with your business and gave you their email address or are previous customers.

The trick to optimizing this source is by sending captivating emails at the right time and the right frequency. Users can get hundreds of emails a day from various companies, so it is important to write a subject line that catches their attention and include content that makes them want to click the link to your website.

Emails are a great way to capture repeat customers and keep your business top of mind.

Direct traffic

Direct traffic refers to the traffic from users that type your URL right into the address bar or click on a previously saved bookmark. Note that some of this traffic cannot be tracked on Google Analytics; for instance, if someone is searching in incognito mode or clicked on a link from a text message or messenger app.

Since this type of traffic can be hard to track and some visits may be misidentified, it can be hard to determine its effectiveness. Yet, those who get to your website through direct traffic are already familiar with your business and it can show your users’ demand.

Social media

Social media is a free way to drive traffic to your website (unless you are running paid ads, of course). There are billions of users across the world and having an active presence will help to promote your business to a big audience.

Getting your followers to click to your website from social media can be a difficult task. But, as an operator, you have the unique opportunity to consistently share great photos and videos of customers experiencing your tours and activities which can entice more people to book.

Although social media can be a great source of website traffic, trends and algorithms can change quickly. You must stay on top of them and utilize them to maximize your success.

A few tips to master your social media engagement:

Prioritize quality over quantity. Focus on the platforms where your audience is most likely to spend time rather than trying to cover all platforms.
Find a balance between promotion and connection. Paid ads aside, social media is less about advertising and more about engagement.
Engage in social listening to understand what your customers want and how best to engage with them.
Use hashtags strategically to reach your target audience and improve search visibility. Choose a few relevant, simple hashtags—avoid excessive use, as it may flag your account as spam.

Referral traffic

Referral traffic is another source of website traffic and represents when someone gets to your site from a third party. This can be from a review website like Tripadvisor, a published news article, a travel influencer’s blog or social account, local DMOs (Destination Marketing Organizations), or anywhere else your site may be linked.

Say for example, you decide to work with a food and travel blogger to promote your new food truck tour. Once they publish their content about your business, every link that directs to their site will be considered referral traffic (or a backlink).

If you do not go the influencer route, remember to create unique and engaging content that others will want to share. You can encourage customers to tag your business when they share photos or videos on their social media accounts. This will let their followers know exactly who they booked with and allows you to easily reshare their content.

Paid advertising

While paid advertising will cost money, when your advertising is optimized, it can bring in a great number of visitors and conversions.

This can include traffic from your Google ads, social media ads, YouTube ads and more.

When you boost a post on Instagram for even just $10 (and have properly set goal and audience information), you can increase the quality traffic that gets to your website almost immediately.

Ads can get expensive quickly, so it will require testing and monitoring to ensure you are getting the best results and spending your money how you should be.

Pro tip: Listen to our Growth Powered by FareHarbor podcast episode that explores 2025 SEO trends that will help you build your paid ad strategy.

A couple ways to build your paid advertising strategy:

Rather than running paid ads on every possible platform, focus your efforts and budget on the best types of ads for your business — such as search ads, display ads, retargeting ads, or social media ads.
Keep a close eye on your campaigns and continue to optimize them by analyzing keywords, reviewing the quality score, and analyzing the overall campaign performance.
If your business has the budget, work with a reputable digital marketing professional or agency to run ads that can make a huge impact on your website traffic.

Understanding where your website traffic comes from is another tool in your belt that helps to create a well rounded, intuitive marketing and SEO strategy.