“We're a small company with huge care. Tourwriter's enabled us to be efficient in many of the mundane areas so that our care factor isn't exhausted before we need to use it.
General Manager, The Greenspot
Before cloud migration
- Supplier payments sent to Xero by file upload, with no way to check them
- Turnaround tracked column by column, from booking received to confirmed
- Every itinerary copied by hand from a library of Word documents
- One spreadsheet holding every booking, updated by hand
After cloud migration
- One product database, every product held in English, German, and Dutch
- Task templates that organise the teams workload for every booking
- A two-way Xero integration, with supplier bills synced and visible
- Agent-branded proposals and image-rich Postcards built in minutes
Growth
- Time handed back to the part of the job that earns loyalty and referrals
- A skilled, efficient team, set up for sustainable growth
- Every client known by name, never by file number
Efficiency
- Consultants build in three languages from a single library
- A business that grows through efficiency, stays little on purpose, and good because of it
- Time saved in managing tasks, accounts, and bookings protects the time to care for the traveller
A small company with huge care
Truly great adventures always start with one thing. They start when someone cares enough to forge a deep connection between a traveller and a place and its people. It takes time and commitment to truly understand a traveller on a deeply human level, and it takes unrivalled knowledge of a destination to match that traveller with exactly the right itinerary. This is an experience only available at the best boutique operators. The Greenspot has built its whole business on providing this level of care.
The Greenspot is a New Zealand inbound operator that designs tailor-made, self-drive trips for travellers coming from Europe. Most are on the trip of a lifetime, often a month long, exploring the country by rental car.
For Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, the General Manager, staying small is a deliberate choice. Her vision for the company is unusual, and she says it plainly.
“Our vision statement is to be the best and biggest little inbound operator in New Zealand. We want to be the biggest that we can be, while still remaining little enough to know every client, be able to give that attention to detail.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
That attention is clear in the small, human ways in which The Greenspot operates. For example, when a couple from the Netherlands have a transfer go wrong on a thirty-day trip, the team calls ahead, checks the rest of the journey, and leaves something in their room.
“We never want to refer to clients by file number. We always want to know their names.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
This is the part of the work no software can do for them. It is also the first thing to get squeezed when the day fills with admin. Kerryn understood that better than anyone, because when she stepped in, the admin was winning. The Greenspot treats care for the client as their whole reason to exist, and with a mounting admin burden it was the thing most at risk.
When you are small, efficiency is survival
When Kerryn took over the running of the operations, she prioritised process transformation, embarking on a long and arduous change management journey to protect their right to spend time caring about customers.
“Every itinerary The Greenspot did when we took over was a copy and paste of every single item. So driving direction, hotel description, activity was a copy and paste from a giant library of Word documents.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
Using the previous version of Tourwriter, the team had become inefficient and Kerryn new a big change was required. Every hour spent assembling a document was an hour not spent on the traveller. A spreadsheet starts to cost you long before it looks like a problem.
“We were handling business prior to this, but we were hitting a ceiling of what we could cope with because it took so long to do everything.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
Kerryn's instinct was not to hire her way out of the problem. It was to fix the work itself. She describes efficiency as part of who she is.
“I'm all about efficiency and I absolutely hate wasting time. That's just a personality trait, so I'll grab on to any system I possibly can to make things more efficient.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The Greenspot was a Tourwriter customer for more than twenty years on the first version of the platform, an older desktop software. The new cloud platform offered a way out of the copy and paste. It asked for something hard in return. A full rebuild, and a different relationship with time.
Getting the whole team on board
After more than twenty years on the original Tourwriter desktop software, the job was to rebuild on the new cloud version.
Rebuilding an operation while the business keeps running is not the easy option. However, Kerryn chose it anyway. As soon as the high season ended, she started moving The Greenspot onto Tourwriter's cloud platform.
“As much as the transition process was painful, coming out the other side of it, it's absolutely revolutionised how we do things.
It was a heck of a journey learning it, but we went really donkey deep early on. It was painful, but very much worth it now. We're out the other end.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The part Kerryn is proudest of is not the software. It is how her team took it on. In a business this size, the people are the product, so the rebuild could not sit with one person.
“I actually got all of our team involved and it was such a big task that it was impossible for one person to do. We broke up the tasks between team members with certain skills.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
She matched the work to the way each person works best. The quick movers loaded product data at volume. The team members with a sharp eye for detail followed, checking and refining. By the time high season arrived, everyone already knew the system from the inside. Getting a platform live is a team effort.
“We have such good staff and such amazing personalities, especially with people being able to speak Dutch and German. We do have a remarkable team of people. Everybody is a really well-intentioned person.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
Tourwriter was founded in 2004. More than twenty years of development, shaped directly by boutique tour operators like The Greenspot, has produced a platform that understands the commercial reality of a small, specialist travel business. The latest version of Tourwriter was currated for teams like The Greenspot. The process change required moved them towards a best practise operating model, further unlocking the potential of the whole The Greenspot team.
The craft that efficiency protects
With the routine work simplified, the team can put its energy where it counts. The clearest example is language. The Greenspot loads every product in English, German, and Dutch, so a consultant can build a trip in one language and switch the output to another.
“Because we have every product loaded in three languages, an English speaker can put the itinerary together in English and then change it over to Dutch and it goes.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The team keeps the translations human. They do not hand the traveller's first impression to a machine.
“We're not relying on AI 100%. It's personable, not just how AI spit it out.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The same care goes into how The Greenspot works with its travel agent partners across Europe. Some agents know exactly what their client wants and send a detailed brief. Others lean on The Greenspot for its knowledge and ask the team to design the trip from scratch. Either way, the proposal goes out under the agent's brand.
“We work really hard with those agents to give them the surety that we really look after the people when they get here.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The proposals themselves do more of the selling. With Tourwriter's Postcards, the team sends an image-rich web link instead of a long document.
“The link we can send with the Postcard really helps them to close the sale, because they're showing the client something really image rich and enticing, as opposed to a bit of paper with a whole load of words on it.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
Keeping the care factor intact
The systems also look after the team's feeling of control and clarity. Tourwriter's task management replaced the spreadsheet that used to track every booking by hand. Now a set of tasks fires for every booking, and Kerryn can see at a glance how the work is spread.
“With the tasks, it helps everyone know where they're at, and it helps me know if one of our team is way behind, and we can redistribute it and get some people to help.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The finances got the same treatment. Supplier payments used to go into Xero by file upload, with no way to see what had been done. Tourwriter's new two-way, realtime Xero integration changed that.
“We can now really easily see when we haven't uploaded bills. It's a very efficient system in the back end now with Xero, as opposed to previous years where there were supplier payments floating around in the abyss.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
The shift from blind file uploads to a live connection removes a whole category of double handling. The hidden cost of double entry is the kind of thing you only notice once it is gone.
For Kerryn, all of it comes back to one thing. The reason to be efficient is not speed for its own sake. It is to protect the care.
“We're a small company with huge care. Tourwriter's enabled us to be efficient in many of the mundane areas so that our care factor isn't exhausted before we need to use it.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
Her advice to other operators still spending an hour and a half on a single itinerary is short.
“Just do it. Channel Nike there, just do it. It's such a good way of looking at your business.”
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd, General Manager, The Greenspot
See how Tourwriter fits a bespoke operation.
Frequently asked questions
What does The Greenspot do?
The Greenspot is a New Zealand inbound tour operator. It designs tailor-made, self-drive trips for travellers coming from Europe, in English, German, and Dutch. Most travellers are on a once-in-a-lifetime trip of around a month.
Why did a small team take on a full rebuild instead of just hiring more people?
A small team reaches a ceiling when every itinerary takes up to ninety minutes. Kerryn chose to fix the work rather than add headcount, so the team could handle more without losing the personal attention that defines the brand.
What is a good way to manage a change project for a small team?
Involve everyone and split the work by each person's strengths, with fast workers loading data and detail-focused team members checking it. By involving everyone, you ensure that every consultant knows the system and has bought in to the change.
How does Tourwriter handle multiple languages?
Every product is loaded in three languages at once. A consultant can build a trip in one language while viewing the others, then switch the output language in a single step.
What are Tourwriter Postcards?
Postcards are image-rich, shareable web links. The Greenspot sends them to its agent partners, who use them to present trips to travellers in a far more engaging way than a text-heavy document.
How does the Xero integration help?
Supplier payments used to be uploaded to Xero by file, with no way to confirm what had been done. The proper integration syncs supplier bills and shows at a glance what is outstanding.
How does Tourwriter help a small team protect personalised service?
By handling routine work such as itinerary assembly, task scheduling, and supplier payments, the platform keeps the team's energy free for client care. As Kerryn puts it, the care factor is not exhausted before it is needed.
The Greenspot
The Greenspot is a New Zealand inbound tour operator specialising in tailor-made, self-drive trips for travellers from Europe. The team works in English, German, and Dutch, and keeps the company small enough to know every client by name.
Kerryn Ralston-Boyd
Kerryn led the rebuild of The Greenspot's operations in Tourwriter. Kerryn is all about efficiency, and is focused on keeping the company little enough to give every traveller real attention.