THE TOURISM PROFIT PROGRAM
Twelve weeks. One hour a week.
The work that turns a busy tourism business into a profitable one.
1:1 coaching with Sarah Colgate, built for Australian tourism operators turning over up to $1M who know the business could be more profitable, more direct, and less reliant on whichever agent is taking the biggest cut this year.
This program is for you if
You run a tourism business turning over between $250,000 and $1M.
You know your revenue to the dollar. You cannot tell me which of your products is actually profitable.
You pay OTAs 25% or more in commission and you suspect it is costing you more than it is worth.
You are working harder than you should be for the profit the business is producing.
You have read the marketing courses, the OTA optimisation guides, and the LinkedIn posts. None of them have changed the numbers.
You want 1:1 coaching with someone who has run a tourism business. Not a group course. Not a generic business program.
What changes in twelve weeks
You will know your real gross margin for the first time.
You will know the contribution margin of every product you sell at your average group size — which means you will know which tours, experiences, or stays are quietly losing you money on most departures.
You will know what every channel costs you per booking. The real cost of a Viator booking. The real cost of a direct booking. The real cost of every distribution partner you work with.
You will have a repricing plan — specific numbers, specific dates.
You will have a realistic target for shifting bookings from OTA to direct, and the practical steps to get there.
You will have a 12-month cash forecast that replaces feel with numbers.
You will have given yourself back at least five hours a week inside 90 days.
And you will walk into month four with your own 12-month profit plan — built with my input, owned and understood by you, ready to implement.
How twelve weeks of work actually looks
Every program is shaped by your Health Check results and the three goals we agree in week one. The structure of the twelve weeks stays the same. What changes is what we spend time on inside each session, based on what your business needs.
Walk through your Health Check together. Set the three goals for the program. Agree the one number we will track every week.
Week 1 — The starting line
You bring the last 12 months of revenue and costs. We separate the noise from the signal and find your actual gross margin.
Week 2 — The real numbers
Week 3 — Product-level profitability
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 — Channel mix and the true cost of every booking
OTA percentages, commission rates, the actual cost of a direct booking versus a Viator booking. You leave the session with a true cost-per-booking number for every channel you use.
Week 5 — Pricing
When you last reviewed prices. What input costs have done since. Where the gap sits. You build a repricing plan with specific numbers and dates.
What it actually takes to move 5%, 10%, 20% of bookings from OTA to direct. Website, email list, repeat guest mechanics, partnerships.
Week 6 — The direct booking shift
Week 7 — Cash position and seasonal planning
Current runway, target runway, a 12-month cash forecast. You stop running the off-season by gut feel.
Hours worked. What only you can do. What you do because nobody else has been shown how. A plan to give you back five hours a week inside 90 days.
Week 8 — Owner workload
The differentiation question. We rework the answer until it would survive being said out loud to a guest at the end of a tour.
Week 9 — Why a guest chooses you
Week 10 — Getting in front of the right guests
Which channels return real bookings for your specific business. Which are eating time for the sake of looking busy.
Week 11 — Team and the systems that hold it together
What your team needs to know to run a normal week without you answering questions. The three SOPs worth writing first.
You build the plan. My job in this session is to make it specific and to sequence it correctly. The plan goes home with you at the end of the call.
Week 12 — Your 12-month profit plan
The investment
Paid weekly. You can stop at any point if the program is not the right fit. Most operators do not — but the option matters.
That figure is less than what most operators at this revenue level are losing to OTA commissions in a single quarter.
$349 per session. Twelve sessions.
Availability
The Tourism Profit Program runs alongside my established coaching work, where I work with larger operators on monthly retainers. That work takes most of my week.
What that means in practice — I take on a small number of 1:1 program clients at any one time. When the spots are full, the next intake opens when one finishes.
If the next step matters to you, the Clarity Call is where we find out whether there is a spot available and whether the program is the right fit
Who you would be working with
I am Sarah Colgate, Tourism, Hospitality & Events Growth Specialist. I have spent over 20 years inside the tourism industry — operating, not consulting. 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 — sales doubled in 100 days, 749% sales increase in 12 months.
During COVID I went to bat for tourism operators — meeting with government ministers and politicians to fight for the mum and dad operators who needed help. The ProfiTune Business Analysis methodology I use in this program has been applied to more than 400 businesses over 30 years, across tourism and beyond.
What you will not get from this program
A 100-page report. That is the Tourism Profit Review, which is a different product for operators above $1M.
Marketing language. We work in real numbers, in your language, on your business.
A generic course. The structure is consistent. The conversation is not. Every program is shaped by what your Health Check found, what your numbers show, and what you said you wanted to build.
A group. This is 1:1 only. Not a cohort, not a mastermind, not a course with weekly Q&A. Just you and me on Zoom for twelve weeks.
What you need to bring
A completed Tourism Business Health Check. Without it we would spend the first three weeks diagnosing what could have been answered in ten minutes.
Your last 12 months of numbers. By week 2.
Honesty. The work only goes as deep as you are willing to go.
"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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Yes. The Health Check is what makes week one useful. Without it we would spend the first three weeks diagnosing what could have been answered in ten minutes. It takes ten minutes and it is free.
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Sessions reschedule. The program runs at your pace within reason — most operators complete twelve weeks in twelve to fourteen weeks once you account for school holidays, peak season, or whatever lands in the middle. We do not just keep rolling without you.
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1:1. Just you and me on Zoom. Not a cohort. Not a course.
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Yes. If two of you are running the business and both of you would be making the decisions, both of you should be in the room. No additional cost.
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Then the Tourism Profit Program is probably not the right fit. The work that suits a business at that size is the Business Improvement Coaching pathway — which starts with a Health Check and a Profitability Clarity Call with me. We work out which one is right on the call.
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You leave with your own 12-month profit plan and the discipline to implement it. Some operators stay in touch through the newsletter. Some come back six months later for a check-in. Some move into the longer coaching engagement as the business grows. The twelve weeks are designed to give you everything you need to keep going on your own.
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A course teaches you in general terms. A mastermind has you learning alongside other operators. This program is built around your specific business, your specific numbers, your specific operators, and your specific goals. The structure is the same for every operator. The conversation is not.
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. I tell you whether the program will move the dial for you, or whether your business is in a different position than the Health Check suggests.
Either way you leave the call with a clearer picture of where you stand.