Salt Lake City Day Tours Manager

Southwest Adventure Tours•Salt Lake City, UT

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Southwest Adventure Tours (SWAT) is seeking a Salt Lake City Day Tours Manager to lead its growing day-tour operation. This role involves managing people, vehicles, partnerships, products, and daily decisions to ensure tours are well-prepared, guides are engaging, guests are satisfied, and the business is financially successful. The position requires a blend of operations leadership, guide development, business building, and problem-solving skills, emphasizing hands-on involvement rather than desk-bound work. The mission is to build the most dependable, engaging, and commercially successful day-tour operation in Salt Lake City, characterized by exceptional guides, punctual and well-equipped tours, satisfied guests, efficient problem resolution, strong industry partnerships, and profitable growth.

Requirements

At least three years of leadership experience in tourism, hospitality, outdoor recreation, transportation, field operations, or a similar environment.
Experience managing people, building schedules, coaching performance, and holding team members accountable.
Proven ability to develop relationships and convert conversations into business opportunities.
Capability to manage logistics and adapt when plans change.
Experience coordinating vehicles, drivers, fleets, transportation, or field-based teams.
Ability to make timely decisions.
Understanding of the importance of revenue, margins, labor, and operational details.
Clear communication skills with employees, guests, vendors, partners, and leadership.
Comfort using scheduling software, CRM platforms, fleet-tracking tools, and Google Workspace.
Experience with Samsara or a similar fleet platform, or the ability to learn quickly.
Ability to manage multiple tours, guides, vehicles, guest needs, and deadlines concurrently.
Strong knowledge of Salt Lake City or the willingness to become an expert.
Flexible schedule.
A valid driver’s license and clean driving record.
Ability to meet applicable DOT and company insurance requirements.
CPR and First Aid certification, or willingness to obtain it after hire.
Ability to lift up to 50 pounds.
Ability to work in vehicles, outdoors, and in active field conditions.
Willingness to guide tours or provide operational coverage when necessary.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Samsara or a similar fleet platform.

Responsibilities

Oversee the daily execution of Salt Lake City day tours, including guide scheduling, vehicle assignment, tour readiness confirmation, and dynamic adjustments to plans.
Coordinate multiple tours simultaneously, managing timing, safety, guest needs, and operational details.
Make decisive actions in response to guide call-outs, weather changes, vehicle issues, or immediate tour support needs.
Ensure all vehicles are clean, properly equipped, professionally presented, and ready for operation.
Maintain compliance with company policies, safety procedures, DOT requirements, and insurance standards.
Step in to guide tours or provide operational coverage when the operation requires it.
Recruit, onboard, train, coach, and evaluate Salt Lake City day-tour guides.
Develop guides to deliver compelling experiences, focusing on connection, entertainment, education, and inspiration beyond reciting facts.
Set clear expectations for guides regarding professionalism, safety, storytelling, timing, destination knowledge, guest interaction, and vehicle care.
Conduct ride-alongs and field evaluations to assess guide performance.
Recognize excellent guide performance and address performance gaps directly.
Own the quality of the guest experience, monitoring feedback, reviews, and complaints to identify and fix underlying issues.
Improve tour routes, timing, stops, interpretive content, guest communication, and overall tour flow.
Ensure a consistent guest experience across all tours, guides, and vehicles.
Implement service recovery strategies and use them to improve operating practices.
Build and maintain relationships with hotels, concierges, visitor centers, destination organizations, conference planners, event organizers, travel advisors, and tourism partners.
Develop opportunities for SWAT tours within conventions, conferences, group programs, and visitor packages.
Represent SWAT within the Salt Lake City tourism community.
Collaborate with Sales and Marketing on campaigns, sales materials, tour positioning, promotions, and conversion strategies.
Identify and pursue new audiences, partnerships, distribution channels, and booking opportunities.
Monitor bookings, revenue, labor, vehicle use, direct costs, utilization, and margins.
Understand the operational costs and profitability of each tour.
Identify and address inefficiencies such as wasted time, underused resources, scheduling issues, and avoidable expenses.
Balance service quality with financial judgment.
Report clearly on performance, challenges, trends, and opportunities.
Contribute to setting performance targets and achieving them.
Improve existing tours based on guest feedback, guide insights, market demand, and operating results.
Research and develop new tour concepts, routes, themes, stops, and partnerships.
Evaluate new tour ideas for guest appeal, operational feasibility, competitive value, and profitability.
Keep Salt Lake City tour products fresh, relevant, and recommendable.