A guest picks a date, chooses tickets, types their name, email and phone number, and then leaves without paying. Maybe the card was declined. Maybe they weren't sure about the pickup point. Maybe they got distracted.
Most abandoned cart advice comes from online shops: send three reminder emails, add a discount, create urgency. For a tour business that's the wrong approach. It can feel pushy, it trains guests to wait for a discount, and repeated promotional messages to someone who hasn't agreed to marketing can break privacy rules such as GDPR.
There's a better way: one personal message, soon after they leave, offering help.
Why one helpful message works better than a sequence
When a guest leaves your checkout, there's usually a reason: a payment problem, a question you haven't answered, or a plan that isn't settled yet. A reminder doesn't fix any of these. A person asking "Can I help?" does.
- It's customer service, not marketing. You're following up on something the guest started, once, to help them finish it. Keep it that way: no discount codes, no "only 2 spots left", no newsletter sign-up.
- It gets answers. Guests reply with the real reason ("Is hotel pickup included?", "My card didn't work"), and you can fix it on the spot.
- It builds trust. A friendly local voice before the tour is part of the experience you're selling.
If the guest doesn't reply, leave it there. One message, then stop.
Why WhatsApp?
Many travellers check WhatsApp far more often than their email, especially once they're already in the destination. A short WhatsApp message also feels like talking to a person, which is exactly the point. It works especially well for:
- last-minute and same-week bookings,
- guests booking from abroad,
- tours with practical questions (pickup, meeting point, what to bring).
Email is still a good fallback for guests who didn't leave a phone number.
What to say: a template
Hi {first name}, it's {your name} from {business name}. I saw you started booking {tour name} for {date} but didn't get to the end. Did everything go OK? If you had a problem with payment or have any questions about the tour, just reply here and I'll help. Here's your booking link if you'd like to finish: {checkout link}
Keep it:
- From a named person, not "the team".
- About their booking only. Don't add offers or promotions.
- Short enough to read on a lock screen.
- Sent once. No follow-ups if they don't reply.
For more message ideas, see our booking confirmation email templates.
When to send it
Soon after they leave: within the hour while they're still planning, or the next morning if they left late at night. Don't message people at night in their time zone, and don't message anyone who completed a booking in the meantime.
How to automate it with an AI agent
You don't need a developer. An AI agent can do the checking and sending for you:
- The agent checks TicketingHub for guests who entered their details but didn't finish their order, and skips anyone who booked later. It uses a read-only API token, so it can't change anything in your account.
- It writes a short, personal message using the guest's name, tour and date.
- It sends it on WhatsApp through a messaging provider such as Twilio or MessageBird (Bird), which connect your WhatsApp Business number to the agent.
- Replies come back to you (or your team) to answer like any other chat.
TicketingHub's help centre has a step-by-step playbook for the first part: a daily AI agent that finds abandoned checkouts and contacts the guest, with a test mode that shows you every message before anything is sent. See Retarget abandoned checkouts via agent automation (opens in a new tab). The playbook uses email; to switch to WhatsApp, connect the agent to Twilio or MessageBird instead of Gmail.
For instant messages rather than a daily check, TicketingHub's "Order Abandoned" webhook can send each abandoned checkout to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own system the moment it happens, which can then trigger the WhatsApp message. See the developer documentation.
How a tour operator uses it
Tally Ho Experiences runs food and walking tours. When they moved to TicketingHub, their previous booking system had no way to tell them when a guest left checkout, so those guests were simply lost. We built the "Order Abandoned" webhook with them.
Today each unfinished checkout goes straight into Tally Ho's own systems, which send a personal note from the founder, timed to how close the tour date is. Guests reply to it. In founder Jack Harris's words: "the abandoned cart webhook is still, you know, working well."
