“It’s one of the easiest systems to work with.
Linda Nabwire
Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Before Tourwriter
- Suppliers chased by email one lodge at a time
- No statements or invoices billing tracked off-system
- Manual margin maths variable lodge commissions, some 30%
- Time consuming management of different languages per proposal
After Tourwriter
- One-click confirmations suppliers confirm automatically
- Multi-language set-up
- Statements and invoices built in seconds
- Shared payment visibility full amount or deposit payments shown on the itinerary
Growth
- Fewer booking errors dates and details always clean
- Two years on Tourwriter since roughly 2024
Efficiency gains
- Five-second booking requests to suppliers
- Tasks assigned across the team nothing slips
Overview and background
Every proposal at ViaVia Adventures used to carry work that had nothing to do with planning a trip. Staff loaded both Dutch and English content into a document, then manually deleted whichever language a guest did not need before it could be sent. Confirming a lodge booking meant writing to one supplier at a time and waiting for a reply before the next step could happen. For Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant at ViaVia Adventures, that meant the same proposal was effectively rebuilt by hand each time it went out, one language edit and one supplier email at a time.
ViaVia Entebbe started as a hotel. Co-founders Pieter Huybrechts and Lobke Vermeulen opened it at the end of 2016 in Katabi, a suburb of Entebbe, Uganda, about ten minutes from Entebbe International Airport. The business began with a handful of glamping tents, a dormitory and a camping space, welcoming guests across every budget from campers to travellers wanting a garden view room.
As the hotel grew, so did an appetite to show guests more of the country around it. That led to ViaVia Adventures, the tour operations arm built to showcase Uganda’s landscapes, culture and communities. Linda Nabwire, now Travel Consultant at ViaVia Adventures, has been with the business since 2018, starting as a three-month intern in housekeeping before moving through reception and hotel management into the travel side.
Running tours alongside a hotel meant managing complexity that a pure hospitality business never has to face. Margin calculations on supplier rates and the varied commission structures introduced a whole new level of complexity. Before ViaVia had a dedicated way to manage invoicing and statements, tracking who had paid a deposit and who still owed a balance depended on checking with colleagues directly, rather than seeing it reflected against the booking itself. With around 90% of ViaVia’s clientele coming from Belgium and the rest largely English-speaking, every proposal also had to work in two languages, adding another layer to an already detailed workflow.
The hotel side of the business has kept its own character throughout this growth. ViaVia runs an open bar and restaurant that welcomes local residents as well as travellers, with live music on Fridays and Sundays, yoga sessions and sports broadcasts. Linda describes the business as eco-friendly and deeply embedded in the local community. That local, community-facing side of ViaVia matters even more when travel demand dips. Uganda’s tourism sector was hit hard by an Ebola outbreak in the region, which Linda says was well managed by the government but often conflated in international news coverage with the separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, denting bookings regardless of where the risk actually sat. ViaVia’s answer, in Linda’s words, is confidence that the sector recovers.
“I believe we’ll come through it. Tourism always recovers. We came through COVID, and we’ll come through this too.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Building a second business without adding specialist staff
ViaVia Adventures has run its tour operations on Tourwriter for roughly two years. Linda’s early impression of the platform was daunting.
“Honestly, it looked daunting at first. Then I started using it myself, and it clicked.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Working in the system daily she quickly became an expert on pricing and margin calculations that once felt difficult and opaque.
“It’s one of the easiest systems to work with.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Building itineraries day by day came naturally to Linda, and she is looking forward to adopting the reusable templates feature that Tourwriter recently released.
Multi-language proposals became one of the most valued parts of the system, given how much of ViaVia’s client base speaks Dutch first. Linda is able to build a proposal in English and then easily set it to Dutch to meet the customers needs. She recognises what that means for a guest.
“Receiving an itinerary in your own language means a great deal to a traveller. If mine arrived in Lugandan, I’d be thrilled.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
That multi-language workflow used to carry a manual step. Tourwriter’s ability to set a default language removed that step. Tourwriter is constantly developing the platform to better serve the needs of our customers and this multi-language feature was one such development. The product has been constantly refined over the last two decades by direct feedback from boutique tour operators solving exactly this sort of everyday friction.
The Tourwriter platform has driven great improvements to the cross functional working processes for the ViaVia team. Payment and invoicing sits mainly with Lobke Vermeulen, who handles accounting entries as deposits and balances come in against a shared proposal and invoice. Linda highlights native statement and invoice generation as a recent and welcome addition to the platform.
“Being able to generate a statement and an invoice directly is something we simply didn’t have before. It has made the whole process far easier.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Because both Linda and Lobke can see the same booking record, payment status is visible without either of them needing to ask the other, showing directly on the itinerary as fully paid or as a deposit received.
Supplier management replaced a slower, email-by-email process. Confirming a lodge booking previously meant writing to a supplier and waiting on a reply. With Tourwriter, Linda sends a booking request with a tap and a click, and suppliers confirm automatically.
Mass-market AI trip planners and OTA recommendation engines are getting faster at surface-level suggestions, but they cannot replicate a purpose-built supplier network tuned to one operator’s own rates and relationships. That is where boutique operators like ViaVia keep their edge: depth and response speed a generic tool cannot match.
Task management has become one of the more advanced parts of ViaVia’s setup. The team built a step-by-step task template covering the life of a sale, from the first proposal through to deposit follow-up, with each step assignable between Linda, Pieter and Lobke.
“We built a clear set of steps for selling a trip. The first is a proposal within 24 hours. As I finish each task I hand the next to Pieter or Lobke, and when a deposit falls due, Tourwriter reminds me three days ahead to follow up.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
The results
Booking speed is the outcome Linda points to most directly. Once a proposal is built and fed with correct supplier and contact details, turning it into a confirmed, sent booking takes about five seconds. That speed compounds across a season built on repeat two-to-seven-person trips, where every proposal, confirmation and payment step used to depend on manual email tracking.
The task system has changed how Linda works day to day, replacing a pattern of late scrambling, forgotten lodge payments and last-minute tour guide overviews with visible, dated steps tied to each booking and to the team’s own policies.
Linda also credits the accuracy the system enforces with giving ViaVia an edge over other operators she has observed managing bookings without a dedicated platform.
“You see other operators getting their dates wrong. With Tourwriter everything is checked, clear and recorded, so we’re operating at a completely different level.”
Linda Nabwire, Travel Consultant, ViaVia Adventures
Looking at the bigger picture, Linda ties ViaVia’s ability to grow beyond hospitality into tour operations to having the right systems in place from the start, and sees the same principle behind the founders’ choice to keep investing in the platform rather than settling for a workaround.
ViaVia are leading a new tranch of hospitality businesses using tools to expand beyond their core business into travel bookings. As the African Tourism market continues to boom, expect to see more operators following their example and bring a truly locally embedded brand of toursim to the fore.
How did ViaVia Adventures manage tour proposals before using dedicated itinerary software?
Staff built proposals with both Dutch and English content loaded into each document, then manually deleted whichever language was not needed before sending. Payment status depended on checking directly with colleagues rather than seeing it against the booking. Supplier confirmations required individual emails and waiting for replies.
What problems do hotels expanding into tour operations face when managing margins manually?
Margin and mark-up calculations become far harder once commission structures vary by supplier, such as a lodge charging a specific percentage like 30%. Without a system tracking cost against sell price automatically, operators risk under-pricing complex itineraries or losing visibility over true profit per booking.
Why do small tour operators struggle with multi-language proposals?
Serving international clients in their own language means maintaining content in more than one language at once inside every proposal. Without a default-language setting, staff must manually strip out unused language content from every proposal before sending it, adding repetitive, error-prone work to each booking a small team can rarely spare.
How does Tourwriter handle supplier booking confirmations?
Tourwriter lets operators send a booking request to a supplier with a single action, and suppliers can confirm automatically within the system. This replaces sending individual emails to each lodge or supplier and waiting to hear back before confirming a client's itinerary.
Can itinerary software support proposals in multiple languages?
Yes. Tourwriter can load supplier and itinerary content in multiple languages within one product database, and operators can set a default output language for a proposal rather than manually removing unused language content each time. This suits operators serving international clientele who prefer proposals in their own language.
What does onboarding look like for a small hotel-turned-tour-operator?
Expect an adjustment period focused on pricing logic, particularly margin and mark-up calculations with variable supplier commissions such as a lodge charging a specific percentage. Confidence builds with regular use once the underlying data, including supplier rates and contact details, is entered accurately and consistently across every proposal.
How does task management help small teams stay on top of bookings?
Task management lets a small team map out every step of selling a trip, from proposal to final payment, and assign each step to a named person with a due date. It also prompts staff ahead of scheduled deposits, replacing manual tracking and reducing last-minute follow-up on payments.
How much time can a tour operator save by automating supplier bookings?
When a proposal is complete and fed with accurate supplier and contact information, sending a booking confirmation can take around five seconds. This replaces a process of writing individual emails to each supplier and waiting for a reply before confirming details with the client.
What results have small hotel-based tour operators achieved with itinerary management software?
ViaVia Adventures, the tour arm of a Uganda-based hotel, achieved five-second supplier bookings, shared real-time payment visibility between its sales and accounts staff, and fewer date and detail errors than operators it observed working without dedicated itinerary and booking software.
How has ViaVia Adventures changed since implementing Tourwriter?
Where payment status once relied on checking with colleagues directly, both the travel consultant and the accounts lead can now see whether a booking is fully paid or awaiting a deposit from the itinerary record itself. Task reminders replaced last-minute scrambling to pay lodges or chase overdue documents.
Why do proposal templates matter for growing tour operators?
Reusable templates let a team assemble a new itinerary from a proven structure rather than starting from scratch, saving time on repeat trip types. ViaVia's own consultant has identified wider template use as her next efficiency gain, having relied mainly on building proposals fresh until now.
Can a hotel business expand into tour operations without hiring specialist itinerary staff?
ViaVia Entebbe grew from a single hotel into a tour operator, ViaVia Adventures, without adding a dedicated itinerary specialist team. Existing hospitality staff, including a travel consultant who moved across from hotel management, learned to run pricing, proposals and supplier bookings within the same system.
ViaVia Entebbe
ViaVia Entebbe is a hotel, bar, restaurant and tour operator in Katabi, near Entebbe, Uganda, trading its tours as ViaVia Adventures. Founded at the end of 2016, it has grown from hospitality to a full service business and serves mostly Belgian and Dutch-speaking guests alongside English-speaking travellers.
Linda Nabwire
Linda’s rise at ViaVia has been fast. She joined in 2018 as a three-month housekeeping intern, then climbed through reception and into hotel management before crossing to the travel side. Today, as Travel Consultant at ViaVia Adventures, she builds the itineraries, prices the trips and runs supplier bookings end to end, having mastered the full tour operation in just a few years, all from within the same business.
