May 15, 2025 • 43 mins
What happens when a growing ethical elephant sanctuary in Thailand upgrades to a smarter reservation system? In this episode, Rebekah sits down with Vincent, General Manager of Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, to explore how FareHarbor helped them streamline operations, improve guest experience, and scale sustainably.
Vincent shares the sanctuary’s growth story, including how they survived the pandemic, embraced ethical tourism practices, and now manage up to 300 guests per day—all while protecting their elephants and educating travelers.
We also dive into:
- The launch of FareHarbor in Thailand
- The benefits of mobile-first booking
-Pivoting your business when things go awry
- How FareHarbor’s tools and support helped Vincent’s team scale, automate, and thrive.
- What ethical tourism is, especially when it comes to caring for animals
Whether you're researching reservation software or already scaling your tourism business, this episode is a great look at how the right tech partner can power thoughtful, impactful growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Okay, and we are live.
We are coming at y'all from different ends of the world.
I'm in LA today, here in my wonderful hotel room in Los Angeles, California from theFareHarbor Meetup that we've been doing the last two days.
Day one of the meetup, we met our clients, we networked with clients in the area.
(00:20):
Day two, we had one-on-ones with them.
And I also am joined by the wonderful Vincent all the way in Phuket.
Thailand.
Vincent, how are doing today?
You're like I told you before we started recording your background is eating my backgroundup.
It looks incredible out there in Thailand today.
(00:40):
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me today.
Behind me, that's the Kaupra Tau National Park here in the south of the island.
It's the last rainforest here in Phuket.
We had a bit of rain last night as well, so it's a really nice rainforest morning here onthe island.
Wow, I bet Nice is severely downplaying it.
(01:02):
It's incredible.
I was telling Vincent before the recording, I was begging FareHarbor to send me out there.
said, I don't think I can film this remote.
I was ready to lie.
was like, I don't know if Vincent has internet out there.
I probably have to go visit the elephants.
So maybe I'll get them next time, Vincent.
But thank you for joining me remotely today.
(01:23):
oh
Vincent of Pooquette Elephant Sanctuary.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Tell me a little bit about the sanctuary.
You're new on FareHarbor, so I'm so excited to have you on our software and have you withme today and so excited to learn about you.
So I joined the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary in 2018, a couple of years after it had openedin 2016.
(01:46):
My background is in tourism and hospitality.
I've worked here in Phuket for the past 14 years.
Started working initially in different hotels and resorts, primarily in sales andmarketing roles.
And that's what led me to the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary six years ago when they wereslowly starting to...
(02:07):
and we're looking for someone to drive the marketing to raise more awareness about ethicalelephant tourism and the work that we do here.
And so I've been very blessed to already work with the Sanctuary for the last six years.
We've had a difficult time during the pandemic, of course, but we got through it.
(02:28):
We were one of the few camps that actually made it through the pandemic here in Phuket.
And the last two years have been...
uh
Quite good again for us.
Tourism is recovering quite strongly here in Thailand.
We've been very blessed with good visitor numbers and had an excellent high season justbehind us.
When is the high season for y'all?
What time of year?
(02:48):
Typically from mid December to end of March, that's the high season when most visitors arecoming to Phuket.
From April to October, we have more rain.
So we have also fewer visitors on the island.
But then in July and August, usually we have a little peak again due to the schoolholidays.
(03:13):
Many of our markets.
Interesting.
I warned you of this before we started recording, Vincent.
I think a lot of our listeners, including myself, just finished watching White Lotus thisseason.
ah If you ask me, an intellectual, it was an incredible season.
I loved this season.
And I think a lot of tourists also loved this season, ah which took place in Thailand, forthose who don't know.
(03:39):
Did that cause some people to fly over and check out the sanctuary?
I think generally it created a big buzz again for Thailand and the beautiful tropicalislands here, especially in the south.
Lotus was shot on Samui Island, so that's on the other side of the country.
um It's a one hour flight from Phuket.
(04:01):
I think they have seen quite an impact due to the season.
Here in Phuket, I'm not sure I haven't seen any strong impact due to the show, but it's...
A great promotion for Thailand in general.
What do you think about this post pandemic world of tourism?
(04:21):
You said that it was obviously rough for you in the pandemic to say the least for mostoperators around the world, right?
ah How did you recover from that?
What uh are some actions you did that you would describe as resilience to get through thatand ultimately bounce back?
(04:41):
the reason why we made it through the pandemic.
It's probably a combination of a little bit of luck and also some creativity and businessacumen on our side.
First of all, we had a few very good years before the pandemic.
We opened in 2016.
So we had a few good years.
We were able to save up for emergencies uh and we really had to tap into those savingsduring the pandemic because there were virtually no visitors for one and a half years.
(05:11):
We rely heavily on international travelers.
um We are not that popular yet with the local market.
um And so was very tough for us.
We had almost no visitors for a long time.
um But we got creative.
um For instance, I was shooting some short films that we sold online to people whocouldn't physically visit us but still wanted to know more about our work and learn what's
(05:36):
going on with elephants.
So we sold those short films online.
We had a few smaller initiatives where people could send us $30 and we would use thatmoney to buy ingredients for the supplementary rice balls that we make for the older
elephants.
We would then shoot little videos of how we made those rice balls and fed them to theelephants and send them back to whoever supported us.
(05:58):
Our team got creative making some bracelets and other little arts and crafts that we wereable to sell online.
So those were little initiatives that kept us busy and also helped us a little bitfinancially.
But I would be lying if I said it was easy.
It was very tough, especially towards the end.
So we're happy that the pandemic ended at some point.
(06:19):
Phuket was also one of the first destinations in Thailand that opened up as part of asandbox model.
So we were one of the first uh provinces in Thailand that saw international visitors againonce that sandbox launched.
Do you think the elephants were happy to see people?
um I think at our place, the elephants definitely don't mind the visitors.
(06:45):
We can always keep a respectful distance from them.
But uh the place that we created here really resembles the natural habitat.
We're lucky to be right next to the Carpateo National Park.
Behind me, we have water from a nearby waterfall that flows through our land.
Beautiful vegetation, lots of space for the elephants to roam around, to bathe freely, toreally live naturally.
(07:08):
And so I think...
For the elephants, nothing really changed during the pandemic.
They maybe noticed that there were fewer visitors, but their lives just went on.
And luckily we were able to keep all of the elephants and still provide them uh with ahappy home here during the pandemic.
Oh, well, I'm sure luck had some to do with it, but it sounds like you and your team wereincredibly, like you said, uh savvy, especially with that business acumen piece.
(07:37):
So congratulations for that.
I definitely don't want to underplay that.
Maybe some luck, but it sure was a lot of skill.
I feel like I just quoted the Fort Minor song, but it's true.
And 100 % of the power of will, as the kids say.
um That's a really good segue though into talking about the sanctuary itself before we getinto the growth of it all.
(07:59):
Tell me a little bit about your elephants.
Tell me about what makes the sanctuary so special.
You gave me a great description before we started.
I'd love to hear that again for our listeners.
Let me start with our founder.
Our founder is a local from the Northeast here in Phuket.
uh His name is Montree Toten.
He grew up in this neighborhood, uh the area where we're now, that's uh family land, hasbeen in the family for many generations.
(08:26):
uh But Mr.
Montree, he worked in elephant tourism elsewhere for a long time, and he even owned anelephant riding camp in the past in the south of Ireland.
10 years ago, before we opened, there was very little awareness about
more ethical uh approaches to elephant tourism.
And at some point he got inspired by the model of the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai,in the north of Thailand, which has been around for almost 30 years.
(08:52):
And uh its founder, Khun Lek, who's also uh very well known worldwide for her conservationwork, she inspired our founder to start Phuket's first ethical elephant sanctuary.
So was in 2016.
He decided to close his riding camp and the two elephants that were working with him inthat riding camp were the first that he moved here to this beautiful area that belonged to
(09:15):
his family already.
It started very small with these two elephants.
We had a little visitor lounge.
We did not expect more than 10, 15 people to visit a day, but we were very blessed withtourists coming to visit us and supporting our work, especially because we were the first
ethical elephant sanctuary on the island.
(09:35):
And so since then we've been able to rescue many elephants from riding camps, from shows,from the logging industry where they have to work very hard and are often mistreated.
And here we provide them with a new, more peaceful home in a natural setting where theycan just live freely, roam around, forage for their own food, socialize with other
(09:56):
elephants uh and just rediscover the joy of being elephants.
I love that.
I am regretting getting a 4K camera because I'm like, I'm emotional.
I have tears in my eyes for those who are listening.
It just sounds amazing to give these elephants such a chance.
Here at FareHarbor, we're very passionate about animal welfare.
(10:19):
And I think it's incredible that not only do you like qualify under those policies, but itsounds like you really go above and beyond.
for caring for these elephants.
Can you go into a little bit of the ethics of it all?
For instance, uh before we started recording, I was like, wow, it must be great to startthe day and ride an elephant.
(10:39):
And you were kindly like, actually, you know, we don't do that.
Which I think was a great example of like educating me, especially as hopefully one day atourist of Thailand going to see these beautiful majestic creatures.
on how we can respect them and take care of them and take care of their habitat.
(11:01):
I've gone to a number of Renaissance Fairs where I see people riding elephants in thedriest area of Denver.
And I always get nervous like, these elephants okay?
They're a long way from where.
they came from, can imagine.
so talk to me a little bit of the ethics of it all and how the Phuket Elephant Sanctuaryreally separates from, you know, competitors or maybe other so-called sanctuaries
(11:32):
ethically.
An elephant is a wild animal.
It's a very powerful, strong, intelligent wild animal.
And when we see these elephants uh give rides to tourists or perform tricks in shows orspend an hour in the water bathing and showering with visitors, the elephants typically
(11:55):
need to be tamed and trained to be able to engage in these interactions that are againsttheir instincts and their nature.
And so this training and taming often comes with abuse.
Traditionally, uh many years ago, young elephants were taken from the wild, separated fromtheir mothers and tortured for many weeks so that their will was completely crushed and
(12:19):
they could then be trained by humans to work in logging camps and to engage in touristactivities.
uh Over the last years, I think awareness for...
uh
Ethical elephant tourism has increased a lot.
So many visitors are aware that riding an elephant or bathing with elephants and seeingthem perform tricks is not always in their best interest.
(12:45):
And so we created a very simple philosophy.
We wanted the elephants to go back uh to an area that's closely aligned to their naturalhabitat and their natural way of life.
And that's why we created this 30 acre jungle essentially.
where this is the home of the elephants.
They roam freely, they forage freely, they almost live as they would in the wild.
(13:10):
And our tourists are mere visitors who come and observe them in their homes and learnabout them and educate themselves about animal welfare and ethical elephant tourism.
It is nice to hear that there's more ethics coming into animal involved tourism.
(13:30):
And I do think the average consumer, the average tourist shopping for these experiences ismore concerned about that.
think we've all seen the videos of people here in the US, we have like YellowstoneNational Park.
And I think we've all seen the videos of people getting so close to those wild animals.
And you just want to shake those people like, hello.
(13:51):
that is not a pet.
Why is your five-year-old kid trying to pet the bison, you know?
ah So I can relate to what you're saying.
And it's really inspiring.
And I like to hear that common sense is becoming more common for all of us, but especiallytourists, you know, admiring wild animals ah in hopefully what will be their natural
(14:13):
habitat.
ah In that increase of visitors you're having, and we talked a little bit before aboutyour peak seasons.
Do you handle a really high volume of guests and how many guests do you typically seeduring that average peak season?
So in general Phuket is very seasonal.
During the low season, it's quite tough.
(14:34):
We often have days with 20, 30, maximum 40 visitors.
But then the high season sees quite a big number of visitors.
have, over the years, increased our capacity.
And we can welcome in a day up to 300 visitors.
(14:56):
This is possible because we have 30 acres of land.
It's mostly observation based.
So during our tours, we split up these visitors into smaller intimate groups.
uh Each group is uh guided by a tour guide.
And so we walk in different directions.
We explore the sanctuary in smaller groups, always keep a distance from the elephants andour guides educate the tourists about our work and about the elephants that they encounter
(15:23):
during the tour.
uh But for us, it's fairly easy to scale up.
We're not a hotel, we don't need to build rooms.
We just need to prepare more tables and chairs to welcome visitors with some snacks in themorning to provide our vegetarian lunch.
Have a space to watch a video documentary at the beginning of the tour, which is also veryimportant to prepare them for their visit.
(15:48):
But yeah, so we've scaled up quite a bit over the last eight years and can welcome up to300 visitors.
a day that's split between the morning and afternoon with different programs.
There's never 300 people in the park at once, but in a day we can do around 300.
Yes, all just running into 300 people running into the wild to go pet an elephant is whatI'm picturing now and getting that sounds great and congratulations on scaling.
(16:15):
With scaling comes a lot of change and Vincent, you just came on to FareHarbor I wouldlove to hear the story of how it's been.
You're very new to our software.
Let's start from before, from the before times.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced before coming to FareHarbor?
(16:36):
Were you taking online bookings?
What did it look like before coming to us?
We started back in 2016 as a small family business.
As I mentioned, we were not really expecting more than 10, 15 visitors a day.
um A lot of it was through Facebook and other social media channels.
(16:56):
um Initially on the website, there was just a contact forum to reach out um foropportunities to visit.
Then in 2018, when we were slowly starting to grow a little bit, um we had a...
a custom reservation management system built.
um It was a fairly basic system, but it worked for us.
(17:18):
We were able to manage reservations of the two tours that we had at the time.
um But it was not the most robust system uh and certainly had its limitations.
So there was no easy way to, for instance, decrease or increase capacities when needed.
(17:39):
Definitely no integration with OTAs, uh no marketing opportunities whatsoever.
um Also no customization opportunities, very limited support.
uh Often we had system down times.
looking back, I'm surprised that we managed to work with this for so many years.
(18:01):
It worked, but it wasn't easy.
It put a lot of stress on our team, made processes uh inefficient.
uh But we went for it with several years.
To be honest, personally, I was also not really aware at the time of the differentsolutions out there.
uh I had worked in hotels and was familiar with some of the hotel reservation managementsystems, but it didn't really come to my mind that there's also uh dedicated solutions for
(18:29):
activity providers such as us.
And it was only when uh
when Sam from FareHarbor reached out, I think it was at beginning of last year already,that I became more aware of the possibilities and became more more intrigued of exploring
a new reservation management system.
(18:50):
And it was a good time because after COVID, we saw a big increase in visitor numbers.
And so I wanted to make sure that before the last high season, that we had somethingrobust in place to manage the.
the increase in visitor numbers that we expected.
And uh it's so funny hearing you talk about this because it sounds a lot like when youbreak up with an ex-boyfriend and you look back and you're like, how did I do that for so
(19:16):
long?
Is how it sounds like.
You broke up with your old reservation system and you found something better.
And I love that for you.
How has it been leveraging the system now?
As you say, you're getting more and more online bookings.
I read before our session, your first quarter online sales alone.
went up 13 % after FareHarbor implementation.
(19:38):
Tell me a little bit about that.
You're quite the savvy guy I'm getting the impression of.
So I'm sure that's a lot to do with a streamlined online reservation system, but it soundslike you may have had some other growth strategies in the works.
Kind of tell me a little bit about those things.
I think in general, a lot of the growth also has to do with the general tourism recoveryin Thailand.
(20:01):
uh Last year in 2024, tourist arrivals grew by over 20 % compared to the previous year.
So our growth has been uh somewhat in line with uh the general trend for Phuket as adestination.
But especially since we were able to implement FareHarbor at the end of November, so juston time for our peak season, it really helped us to manage this increase in visitor
(20:30):
numbers over the peak season.
uh It was super helpful to be able to close certain capacities or open up new capacitiesdepending on how many tour guides we had available to take care of our guests.
that really helped us to maximize uh revenue through the peak season.
(20:51):
And also with a fairly small reservations team, the system helped us a lot with the OTAintegration.
So we no longer had to manually manage every uh TripAdvisor and get your guide booking.
So that was very helpful as well.
It reduced a lot of stress for our reservations team.
(21:13):
And that was especially important because just before we launched FareHarbor, we alsolisted with a few additional OTAs.
So we had more partners, more volumes from these partners.
And it was really helpful um to have that integration with many of them to streamline thereservation process and booking management.
(21:35):
How has it been, tell me a little bit about your OTA experience.
I'm very intrigued because the relationship with OTAs to say the least varies betweenoperator to operator and especially region to region.
So how do you feel about OTAs?
Do you feel that you have like a healthy mix in your channel mix where you're getting yourbookings from, whether it's directly online?
(22:01):
or with OTAs or do feel they're necessary?
What's your take on OTAs?
So in general, we are very happy and proud of our booking source mix.
uh Roughly half of our bookings are direct, which uh I think is amazing.
(22:23):
We are very blessed with visitors who help us share our mission on social media, who shareexcellent reviews of their experience.
We don't do any paid advertising, so word of mouth is super.
important for us and we're also quite strong on social media.
um that's what helps us um get a lot of direct bookings.
(22:48):
For OTAs, it's roughly 25 to 30 % of the mix.
Also a super important piece, I mentioned earlier reviews are super essential for us.
lot of these reviews happen on TripAdvisor and naturally, uh
people once they read the reviews on TripAdvisor, they will easily then book theirexperience on TripAdvisor as well.
(23:12):
uh I think also because there's a lot of confusion in the market.
uh Eight years ago when we opened, we were the only uh ethical elephant sanctuary on theisland.
So it was relatively easy to find us.
uh Now it's a bit more complicated.
There are many other places on the island with very similar names, somewhat similarexperiences.
(23:34):
So we're actually very grateful for, for instance, for TripAdvisor or Get Your Guide sothat people who read the excellent reviews can then book it directly.
And they know they booked the experience uh where they have seen these amazing reviews andnot excellently booked something else through a Google search and maybe end up at another
(23:55):
place and then end up being disappointed.
So I think it's super important to have that relationship with these OTAs.
and we've worked with TripAdvisor for a long time and then also added a few additionalOTAs in the last year.
Thank you for that breakdown.
love the healthy mix of it all.
um And super interesting to hear that you don't do any paid ads.
(24:18):
um I am sure those elephants are modeling up a storm on your social media account.
I'll have to check that out after the episode and give you a follow.
can't, I'm gonna cry every day looking at those beautiful animals on my Instagram feed.
I just, I already know.
Tell me a little bit about uh as you've seen more bookings come in uh with this spike intourism with getting more direct online bookings Tell me about efficiency.
(24:48):
So with more bookings comes more people naturally How has streamlining your operationswith FareHarbor affected check-ins confirmation emails, etc?
So a big pain point before we launched FareHarbor was the arrival experience, especiallyin the mornings when we have quite a big number of visitors.
(25:10):
uh We have a meeting point that's five minutes away from the sanctuary.
That's where everyone arrives and has to do uh a check-in where they provide their names,passport numbers for insurance, uh tell us about their food allergies, and then also
receive a sticker so that we can easily uh
(25:31):
allocate visitors to different groups.
This was always difficult in the past when we had a lot of visitors.
It cost a lot of traffic.
It was not always the best arrival experience.
And that's also one of the reasons why we wanted to work with FareHarbor to optimize thisprocess to make it faster.
um In the past, also people had to only pay a deposit online and then still.
(25:57):
pay the balance upon arrival.
That was another limitation of our old reservation system.
And so with Fire Arbor, we did a few things.
First of all, we enabled an option for people to uh pay for their visit upfront, 100%, sothat they didn't have to worry about any additional balance payments upon arrival, which
is inconvenient for visitors and took a lot of time to process for us as well.
(26:20):
um We were able to also...
integrate with Werewolf, an online waiver solution that integrates with Far Harbor.
This way we are now able to get a lot of the information that we need before the visitoractually arrives.
names of all visitors, passport numbers, dietary requirements, all of that is asked beforethey arrive and the completion rate of these waivers is actually quite high.
(26:49):
That means now when visitors arrive, for most of them we have all the information that weneed.
We can quickly check them in, give them a sticker and off they go.
So that has really already improved the arrival experience for visitors uh and also uhreduced the stress on our uh tour reception team who has to check in sometimes up to 150
(27:16):
people within 45 minutes to one hour in the morning.
So huge improvement there.
Awesome.
It's great to hear that you don't have as much of the headache when it comes to checkingpeople in.
I travel as often as I can.
And when I do travel, there's nothing worse than me being like, am I going to the rightplace?
(27:39):
Am I fully paid up?
When did it charge my card?
Which card did it charge?
I can't find the email.
Who's this from?
uh
So it's, I, you know, obviously, as I always say, I sip the FareHarbor Kool-Aid and Ithink that we do all of those things really well from the confirmation email to when I get
there, I easily can have a QR code if you're implementing that in your check-in system.
(28:02):
For those who might be listening to this because they're trying to qualify whatreservation system might be right for them, what questions do you think they should ask
themselves and why for you was the answer of that question, FareHarbor?
As I mentioned earlier, I was not very up to speed and not very aware about the differentsolutions uh out there until Sam reached out last year.
(28:29):
And so when he reached out, obviously I did my due diligence and started also exploring uhother reservation management system, realized that there's a whole world of solutions out
there.
So I did an initial benchmark and looked at what are the...
core features that each solution provides, are customer reviews of the solutions, and thatway I was already quite quickly able to shortlist FareHarbor among a few others.
(28:58):
And I think there's a few things that made us really uh confident in our decision to gowith FareHarbor.
The first one was just the excellent...
uh
care by Sam and the team.
They made an effort to actually come down here and visit us, spent half a day with me,really trying to understand our business, our challenges, like the challenges that I
(29:23):
mentioned earlier, like what's happening during the check-in, why does it take so long,where are the inefficiencies, how could this be solved?
Really understanding our business model, our customer mix, and really then uh coming withtailor-made solutions on how FareHarbor could improve that.
I did not see that with any other solution.
I had a lot of demos, lot of exploratory calls, but there was no one who offered to comeand meet us or have a dedicated session with us to really try to deeply understand our
(29:53):
business.
So that was really important to us.
And then also, this was also a good timing uh because we were in quite desperate need toalso relaunch our website.
The website had
had been as old as the reservation system, was quite outdated, similar challenges, uhdifficult to update, uh limited functionalities and features, not the best integration
(30:20):
with the reservation management system.
And so when I learned that FareHarbor can actually also help us with developing thewebsite uh and customizing it to a certain degree to meet our needs, that was another huge
selling point for us.
So would say those are the two main things that really tip the scale for us and why wewent with them.
(30:45):
In general, if someone is looking for a new reservation management system, maybe noteveryone needs a new website, but I think the customer support is a really important
piece.
Like when you roll out a new reservation management system, that's kind of a big deal.
There's a lot of change management involved.
You have a team who needs to learn the new software, so it needs to be intuitive.
(31:07):
It's not only the reservations team, can also affect how you manage your transfers, howyou manage your different experiences.
So a lot of people actually are involved in this and it's good to have a bit of handholding.
And so we were super happy that the team actually came down for an entire week to do thishand holding with us and to be on site when we rolled out the system and help us with any
(31:28):
questions and challenges that happened in the first few days.
And those challenges will...
undoubtedly happened with any reservation system.
It went very smooth, but there's always questions.
Okay, how do I have to manage this?
How do I process this payment?
um How do I read this manifest, et cetera?
um If you don't have someone next to you to explain all of that, it can be a verystressful experience.
(31:51):
And for us, it wasn't because we had that support um on site.
And then in general, I think most other solutions, also offer OTA integration, some
some marketing support, so the customer support, the new website, those were really,really key pieces for us.
(32:12):
That's amazing.
I love hearing that.
Talk to me a little bit about the tie of it all.
Do you get support in both?
It sounds like you speak English, obviously.
Do you get that support from FareHarbor in English and Thai?
And how does that work across your distribution?
Does it translate the way that you need it to?
(32:35):
I FareHarbor is quite new to the Thai market, right?
uh But they have already added Thai support staff.
To be honest, at the moment, that's not a significant need for us.
Most of the correspondence that we need, that we do in terms of requesting support, uh itgoes through me, so it's typically in English.
(32:59):
My Thai, unfortunately, is not very great.
But yeah, believe FareHarbor has Thai support staff already in place and can help otherproviders ah where maybe the team does need a little bit more local language support.
Amazing.
Thank you for indulging me in the FareHarbor of it all.
It is growth powered by FareHarbor after all, but it's also growth powered by Vincent andgrowth powered by your team over there in Phuket.
(33:28):
So as we close the episode down, let's talk about the not so humble brag as I call it.
What maybe some data metrics you're comfortable with sharing?
I would love to hear the not so humble brag from you, your business, your team.
What are you proud of in the growth that you've seen?
We talked earlier in the episode how you've seen 13 % increase in sales after FareHarbor'simplementation.
(33:57):
Feel free to take this question wherever you feel it takes you, whether it's...
With FareHarbor, you're seeing this growth or FareHarbor plays a part in the growth or ifit's you know It's all Vincent and I will take that W.
ah I'll let you take the floor
So we're very proud of what we have achieved.
Thanks to the support of our visitors in these last eight years, we started as a verysmall family owned business with only two elephants and very small visitor numbers eight
(34:26):
years ago.
But because people really believe in what we do and support our work, we've been able toscale up over these last eight years.
We have been able to rescue many more elephants with the support from visitors.
um And I think a lot of that has to do with us being a family-owned business and stilloperating like a small family-owned business.
(34:53):
So decisions can be made quite quickly.
If we need to increase capacities, launch new programs, or make any changes, we can dothat in a quite agile.
way, which has helped us to adapt in different situations.
think the creativity of our team and the passion of our team is what helped us get throughthe pandemic.
We're very proud that we were one of the very, very few places in Phuket, if not inThailand, that did not have to close down during the pandemic.
(35:20):
We were able to keep going, to keep all the elephants here and to keep providing them witha safe and happy home here at Phuket Elephant Sanctuary.
We're also very proud that
since tourism has recovered and many, many other elephant experiences have opened up againhere in Phuket, we have been able to keep our market share, if not increase our market
(35:46):
share.
As I mentioned earlier, our visitor numbers have gone up steadily over the last two yearssince the end of the pandemic.
um And I think the core reason why we're successful is because we always stay true
to our mission.
We have never given in to demands of visitors for more interaction with the elephants,different experiences.
(36:14):
We always think what's best for the elephants, how can we provide the best level ofelephant welfare?
And that's how we innovate.
That's why we built a huge canopy walkway uh before and during the pandemic that
further increase the distance between visitors and elephants, but at the same timeprovided an amazing experience for visitors to observe the elephants as they roam around
(36:36):
in the jungle below.
That's why we built an elephant hospital last year, which again is primarily to benefitthe elephants, to provide better medical care, but again offers an amazing opportunity for
visitors to see.
what it takes to provide veterinary care to an elephant and the work that we do at thehospital to help our elephants and in the future also other elephants living and working
(37:01):
on the island.
um And obviously FareHarbor also played a crucial role in our growth, especially in thelast few months.
I'm not sure that we would have been able to manage the number of visitors that we hadduring the peak season without having this very efficient solution in place.
(37:22):
And I'm also very confident that with our new website, which just launched two and a halfweeks ago, hopefully with the FareHarbor Distribution Network that we will be onboarded on
in the next few months, I think this will be two additional pieces that will really helpus drive a lot of growth in 2025 and beyond.
(37:45):
Yay, I love that.
Thank you for that.
Do you think that you've seen, because of the operational efficiency that you've seensince being onboarded to FareHarbor, that there's any trickle down to an improvement in
the guest experience since you've switched over?
Definitely, uh so one thing that I didn't mention earlier is that we also had huge issueswith confirmation emails in the past.
(38:10):
Often these emails were not going out to visitors, so people called us, emailed us, hey,did my reservation come through?
A lot of manual work on our side, again, to reconfirm bookings manually via email.
Now with FareHarbor, we don't have any such issues anymore.
The booking process on the website is very smooth.
(38:33):
confirmation emails are being sent out.
Making payments is very easy for visitors.
And then as I mentioned earlier, the whole check-in experience has uh improved thanks toFareHarbor and also thanks to the integration uh that FareHarbor enabled with Werewolf uh
so that we get all the information that visitors need in advance.
(38:55):
It's a lot less stressful for visitors as well.
They can just provide information.
Most of them do it when they're in the car on the way to our sanctuary or in a taxi.
ah And so when they arrived, there's no more stress looking for passports, writing downall the information, telling us about their food requirements.
All of this is done in advance.
And now I feel the experience really starts as visitors arrive at our meeting point.
(39:19):
ah Before it felt a little bit like you still have to go through all this hassle at ourmeeting point.
And then the experience only starts when you arrive at the sanctuary.
But we want the experience to start as soon as you have the first touch point with ourteam at the meeting point.
And FareHarbor, um with its different integrations and customization solutions, is reallyhelping us to create this better arrival experience and to make sure that people really
(39:46):
feel that the experience starts as soon as they arrive.
That's amazing.
I am manifesting as hard as I've ever manifested in my life that I will get to experiencethis sometime in the very, very, very near future.
This sounds amazing.
This entire recording, I've been hearing the sounds of the birds and the rustling of thetrees in the background.
(40:12):
I'm like, I'm looking for a flight.
It's immediately, it has to happen soon.
So hopefully I get to meet you in person, Vincent.
It sounds like you have a magical operation there.
And I think I speak for all of the listeners and all of the animal lovers throughout theworld that what you and your team do is valuable.
(40:33):
It means something.
You're leaving a lasting impression and legacy in the sanctuary you provide thesebeautiful, beautiful, beautiful animals.
So thank you for that and thank you for your time today.
Before I send you off,
Is there uh any message you have out there?
We talked a lot about the post pandemic blues and how tough it has been on our industrybouncing back from that and other natural disasters that have been happening even in your
(41:03):
side of the world as of recently.
Do you have any message of hope or any message of resilience for those who are strugglingto keep going in their small businesses?
The pandemic has really shown us how important it is to be prepared and to be resilient.
um Natural disasters keep happening, um will happen more frequently moving forward.
(41:31):
And as sad as this, the next disaster is just waiting to happen.
So it's very important to be prepared.
um
Try to save up for emergencies like we did before the pandemic.
um Try to diversify experiences, uh the geographic mix of your customers ideally, um andbe creative if something happens.
(42:03):
There's always things that you can do to keep going um and to make it through emergencies.
Be creative and be resilient and be prepared.
Amazing.
Vincent, thank you so much for choosing FareHarbor and thank you so much for taking anhour out of your day with me.
It's been really special and I sincerely appreciate it.
(42:24):
Where can the people find you?
Maybe drop your website, which is brand new, as well as your Instagram handle.
Sure, our website is puketelephansanctuary.org and our Instagram handle is simplypuketelephansanctuary.
Thanks again Vincent for being here and thank you all for listening.
(42:47):
If you enjoyed this episode, and I mean how could you not?
And I'm sure as I'm speaking there's the picture of the cutest elephant on the screen.
ah So if you enjoyed this episode like I did, please like, subscribe, comment what youwant to hear from next or comment maybe your favorite type of elephant.
I'm sure there's different types.
(43:07):
or when you're gonna go to Thailand maybe.
ah And be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
And I will catch you on the next episode again, Vincent.
Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for listening listeners.
We will catch you next time.
See you later.
Thanks Vincent.
Thanks for having me.
(43:27):
Bye.
Okay, and we are live.
We are coming at y'all from different ends of the world.
I'm in LA today, here in my wonderful hotel room in Los Angeles, California from theFareHarbor Meetup that we've been doing the last two days.
Day one of the meetup, we met our clients, we networked with clients in the area.
(00:20):
Day two, we had one-on-ones with them.
And I also am joined by the wonderful Vincent all the way in Phuket.
Thailand.
Vincent, how are doing today?
You're like I told you before we started recording your background is eating my backgroundup.
It looks incredible out there in Thailand today.
(00:40):
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me today.
Behind me, that's the Kaupra Tau National Park here in the south of the island.
It's the last rainforest here in Phuket.
We had a bit of rain last night as well, so it's a really nice rainforest morning here onthe island.
Wow, I bet Nice is severely downplaying it.
(01:02):
It's incredible.
I was telling Vincent before the recording, I was begging FareHarbor to send me out there.
said, I don't think I can film this remote.
I was ready to lie.
was like, I don't know if Vincent has internet out there.
I probably have to go visit the elephants.
So maybe I'll get them next time, Vincent.
But thank you for joining me remotely today.
(01:23):
oh
Vincent of Pooquette Elephant Sanctuary.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Tell me a little bit about the sanctuary.
You're new on FareHarbor, so I'm so excited to have you on our software and have you withme today and so excited to learn about you.
So I joined the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary in 2018, a couple of years after it had openedin 2016.
(01:46):
My background is in tourism and hospitality.
I've worked here in Phuket for the past 14 years.
Started working initially in different hotels and resorts, primarily in sales andmarketing roles.
And that's what led me to the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary six years ago when they wereslowly starting to...
(02:07):
and we're looking for someone to drive the marketing to raise more awareness about ethicalelephant tourism and the work that we do here.
And so I've been very blessed to already work with the Sanctuary for the last six years.
We've had a difficult time during the pandemic, of course, but we got through it.
(02:28):
We were one of the few camps that actually made it through the pandemic here in Phuket.
And the last two years have been...
uh
Quite good again for us.
Tourism is recovering quite strongly here in Thailand.
We've been very blessed with good visitor numbers and had an excellent high season justbehind us.
When is the high season for y'all?
What time of year?
(02:48):
Typically from mid December to end of March, that's the high season when most visitors arecoming to Phuket.
From April to October, we have more rain.
So we have also fewer visitors on the island.
But then in July and August, usually we have a little peak again due to the schoolholidays.
(03:13):
Many of our markets.
Interesting.
I warned you of this before we started recording, Vincent.
I think a lot of our listeners, including myself, just finished watching White Lotus thisseason.
ah If you ask me, an intellectual, it was an incredible season.
I loved this season.
And I think a lot of tourists also loved this season, ah which took place in Thailand, forthose who don't know.
(03:39):
Did that cause some people to fly over and check out the sanctuary?
I think generally it created a big buzz again for Thailand and the beautiful tropicalislands here, especially in the south.
Lotus was shot on Samui Island, so that's on the other side of the country.
um It's a one hour flight from Phuket.
(04:01):
I think they have seen quite an impact due to the season.
Here in Phuket, I'm not sure I haven't seen any strong impact due to the show, but it's...
A great promotion for Thailand in general.
What do you think about this post pandemic world of tourism?
(04:21):
You said that it was obviously rough for you in the pandemic to say the least for mostoperators around the world, right?
ah How did you recover from that?
What uh are some actions you did that you would describe as resilience to get through thatand ultimately bounce back?
(04:41):
the reason why we made it through the pandemic.
It's probably a combination of a little bit of luck and also some creativity and businessacumen on our side.
First of all, we had a few very good years before the pandemic.
We opened in 2016.
So we had a few good years.
We were able to save up for emergencies uh and we really had to tap into those savingsduring the pandemic because there were virtually no visitors for one and a half years.
(05:11):
We rely heavily on international travelers.
um We are not that popular yet with the local market.
um And so was very tough for us.
We had almost no visitors for a long time.
um But we got creative.
um For instance, I was shooting some short films that we sold online to people whocouldn't physically visit us but still wanted to know more about our work and learn what's
(05:36):
going on with elephants.
So we sold those short films online.
We had a few smaller initiatives where people could send us $30 and we would use thatmoney to buy ingredients for the supplementary rice balls that we make for the older
elephants.
We would then shoot little videos of how we made those rice balls and fed them to theelephants and send them back to whoever supported us.
(05:58):
Our team got creative making some bracelets and other little arts and crafts that we wereable to sell online.
So those were little initiatives that kept us busy and also helped us a little bitfinancially.
But I would be lying if I said it was easy.
It was very tough, especially towards the end.
So we're happy that the pandemic ended at some point.
(06:19):
Phuket was also one of the first destinations in Thailand that opened up as part of asandbox model.
So we were one of the first uh provinces in Thailand that saw international visitors againonce that sandbox launched.
Do you think the elephants were happy to see people?
um I think at our place, the elephants definitely don't mind the visitors.
(06:45):
We can always keep a respectful distance from them.
But uh the place that we created here really resembles the natural habitat.
We're lucky to be right next to the Carpateo National Park.
Behind me, we have water from a nearby waterfall that flows through our land.
Beautiful vegetation, lots of space for the elephants to roam around, to bathe freely, toreally live naturally.
(07:08):
And so I think...
For the elephants, nothing really changed during the pandemic.
They maybe noticed that there were fewer visitors, but their lives just went on.
And luckily we were able to keep all of the elephants and still provide them uh with ahappy home here during the pandemic.
Oh, well, I'm sure luck had some to do with it, but it sounds like you and your team wereincredibly, like you said, uh savvy, especially with that business acumen piece.
(07:37):
So congratulations for that.
I definitely don't want to underplay that.
Maybe some luck, but it sure was a lot of skill.
I feel like I just quoted the Fort Minor song, but it's true.
And 100 % of the power of will, as the kids say.
um That's a really good segue though into talking about the sanctuary itself before we getinto the growth of it all.
(07:59):
Tell me a little bit about your elephants.
Tell me about what makes the sanctuary so special.
You gave me a great description before we started.
I'd love to hear that again for our listeners.
Let me start with our founder.
Our founder is a local from the Northeast here in Phuket.
uh His name is Montree Toten.
He grew up in this neighborhood, uh the area where we're now, that's uh family land, hasbeen in the family for many generations.
(08:26):
uh But Mr.
Montree, he worked in elephant tourism elsewhere for a long time, and he even owned anelephant riding camp in the past in the south of Ireland.
10 years ago, before we opened, there was very little awareness about
more ethical uh approaches to elephant tourism.
And at some point he got inspired by the model of the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai,in the north of Thailand, which has been around for almost 30 years.
(08:52):
And uh its founder, Khun Lek, who's also uh very well known worldwide for her conservationwork, she inspired our founder to start Phuket's first ethical elephant sanctuary.
So was in 2016.
He decided to close his riding camp and the two elephants that were working with him inthat riding camp were the first that he moved here to this beautiful area that belonged to
(09:15):
his family already.
It started very small with these two elephants.
We had a little visitor lounge.
We did not expect more than 10, 15 people to visit a day, but we were very blessed withtourists coming to visit us and supporting our work, especially because we were the first
ethical elephant sanctuary on the island.
(09:35):
And so since then we've been able to rescue many elephants from riding camps, from shows,from the logging industry where they have to work very hard and are often mistreated.
And here we provide them with a new, more peaceful home in a natural setting where theycan just live freely, roam around, forage for their own food, socialize with other
(09:56):
elephants uh and just rediscover the joy of being elephants.
I love that.
I am regretting getting a 4K camera because I'm like, I'm emotional.
I have tears in my eyes for those who are listening.
It just sounds amazing to give these elephants such a chance.
Here at FareHarbor, we're very passionate about animal welfare.
(10:19):
And I think it's incredible that not only do you like qualify under those policies, but itsounds like you really go above and beyond.
for caring for these elephants.
Can you go into a little bit of the ethics of it all?
For instance, uh before we started recording, I was like, wow, it must be great to startthe day and ride an elephant.
(10:39):
And you were kindly like, actually, you know, we don't do that.
Which I think was a great example of like educating me, especially as hopefully one day atourist of Thailand going to see these beautiful majestic creatures.
on how we can respect them and take care of them and take care of their habitat.
(11:01):
I've gone to a number of Renaissance Fairs where I see people riding elephants in thedriest area of Denver.
And I always get nervous like, these elephants okay?
They're a long way from where.
they came from, can imagine.
so talk to me a little bit of the ethics of it all and how the Phuket Elephant Sanctuaryreally separates from, you know, competitors or maybe other so-called sanctuaries
(11:32):
ethically.
An elephant is a wild animal.
It's a very powerful, strong, intelligent wild animal.
And when we see these elephants uh give rides to tourists or perform tricks in shows orspend an hour in the water bathing and showering with visitors, the elephants typically
(11:55):
need to be tamed and trained to be able to engage in these interactions that are againsttheir instincts and their nature.
And so this training and taming often comes with abuse.
Traditionally, uh many years ago, young elephants were taken from the wild, separated fromtheir mothers and tortured for many weeks so that their will was completely crushed and
(12:19):
they could then be trained by humans to work in logging camps and to engage in touristactivities.
uh Over the last years, I think awareness for...
uh
Ethical elephant tourism has increased a lot.
So many visitors are aware that riding an elephant or bathing with elephants and seeingthem perform tricks is not always in their best interest.
(12:45):
And so we created a very simple philosophy.
We wanted the elephants to go back uh to an area that's closely aligned to their naturalhabitat and their natural way of life.
And that's why we created this 30 acre jungle essentially.
where this is the home of the elephants.
They roam freely, they forage freely, they almost live as they would in the wild.
(13:10):
And our tourists are mere visitors who come and observe them in their homes and learnabout them and educate themselves about animal welfare and ethical elephant tourism.
It is nice to hear that there's more ethics coming into animal involved tourism.
(13:30):
And I do think the average consumer, the average tourist shopping for these experiences ismore concerned about that.
think we've all seen the videos of people here in the US, we have like YellowstoneNational Park.
And I think we've all seen the videos of people getting so close to those wild animals.
And you just want to shake those people like, hello.
(13:51):
that is not a pet.
Why is your five-year-old kid trying to pet the bison, you know?
ah So I can relate to what you're saying.
And it's really inspiring.
And I like to hear that common sense is becoming more common for all of us, but especiallytourists, you know, admiring wild animals ah in hopefully what will be their natural
(14:13):
habitat.
ah In that increase of visitors you're having, and we talked a little bit before aboutyour peak seasons.
Do you handle a really high volume of guests and how many guests do you typically seeduring that average peak season?
So in general Phuket is very seasonal.
During the low season, it's quite tough.
(14:34):
We often have days with 20, 30, maximum 40 visitors.
But then the high season sees quite a big number of visitors.
have, over the years, increased our capacity.
And we can welcome in a day up to 300 visitors.
(14:56):
This is possible because we have 30 acres of land.
It's mostly observation based.
So during our tours, we split up these visitors into smaller intimate groups.
uh Each group is uh guided by a tour guide.
And so we walk in different directions.
We explore the sanctuary in smaller groups, always keep a distance from the elephants andour guides educate the tourists about our work and about the elephants that they encounter
(15:23):
during the tour.
uh But for us, it's fairly easy to scale up.
We're not a hotel, we don't need to build rooms.
We just need to prepare more tables and chairs to welcome visitors with some snacks in themorning to provide our vegetarian lunch.
Have a space to watch a video documentary at the beginning of the tour, which is also veryimportant to prepare them for their visit.
(15:48):
But yeah, so we've scaled up quite a bit over the last eight years and can welcome up to300 visitors.
a day that's split between the morning and afternoon with different programs.
There's never 300 people in the park at once, but in a day we can do around 300.
Yes, all just running into 300 people running into the wild to go pet an elephant is whatI'm picturing now and getting that sounds great and congratulations on scaling.
(16:15):
With scaling comes a lot of change and Vincent, you just came on to FareHarbor I wouldlove to hear the story of how it's been.
You're very new to our software.
Let's start from before, from the before times.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced before coming to FareHarbor?
(16:36):
Were you taking online bookings?
What did it look like before coming to us?
We started back in 2016 as a small family business.
As I mentioned, we were not really expecting more than 10, 15 visitors a day.
um A lot of it was through Facebook and other social media channels.
(16:56):
um Initially on the website, there was just a contact forum to reach out um foropportunities to visit.
Then in 2018, when we were slowly starting to grow a little bit, um we had a...
a custom reservation management system built.
um It was a fairly basic system, but it worked for us.
(17:18):
We were able to manage reservations of the two tours that we had at the time.
um But it was not the most robust system uh and certainly had its limitations.
So there was no easy way to, for instance, decrease or increase capacities when needed.
(17:39):
Definitely no integration with OTAs, uh no marketing opportunities whatsoever.
um Also no customization opportunities, very limited support.
uh Often we had system down times.
looking back, I'm surprised that we managed to work with this for so many years.
(18:01):
It worked, but it wasn't easy.
It put a lot of stress on our team, made processes uh inefficient.
uh But we went for it with several years.
To be honest, personally, I was also not really aware at the time of the differentsolutions out there.
uh I had worked in hotels and was familiar with some of the hotel reservation managementsystems, but it didn't really come to my mind that there's also uh dedicated solutions for
(18:29):
activity providers such as us.
And it was only when uh
when Sam from FareHarbor reached out, I think it was at beginning of last year already,that I became more aware of the possibilities and became more more intrigued of exploring
a new reservation management system.
(18:50):
And it was a good time because after COVID, we saw a big increase in visitor numbers.
And so I wanted to make sure that before the last high season, that we had somethingrobust in place to manage the.
the increase in visitor numbers that we expected.
And uh it's so funny hearing you talk about this because it sounds a lot like when youbreak up with an ex-boyfriend and you look back and you're like, how did I do that for so
(19:16):
long?
Is how it sounds like.
You broke up with your old reservation system and you found something better.
And I love that for you.
How has it been leveraging the system now?
As you say, you're getting more and more online bookings.
I read before our session, your first quarter online sales alone.
went up 13 % after FareHarbor implementation.
(19:38):
Tell me a little bit about that.
You're quite the savvy guy I'm getting the impression of.
So I'm sure that's a lot to do with a streamlined online reservation system, but it soundslike you may have had some other growth strategies in the works.
Kind of tell me a little bit about those things.
I think in general, a lot of the growth also has to do with the general tourism recoveryin Thailand.
(20:01):
uh Last year in 2024, tourist arrivals grew by over 20 % compared to the previous year.
So our growth has been uh somewhat in line with uh the general trend for Phuket as adestination.
But especially since we were able to implement FareHarbor at the end of November, so juston time for our peak season, it really helped us to manage this increase in visitor
(20:30):
numbers over the peak season.
uh It was super helpful to be able to close certain capacities or open up new capacitiesdepending on how many tour guides we had available to take care of our guests.
that really helped us to maximize uh revenue through the peak season.
(20:51):
And also with a fairly small reservations team, the system helped us a lot with the OTAintegration.
So we no longer had to manually manage every uh TripAdvisor and get your guide booking.
So that was very helpful as well.
It reduced a lot of stress for our reservations team.
(21:13):
And that was especially important because just before we launched FareHarbor, we alsolisted with a few additional OTAs.
So we had more partners, more volumes from these partners.
And it was really helpful um to have that integration with many of them to streamline thereservation process and booking management.
(21:35):
How has it been, tell me a little bit about your OTA experience.
I'm very intrigued because the relationship with OTAs to say the least varies betweenoperator to operator and especially region to region.
So how do you feel about OTAs?
Do you feel that you have like a healthy mix in your channel mix where you're getting yourbookings from, whether it's directly online?
(22:01):
or with OTAs or do feel they're necessary?
What's your take on OTAs?
So in general, we are very happy and proud of our booking source mix.
uh Roughly half of our bookings are direct, which uh I think is amazing.
(22:23):
We are very blessed with visitors who help us share our mission on social media, who shareexcellent reviews of their experience.
We don't do any paid advertising, so word of mouth is super.
important for us and we're also quite strong on social media.
um that's what helps us um get a lot of direct bookings.
(22:48):
For OTAs, it's roughly 25 to 30 % of the mix.
Also a super important piece, I mentioned earlier reviews are super essential for us.
lot of these reviews happen on TripAdvisor and naturally, uh
people once they read the reviews on TripAdvisor, they will easily then book theirexperience on TripAdvisor as well.
(23:12):
uh I think also because there's a lot of confusion in the market.
uh Eight years ago when we opened, we were the only uh ethical elephant sanctuary on theisland.
So it was relatively easy to find us.
uh Now it's a bit more complicated.
There are many other places on the island with very similar names, somewhat similarexperiences.
(23:34):
So we're actually very grateful for, for instance, for TripAdvisor or Get Your Guide sothat people who read the excellent reviews can then book it directly.
And they know they booked the experience uh where they have seen these amazing reviews andnot excellently booked something else through a Google search and maybe end up at another
(23:55):
place and then end up being disappointed.
So I think it's super important to have that relationship with these OTAs.
and we've worked with TripAdvisor for a long time and then also added a few additionalOTAs in the last year.
Thank you for that breakdown.
love the healthy mix of it all.
um And super interesting to hear that you don't do any paid ads.
(24:18):
um I am sure those elephants are modeling up a storm on your social media account.
I'll have to check that out after the episode and give you a follow.
can't, I'm gonna cry every day looking at those beautiful animals on my Instagram feed.
I just, I already know.
Tell me a little bit about uh as you've seen more bookings come in uh with this spike intourism with getting more direct online bookings Tell me about efficiency.
(24:48):
So with more bookings comes more people naturally How has streamlining your operationswith FareHarbor affected check-ins confirmation emails, etc?
So a big pain point before we launched FareHarbor was the arrival experience, especiallyin the mornings when we have quite a big number of visitors.
(25:10):
uh We have a meeting point that's five minutes away from the sanctuary.
That's where everyone arrives and has to do uh a check-in where they provide their names,passport numbers for insurance, uh tell us about their food allergies, and then also
receive a sticker so that we can easily uh
(25:31):
allocate visitors to different groups.
This was always difficult in the past when we had a lot of visitors.
It cost a lot of traffic.
It was not always the best arrival experience.
And that's also one of the reasons why we wanted to work with FareHarbor to optimize thisprocess to make it faster.
um In the past, also people had to only pay a deposit online and then still.
(25:57):
pay the balance upon arrival.
That was another limitation of our old reservation system.
And so with Fire Arbor, we did a few things.
First of all, we enabled an option for people to uh pay for their visit upfront, 100%, sothat they didn't have to worry about any additional balance payments upon arrival, which
is inconvenient for visitors and took a lot of time to process for us as well.
(26:20):
um We were able to also...
integrate with Werewolf, an online waiver solution that integrates with Far Harbor.
This way we are now able to get a lot of the information that we need before the visitoractually arrives.
names of all visitors, passport numbers, dietary requirements, all of that is asked beforethey arrive and the completion rate of these waivers is actually quite high.
(26:49):
That means now when visitors arrive, for most of them we have all the information that weneed.
We can quickly check them in, give them a sticker and off they go.
So that has really already improved the arrival experience for visitors uh and also uhreduced the stress on our uh tour reception team who has to check in sometimes up to 150
(27:16):
people within 45 minutes to one hour in the morning.
So huge improvement there.
Awesome.
It's great to hear that you don't have as much of the headache when it comes to checkingpeople in.
I travel as often as I can.
And when I do travel, there's nothing worse than me being like, am I going to the rightplace?
(27:39):
Am I fully paid up?
When did it charge my card?
Which card did it charge?
I can't find the email.
Who's this from?
uh
So it's, I, you know, obviously, as I always say, I sip the FareHarbor Kool-Aid and Ithink that we do all of those things really well from the confirmation email to when I get
there, I easily can have a QR code if you're implementing that in your check-in system.
(28:02):
For those who might be listening to this because they're trying to qualify whatreservation system might be right for them, what questions do you think they should ask
themselves and why for you was the answer of that question, FareHarbor?
As I mentioned earlier, I was not very up to speed and not very aware about the differentsolutions uh out there until Sam reached out last year.
(28:29):
And so when he reached out, obviously I did my due diligence and started also exploring uhother reservation management system, realized that there's a whole world of solutions out
there.
So I did an initial benchmark and looked at what are the...
core features that each solution provides, are customer reviews of the solutions, and thatway I was already quite quickly able to shortlist FareHarbor among a few others.
(28:58):
And I think there's a few things that made us really uh confident in our decision to gowith FareHarbor.
The first one was just the excellent...
uh
care by Sam and the team.
They made an effort to actually come down here and visit us, spent half a day with me,really trying to understand our business, our challenges, like the challenges that I
(29:23):
mentioned earlier, like what's happening during the check-in, why does it take so long,where are the inefficiencies, how could this be solved?
Really understanding our business model, our customer mix, and really then uh coming withtailor-made solutions on how FareHarbor could improve that.
I did not see that with any other solution.
I had a lot of demos, lot of exploratory calls, but there was no one who offered to comeand meet us or have a dedicated session with us to really try to deeply understand our
(29:53):
business.
So that was really important to us.
And then also, this was also a good timing uh because we were in quite desperate need toalso relaunch our website.
The website had
had been as old as the reservation system, was quite outdated, similar challenges, uhdifficult to update, uh limited functionalities and features, not the best integration
(30:20):
with the reservation management system.
And so when I learned that FareHarbor can actually also help us with developing thewebsite uh and customizing it to a certain degree to meet our needs, that was another huge
selling point for us.
So would say those are the two main things that really tip the scale for us and why wewent with them.
(30:45):
In general, if someone is looking for a new reservation management system, maybe noteveryone needs a new website, but I think the customer support is a really important
piece.
Like when you roll out a new reservation management system, that's kind of a big deal.
There's a lot of change management involved.
You have a team who needs to learn the new software, so it needs to be intuitive.
(31:07):
It's not only the reservations team, can also affect how you manage your transfers, howyou manage your different experiences.
So a lot of people actually are involved in this and it's good to have a bit of handholding.
And so we were super happy that the team actually came down for an entire week to do thishand holding with us and to be on site when we rolled out the system and help us with any
(31:28):
questions and challenges that happened in the first few days.
And those challenges will...
undoubtedly happened with any reservation system.
It went very smooth, but there's always questions.
Okay, how do I have to manage this?
How do I process this payment?
um How do I read this manifest, et cetera?
um If you don't have someone next to you to explain all of that, it can be a verystressful experience.
(31:51):
And for us, it wasn't because we had that support um on site.
And then in general, I think most other solutions, also offer OTA integration, some
some marketing support, so the customer support, the new website, those were really,really key pieces for us.
(32:12):
That's amazing.
I love hearing that.
Talk to me a little bit about the tie of it all.
Do you get support in both?
It sounds like you speak English, obviously.
Do you get that support from FareHarbor in English and Thai?
And how does that work across your distribution?
Does it translate the way that you need it to?
(32:35):
I FareHarbor is quite new to the Thai market, right?
uh But they have already added Thai support staff.
To be honest, at the moment, that's not a significant need for us.
Most of the correspondence that we need, that we do in terms of requesting support, uh itgoes through me, so it's typically in English.
(32:59):
My Thai, unfortunately, is not very great.
But yeah, believe FareHarbor has Thai support staff already in place and can help otherproviders ah where maybe the team does need a little bit more local language support.
Amazing.
Thank you for indulging me in the FareHarbor of it all.
It is growth powered by FareHarbor after all, but it's also growth powered by Vincent andgrowth powered by your team over there in Phuket.
(33:28):
So as we close the episode down, let's talk about the not so humble brag as I call it.
What maybe some data metrics you're comfortable with sharing?
I would love to hear the not so humble brag from you, your business, your team.
What are you proud of in the growth that you've seen?
We talked earlier in the episode how you've seen 13 % increase in sales after FareHarbor'simplementation.
(33:57):
Feel free to take this question wherever you feel it takes you, whether it's...
With FareHarbor, you're seeing this growth or FareHarbor plays a part in the growth or ifit's you know It's all Vincent and I will take that W.
ah I'll let you take the floor
So we're very proud of what we have achieved.
Thanks to the support of our visitors in these last eight years, we started as a verysmall family owned business with only two elephants and very small visitor numbers eight
(34:26):
years ago.
But because people really believe in what we do and support our work, we've been able toscale up over these last eight years.
We have been able to rescue many more elephants with the support from visitors.
um And I think a lot of that has to do with us being a family-owned business and stilloperating like a small family-owned business.
(34:53):
So decisions can be made quite quickly.
If we need to increase capacities, launch new programs, or make any changes, we can dothat in a quite agile.
way, which has helped us to adapt in different situations.
think the creativity of our team and the passion of our team is what helped us get throughthe pandemic.
We're very proud that we were one of the very, very few places in Phuket, if not inThailand, that did not have to close down during the pandemic.
(35:20):
We were able to keep going, to keep all the elephants here and to keep providing them witha safe and happy home here at Phuket Elephant Sanctuary.
We're also very proud that
since tourism has recovered and many, many other elephant experiences have opened up againhere in Phuket, we have been able to keep our market share, if not increase our market
(35:46):
share.
As I mentioned earlier, our visitor numbers have gone up steadily over the last two yearssince the end of the pandemic.
um And I think the core reason why we're successful is because we always stay true
to our mission.
We have never given in to demands of visitors for more interaction with the elephants,different experiences.
(36:14):
We always think what's best for the elephants, how can we provide the best level ofelephant welfare?
And that's how we innovate.
That's why we built a huge canopy walkway uh before and during the pandemic that
further increase the distance between visitors and elephants, but at the same timeprovided an amazing experience for visitors to observe the elephants as they roam around
(36:36):
in the jungle below.
That's why we built an elephant hospital last year, which again is primarily to benefitthe elephants, to provide better medical care, but again offers an amazing opportunity for
visitors to see.
what it takes to provide veterinary care to an elephant and the work that we do at thehospital to help our elephants and in the future also other elephants living and working
(37:01):
on the island.
um And obviously FareHarbor also played a crucial role in our growth, especially in thelast few months.
I'm not sure that we would have been able to manage the number of visitors that we hadduring the peak season without having this very efficient solution in place.
(37:22):
And I'm also very confident that with our new website, which just launched two and a halfweeks ago, hopefully with the FareHarbor Distribution Network that we will be onboarded on
in the next few months, I think this will be two additional pieces that will really helpus drive a lot of growth in 2025 and beyond.
(37:45):
Yay, I love that.
Thank you for that.
Do you think that you've seen, because of the operational efficiency that you've seensince being onboarded to FareHarbor, that there's any trickle down to an improvement in
the guest experience since you've switched over?
Definitely, uh so one thing that I didn't mention earlier is that we also had huge issueswith confirmation emails in the past.
(38:10):
Often these emails were not going out to visitors, so people called us, emailed us, hey,did my reservation come through?
A lot of manual work on our side, again, to reconfirm bookings manually via email.
Now with FareHarbor, we don't have any such issues anymore.
The booking process on the website is very smooth.
(38:33):
confirmation emails are being sent out.
Making payments is very easy for visitors.
And then as I mentioned earlier, the whole check-in experience has uh improved thanks toFareHarbor and also thanks to the integration uh that FareHarbor enabled with Werewolf uh
so that we get all the information that visitors need in advance.
(38:55):
It's a lot less stressful for visitors as well.
They can just provide information.
Most of them do it when they're in the car on the way to our sanctuary or in a taxi.
ah And so when they arrived, there's no more stress looking for passports, writing downall the information, telling us about their food requirements.
All of this is done in advance.
And now I feel the experience really starts as visitors arrive at our meeting point.
(39:19):
ah Before it felt a little bit like you still have to go through all this hassle at ourmeeting point.
And then the experience only starts when you arrive at the sanctuary.
But we want the experience to start as soon as you have the first touch point with ourteam at the meeting point.
And FareHarbor, um with its different integrations and customization solutions, is reallyhelping us to create this better arrival experience and to make sure that people really
(39:46):
feel that the experience starts as soon as they arrive.
That's amazing.
I am manifesting as hard as I've ever manifested in my life that I will get to experiencethis sometime in the very, very, very near future.
This sounds amazing.
This entire recording, I've been hearing the sounds of the birds and the rustling of thetrees in the background.
(40:12):
I'm like, I'm looking for a flight.
It's immediately, it has to happen soon.
So hopefully I get to meet you in person, Vincent.
It sounds like you have a magical operation there.
And I think I speak for all of the listeners and all of the animal lovers throughout theworld that what you and your team do is valuable.
(40:33):
It means something.
You're leaving a lasting impression and legacy in the sanctuary you provide thesebeautiful, beautiful, beautiful animals.
So thank you for that and thank you for your time today.
Before I send you off,
Is there uh any message you have out there?
We talked a lot about the post pandemic blues and how tough it has been on our industrybouncing back from that and other natural disasters that have been happening even in your
(41:03):
side of the world as of recently.
Do you have any message of hope or any message of resilience for those who are strugglingto keep going in their small businesses?
The pandemic has really shown us how important it is to be prepared and to be resilient.
um Natural disasters keep happening, um will happen more frequently moving forward.
(41:31):
And as sad as this, the next disaster is just waiting to happen.
So it's very important to be prepared.
um
Try to save up for emergencies like we did before the pandemic.
um Try to diversify experiences, uh the geographic mix of your customers ideally, um andbe creative if something happens.
(42:03):
There's always things that you can do to keep going um and to make it through emergencies.
Be creative and be resilient and be prepared.
Amazing.
Vincent, thank you so much for choosing FareHarbor and thank you so much for taking anhour out of your day with me.
It's been really special and I sincerely appreciate it.
(42:24):
Where can the people find you?
Maybe drop your website, which is brand new, as well as your Instagram handle.
Sure, our website is puketelephansanctuary.org and our Instagram handle is simplypuketelephansanctuary.
Thanks again Vincent for being here and thank you all for listening.
(42:47):
If you enjoyed this episode, and I mean how could you not?
And I'm sure as I'm speaking there's the picture of the cutest elephant on the screen.
ah So if you enjoyed this episode like I did, please like, subscribe, comment what youwant to hear from next or comment maybe your favorite type of elephant.
I'm sure there's different types.
(43:07):
or when you're gonna go to Thailand maybe.
ah And be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
And I will catch you on the next episode again, Vincent.
Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for listening listeners.
We will catch you next time.
See you later.
Thanks Vincent.
Thanks for having me.
(43:27):
Bye.
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