THE TOURISM PROFIT PROGRAM - LEADERS
Twelve weeks. One hour a week. The work that turns the person running your tours or attraction into the leader it needs.
Coaching with Sarah Colgate, built for the managers and developing leaders who run a tours or attractions business day to day but do not own it. Same twelve-week spine as the Tourism Profit Program. The lens is different, because a manager reads the numbers and protects the margin, but rarely sets the price.
This program is for you if
You run the operation day to day. Someone else owns it.
You are the operations manager, duty manager, guest experience lead, or reservations and admissions supervisor, or you are the up-and-comer being groomed to carry more.
You are handed a report every week that you were never taught to read.
You watch seats depart empty and sessions run half full, and you know it costs the business, but you cannot put a number on it.
You want to lead the team well, hold the standard, and have the hard conversations, without turning into the person who does every job themselves.
Or you are the owner, and you want to build a leader you can hand the operation to.
What changes in twelve weeks
Your leader will read the numbers they are handed and know what to do with them.
They will understand capacity, load factor and yield, and tell the difference between a busy day and a profitable one.
They will know what each booking channel really costs by the time it reaches the till.
They will hold a clear line on discounting and giveaways instead of bleeding margin to fill a quiet session.
They will run a shift, brief a team, and lift the guides and crew who are not there yet.
They will walk into the conversations they have been avoiding with a plan instead of dread.
They will have a plan for the quiet season and the weather day that does not rely on the owner making every call.
And they will finish with a 90-day leadership and performance plan they built themselves, lined up with what the owner asked for in week one.
How twelve weeks of work actually looks
Every program is shaped by the operation and the role. The structure of the twelve weeks stays the same. What changes is what we spend time on inside each session, based on what the business needs.
Walk through the role, the tours or sessions it covers, and where the leader has real authority. Set the three goals for the program. Agree the one number this leader will own and track every week, usually load factor, yield, or labour percentage.
Week 1 — The starting line
The passenger counts, session numbers, revenue and wages this leader actually sees, turned into something they can act on. Most managers understand the numbers on their own patch for the first time.
Week 2 — Reading the numbers you are handed
Week 3 — Capacity, load factor and yield
The contribution margin of every product at average group size. The week most operators say later was the one that changed the conversation.
Week 4 — The cost of how you fill the business
OTA and reseller bookings, walk-ins, direct, group and school deals. Where the margin is strong and where it disappears once commission and discount come off the top of a fixed-price seat.
Week 5 — Discounting and the giveaway habit
The comps, the local's rate, the discount handed out to fill a quiet 2pm, the refund given away to smooth a complaint. When it is worth it and when it is a slow bleed on a perishable product.
How a good leader runs an operating day. Setting the standard on the dock, the platform or the floor, holding it, and lifting the crew without doing every job themselves.
Week 6 — Leading the shift
Week 7 — The conversations you have been avoiding
The guide who has gone flat. The skipper who cuts corners. The peer who resented the promotion. We build the actual words for the conversation this leader has been putting off.
Cancelled departures, wash-out days, the long shoulder season. How a leader protects hours, redeploys the team, and holds the guest experience together when the schedule falls apart.
Week 8 —The quiet season and the weather day
The leader delivers the experience every departure. We get clear on what makes this tour or attraction worth choosing and worth reviewing, in words the whole team can repeat and act on.
Week 9 — Why a guest chooses this experience
Week 10 — Getting the team to deliver it
Turning the standard into something the team delivers on a wet Wednesday when the leader is not watching. Pre-departure briefings, handovers, and the habits that make a five-star experience consistent.
Week 11 — Systems that hold it together
What the team needs written down so a normal operating day runs without the owner or the leader answering the same question ten times. The three SOPs worth writing first, usually the opening, the safety brief, and the guest recovery.
The leader builds the plan. My job is to make it specific, sequence it correctly, and line it up with what the owner asked for in week one. The plan goes home with them.
Week 12 — Your 90-day leadership plan
The investment
One leader, or a group of up to four from the same business. Paid weekly.
If you have more than one person you want to develop, put them in the room together. A duty manager, a lead guide and a reservations supervisor learning to read the same numbers and hold the same standard is worth more than any one of them learning it alone.
Paid weekly. You can stop at any point if the program is not the right fit. The option matters.
The Tourism Profit Program — Leaders runs alongside my established coaching work. I take on a small number of program clients at any one time. When the spots are full, the next intake opens when one finishes.
$349 per session
One thing we agree before we start
Because these leaders sit inside someone else's business, we start with a short scoping call. The owner and the leader agree what this person is allowed to decide, what they need to recommend, and what stays with the owner.
That single conversation removes half the frustration before we start. A leader who knows exactly where their authority sits leads with far more confidence than one who is guessing.
Who you would be working with
I am Sarah Colgate, Business Improvement Professional. I have spent over 20 years inside the tourism industry, as an operator not a consultant. I ran Aquaduck Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, where we grew revenue 36% in 10 months, improved net profit per passenger 200%, and shifted online sales from 4% to 47% of turnover. I rebuilt Southern Cross Tours after COVID, where sales doubled in 100 days.
I have also built and led teams from the front. As General Manager at iToursntix Gold Coast I built the operation from scratch and grew it to seven stores. I know what it takes to turn a person running a shift into a leader who runs the business when you are not there. That is the work of this program.
What this is not
A generic management course.
The structure is consistent. The conversation is shaped by the operation, the role, and what the owner wants this leader to be able to do.
A replacement for the owner program.
Owners who set the strategy, the pricing and the channel mix are better served by the standard Tourism Profit Program or the Tourism Profit Review.
Theory.
We work in the real numbers, the real weather, and the real crew this leader manages every day.
"Working with Sarah Colgate has been transformative for Hot Air Balloon Gold Coast & Cairns. Her deep tourism industry expertise and practical, results-driven approach helped us refine our sales channels, strengthen OTA and trade partnerships, and drive measurable growth in bookings and revenue. Sarah truly understands tourism operators and tailors her strategies to deliver real results."
Clayton Priddle
General Manager, Hot Air Ballooning Cairns and Gold Coast
Common questions
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For the people who run the operation but do not own it. Managers, duty managers, guest experience leads, reservations and admissions supervisors, and the developing leaders an owner is building up. Owners are better served by the Tourism Profit Program or the Business Improvement Coaching pathway.
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Yes. Up to four people from the same business, at no extra cost. It works well when the people learning to read the numbers and hold the standard are learning it together.
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The business does. The Health Check is what tells me whether this is the right program and gives us a real starting point. It takes ten minutes and it is free.
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That is the point of this program. It is built for leaders who read the numbers and protect the margin they can influence, not for owners who set the price. We start by agreeing exactly what your leader can decide, recommend, and must escalate.
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Same twelve-week spine. The Tourism Profit Program is built for the owner who sets the strategy. This version is built for the leader who runs the operation, with the numbers, the team and the systems seen through their role.
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A 90-day leadership and performance plan they built themselves, lined up with what the owner asked for in week one. They own it, they understand it, and they know what to do first on Monday.
The Next Step
The starting point is the Tourism Business Health Check. Ten minutes, free, online. It tells me whether this program is the right thing for your business, or whether something else is.
Once you have done it, the next step is a 30-minute Profitability Clarity Call with me. No pitch, no report. We work out whether developing your leader this way will move the dial, and which of your people is the right one to start with.
Either way you leave the call with a clearer picture of where you stand.