Helping businesses grow has always been a passion of mine, whether that is Tourwriter, my customers’ businesses, or the companies I am involved with as an advisor. I came to the travel industry via accounting, so while I am a dreamer, a traveller and someone who loves what the travel industry represents, I am equally fascinated by the fundamentals of building a great business.
Through Tourwriter, my ability to help founders build businesses that operate independently and profitably has grown beyond what I ever imagined when I built the first super spreadsheet. Hundreds of businesses across more than 30 countries now rely on the platform, and being part of that has been deeply satisfying.
This week in London, I had breakfast with one of those founders. She is currently on holiday and casually mentioned that she had not checked her inbox for three weeks. In fact, when she returns, she plans to delete all the emails that have accumulated while she has been away.
How is that possible?
Because she has built a business with the right processes, people and systems in place to operate without her.
To me, that is one of the clearest signs of a successful business. Not simply how much revenue it generates, but whether the founder has created something that can thrive without them being involved in every decision, every email and every problem.
So why am I sharing this?
Well, this week it is Tourwriter’s turn to turn the page.
After 23 years as an independent business, Tourwriter has been acquired by WeTravel.
This is a hugely exciting new chapter for Tourwriter, and I’m thrilled to continue leading the business into this next phase. It allows us to bring together two businesses with a shared ambition, to make the business of designing and selling travel easier for our customers.
For me personally, it feels like another step in something that has always been about helping founders build better businesses. And I am excited to see where this next chapter takes us.
Where this started
Back in the early 2000s, Denise Campbell, Simon Hertnon, and I faced a common problem while scaling our New Zealand tour operation, our systems couldn’t keep up. We relied on the standard mix of spreadsheets, Word, and MYOB (long before another Kiwi startup, Xero, existed), but they weren’t designed for growth. Realising we needed something more robust to build a business that functioned independently, we developed our own software solution. That innovation became the foundation for Tourwriter.
Tourwriter itself was founded because three competitors came together to collectively solve the problems they all faced as bespoke, multi-day travel designers. Twenty-three years on, that is still how our product gets built, which brings me to the people I most want to thank.
Thank you to our customers
Every margin calculation, every booking request, every workflow, every invoice that behaves the way an inbound operator actually works came from one of you telling us we had it wrong and then giving us the chance to put it right. Many of you have been doing that for well over a decade. You let us into how your business runs, you were patient as we perfected the right workflows, and you told us the truth and gave us the chance to put it right. Thank you, all of you.
It brings me a lot of joy seeing customers come to Tourwriter, scale, and in several cases sell their own businesses. I know the software was part of that. Being on this side of it ourselves is a strange feeling, and a good one. We can’t wait for this next chapter.
We picked one hard thing, designing, costing and managing bespoke multi-day trips, and stayed on it while plenty of others went wider. Twenty-three years on one problem is either stubbornness or specialism, and I will let our customers decide which.
To the team, and to everyone who backed us
To the team, past and present, across Wellington, London, India and the Philippines, several of you for more than ten years: you built this. I know whose work sits behind which part of the product, and so do our customers.
And to all our advisors, board members and investors, thank you for asking the hard questions, for your time and advice.
What changes now
What changes now is pace and reach. We built the Xero integration so the accounting side finally worked properly. Payments have always been an area of the system we have wanted to refine further. WeTravel has processed $3 billion in payments across more than 150 countries, with teams in Chicago, Amsterdam, Sydney and Baku. That infrastructure now sits behind Tourwriter and our customers, and a much larger engineering group is building alongside ours. Tourwriter stays Tourwriter, with the same team and the same narrow focus on luxury and bespoke FIT, but with more resources.
So, do you want a company that scales profitably and gives you a team that is not reliant on you, as the founder? Build the front and back office systems that let your people do the small things well, consistently, without the long overtime. Your customers will love you for it, and one day someone may make you an offer.
Twenty-three years in, I can’t wait for what’s next.
Glenn Campbell
Co-founder and CEO, Tourwriter
