Creating experiences for tourists may be the most fun way you’ll ever make money in your spare time!

Imagine getting paid to spend a pleasant hour or two introducing visitors to a local activity you love or to your city as a whole. We included guiding local experiences as one of our 25+ Ways to Make Money as a Real Estate Agent. And we’ve received some interest from readers wanting to learn more about it. So today we’ll dig into some of the details of how exactly to make money creating experiences for tourists.

Consider some of these locals-only experiences:

• cooking classes featuring local ingredients and dishes unique to your region
• dance classes with local music and style
• yoga classes in the shadow of a local landmark
• outdoor art classes with local scenery as your subject
• a weekend camping trip in your state park

Or some of these guided tours as experiences:

• hiking tours to a local landmark
• kayak tours of your local waterways
• bicycle tours through your lively neighborhoods
• walking tours of the history of your city
• photography tours of your city’s most instagramable locations
• food tours of your best local cuisine

Your options are limitless!

The Basics of How to Make Money Creating Experiences for Tourists

The basic formula for making money creating experiences is simple.

You come up with an idea for a local experience tourists would be willing to pay for. Then you create an experience design to submit to websites like Airbnb and Vayable. Your design includes a description of your experience, an itinerary, and your price.

Once your experience design is approved, people can purchase your experience directly from the website or app. You can decide to accept or reject each reservation. So this is entirely flexible with your schedule. If you accept, the website takes a sizeable commission (usually 15-30%), and adds the reservation to your calendar. Your earnings are usually paid out 24 hours after the experience.

15-30% sounds like an excessive commission rate. But remember, these sites are bringing some ready-to-buy traffic to your listing. They’re also hosting the listing and facilitating the payments. So they deserve fair compensation. Just make sure you account for this fee split when you set your price.

Why Creating Experiences is a Perfect Fit for Real Estate Professionals

As a real estate professional, you’re in a great position to make money creating experiences.

• You know your area. Realtors® are a treasure trove of local knowledge. Sure, you probably know more about the residential side than most of your tourist clients will care to hear, but that insider knowledge can also guarantee your clients a perfectly unique experience with a true local.
• You’re in complete control of the schedule. If you’d rather keep your evenings and weekends free for your real estate clients, you can limit your experiences to weekdays. Of course you’d miss out on weekend visitors, but tourists often spend a full week exploring a single city.
• You could potentially convert visitors to buyers! Just work in that fact that you’re a real estate agent. Say something about how you know the city so well because you’re always showing real estate clients the hidden gems of each neighborhood. This increases your credibility as a local expert. And it makes your visitors consider what it would be like to live there full-time. Who knows? Your tour might convince them to make a move!

How to Start Creating Experiences

It’s easy and completely free to get started creating experiences!

Step 1: Brainstorm Ideas

What is your city known for? What about your city or local culture is so interesting to you that your visitors will pick up on your genuine enthusiasm? If you have access to semi-rare transportation, like horses, a boat, a classic car, paddle boards, or a plane, your tours will be in higher demand. You’ll also be in demand if you can provide access to an area people have a difficult time getting to. Private clubs, to which you can invite visitors as your guests, are highly sought after.

Create a list of the topics you’re interested and the access you can provide.

Step 2: Understand Quality Standards

Each website that lists these experiences has their own quality standards.

For example, here are the standards at Vayable.com:

All Vayable experiences are hosted in person by Vayable Insiders and their purpose is to provide cultural enrichment, education and a good time. All Vayable experiences must be independently lead by the Insider and be an experience in art, fashion, design, eating, drinking, architecture, history, outdoors or any other cultural experience that tells a unique story about the destination.

Every Insider on Vayable:

• Commits to delivering a high-quality experience to every traveler.
• Prioritizes safety and security above all else.
• Is passionate, personable and trustworthy.

The general rules are the same. Provide a high-quality, local experience in a safe environment with personal touches.

But every site will be slightly different. Make sure you read the standards for each site to which you will apply before going any further into the process.

Step 3: Design an Itinerary

With those quality standards in mind, design an itinerary for your experience. This step will help you flesh out the details of your idea and nail down the specifics to make it a reality.

Start with a brief description of the experience including highlights and benefits for the visitors.

Then list the activities, stops, or sights on a timeline.

Also note anything that will be included, such as bottled water on a hike, paddle board rentals for a paddleboard tour, or the first round of drinks in a guided pub crawl. And note anything that won’t be included.

Lastly, detail the logistics: starting times, meeting points, ending time and location, etc.

Step 4: Submit Your Experience to Multiple Websites

For maximum exposure, submit your experience to multiple websites. Each website will have their own way of collecting this information, but it’s typically an online form. You may even be able to copy and paste from the itinerary you just created.

Also, as you already know, photos are an amazing selling tool. Use quality photos wherever possible to sell your experience to these websites. Then use them again, once your experience is approved, to sell the experience to your visitors.

Here are a few websites to consider:

• Airbnb
• Vayable
• Shiroube
• Tours by Locals
• Rent a Local Friend

As part of this process, some sites will need to verify your identity by requiring a photo ID and maybe a current picture as well. This step might also include linking your PayPal account and completing tax information so you can be paid as soon as your first excursion is complete.

Step 5: Post Your Experience

The posting process will be slightly different for each site. Some might post your experience for you as soon as it’s approved. Others may want you to complete another online form to officially post your experience on their site.

5 Keys To Maximize Your Earnings with Creating Experiences

Here are 6 keys to maximizing your creating-experiences income.

1. Start with low prices to get reviews

Those first customers are always the hardest to get. Get those first customers with lower-than-normal pricing. You can even promote this in your listing. Something like “The first 10 customers can take advantage of this unbelievably low starter rate!”

Treat those first 10 customers to an unforgettable travel experience. Then flat-out ask them to please leave you a 5-star review. You know how people are never sure if they should tip their tour guides? This creates a great opportunity for you to say something like, “Instead of leaving a tip, I would really appreciate a 5-star review on Vayable if you enjoyed this experience.”

As those 5-star reviews grow, you’ll be able to command higher and higher prices for your experience.

And naturally, if you can book a larger group, you can still earn a solid hourly rate even with fairly low per-person prices.

2. Teach a skill to earn a higher hourly rate

Speaking of hourly rates, consider offering a skill-building experience. Teaching a skill is worth more than a history lesson. So you could demand higher rates with cooking classes, dance lessons, or yoga for beginners. Photography tours are a great option because you can teach your tour group how to take better photos. While exploring the main attractions in your area. While getting some great selfie-ops. Millennials love that.

3. Put a unique spin on a classic tour

Of course there are a million ways to add a twist to a classic tour. Here are a few spins to consider:

• Mode of transportation: “Winery hop in a Vintage VW Bus”
• Niche demographic: “Calligraphy workshop in an art studio”
• Tap into your past professions: “Learn to mix cocktails with a professional bartender”
• Do good: “Learn about Florida’s Eco-system as you plant new community trees with locals”
• Add a unique location: “Advanced golf lesson at the Ritz”
• Get really creative: “Mini-makeover followed by a night of clubbing”

4. Charge a premium for high season

You can adjust your pricing to reflect the change in seasonal demand. Charge more for the tourist season and less in the offseason. Or you could adjust the pricing to reflect your schedule. If weekday experiences work better for your schedule, price evening and weekend time-slots higher. This way you’ll be better compensated for any inconvenience. So evening and weekend tours would still be worth your while.

5. Promote your experience

To make your new income stream a success, you need to hustle a bit. Spread the word about your new experience offer online so more people can find you.

Reach out to your city’s tourism board first. Explain how your experience showcases the city and benefits travelers. Then ask for a link to your service offering on one of those websites. The one with the best fee split, perhaps.

And look for travel bloggers with posts about your city. Reach out to those bloggers and ask for a link to your experience. If the blogger is local (and has a sizeable following) invite them to join your group free of charge so they can write an honest review of your experience. To find these bloggers, simply Google “travel blog [your city]”.

Travel forums are another great place to promote your new experience. Travelers are always on forums with questions about what to see and do during their 3 days in whatever city. Help them out by offering your unique local experience. Check some of the big travel sites like Trip Advisor and Expedia.

You could also promote your experience on your website and social media accounts. Just make sure the experience doesn’t diminish your stature as a knowledgeable real estate professional before you cross-promote! For example, a tour of celebrity homes would fit right in on your real estate website and social media.

How to Push This Concept Further

At this point, you should have a few solid ideas on how to make money creating experiences. But you could take this concept to a whole new level in a couple ways.

Incorporate stock photography sales

Did you read our post on How to Make Money Selling Stock Photos Online? Well, what if you found a way to combine these income streams?

Let’s say you’re offering Sketching Classes in San Diego’s Balboa Park. And you know lifestyle bloggers are always looking for images of people enjoying leisure time activities just like this. Ask your group if they want you to take pictures of the experience. Most will truly want you to take pictures and post them to a Dropbox account (or similar) that the group can access afterward. It gives them pictures of themselves to post on their social media accounts. You could even advertise this photo service as part of the package!

You can freely sell your photos online as long as people aren’t recognizable. But you need a signed waiver from anyone in the photo who could be recognized.

So a hand making the first strokes on paper with the park in the background is fine as-is. And if you get some great shots where people are recognizable, reach out to those people and ask for their signature on the waiver to give you permission to sell the image. You could even offer them a cut of any profit to incentivize them.

Then post your stock photos for sale online and earn multiple streams of income from this single event!

Specialize in real estate insider tours

How’s this for a brilliant idea…

You offer a real estate insider tour for new real estate investors. Your tour would include a lesson in real estate investing (residential or commercial) as you tour properties that are interesting from an investment point-of-view. For example, select a few properties that would make terrible investments. Show your tour what makes these properties bad investments. Then end on a great investment property. Bonus points if you can find one currently on the market. Explain what makes this property such a great investment. You may just get a sale!

What is the first rule of adding income streams to your real estate business? It’s to make sure the income stream is truly benefiting your clients.

This brilliant idea doesn’t work if your “experience” is just a glorified property showing.

You need to truly teach your group about local real estate investing. And this goal needs to be evident in your submission to the websites if you’re going to have a chance at getting it approved. You must prove that your experience is local, educational, and fun. Perhaps you look only at landmark or historically-relevant properties (many of which would be open to the public, so you wouldn’t need to arrange private access. Provide a history of each property, including prior owners and how the properties have transferred through the years. Talk about the restoration efforts and the effect those had on the property value.

You would need to promote this experience a little differently. Travel forums won’t bring much qualified traffic, but real estate investment forums could.

Again, make sure you’re providing real value to your group. Teach them some tips for new real estate investors, and show them how to calculate investment returns.

At the end of your tour, ask if they’d like to be added to your email list to be notified when a great investment property comes on the market. And just like that, you have a few new clients!

Want to push this even further? Focus your blog on real estate investing. Continue to engage these new clients weekly via your blog posts until you are the only Realtor® that comes to mind when they’re ready to buy. Not blogging yet? Here’s why that’s a monumental mistake.

Get a Small Win

Great victories are made possible by small wins. Get a small win before you move on with the rest of your day.

Your small win challenge today is to brainstorm a list of potential experiences you can offer. Check out some of the websites to see what other people are offering if you need more inspiration.

And don’t forget to join our Community for more life-changing money-making ideas!

Have you made some money creating experiences? Do you have some tips to share with our community? We’d love to see them in the comments!