Tourism Industry Software Development

The problem with "off-the-shelf"

Most tourism software is built for the average operator — which means it's built for nobody in particular. You end up paying a subscription for a dozen features you'll never touch, while the one thing you actually need — a proper cost breakdown on a quote, a way to track a specific type of job — isn't there at all. So you build a workaround in a spreadsheet, or you just wear the loss when a job's underquoted.

Custom software used to fix that. It just came with a price tag that only made sense for operators with real scale behind them.

I've built this exact thing for my own industry

I'm not coming at this as a developer who's studied the tourism industry from the outside. I've been driving coaches and running my own tour business, Escape Scenes, since 2018. I've felt the exact frustration of quoting a job on gut feel and finding out afterward it barely covered the diesel.

That's what led me to build Coach Quote (coachquote.au) — a quoting and job management tool for coach operators. It takes a job enquiry and turns it into a full profit-and-loss breakdown in a few minutes: every fixed and variable cost that goes into running that movement, so you know your number before you send the quote — and you've got the figures to back yourself when a broker tries to talk you down.

I built it by describing what I needed, in plain English, to Claude AI, and I've been refining it for about four months now — it's still an active, ongoing project. Every time I use it, I find another thing it should do. That's actually the point: this way of building software means the tool keeps evolving with the business, instead of locking you into version one forever.

What this could look like for your business

The same approach works anywhere a tourism business has a specific problem that generic software doesn't solve — or where the "proper" solution costs an ongoing subscription that stings every month. A few examples of the kind of thing this suits:

• A quoting tool that factors in your actual costs, not a generic markup
• A job or roster management tool built around how your business actually runs
• A customer-facing booking add-on that handles something your current platform doesn't
• An internal tool that replaces three spreadsheets and a whiteboard

If there's a gap in what's out there for your corner of the industry — or the only options come with an expensive ongoing subscription — that's usually where this fits best.

How it works

1. We talk about the problem, not the software.
No jargon, no feature lists. I want to understand what's actually costing you time or money.

2. I build a working version, directing AI to do the heavy lifting.
Traditionally, this kind of work needed a team — a developer, a backend specialist, someone testing it all — and a business case big enough to justify hiring them. I'm not a career software developer running a team; I'm an operator with a software development diploma and years of web development experience, using AI to do the technical heavy lifting that used to require that whole team. It's not a shortcut that skips the thinking — it's a different way of doing the job, one person and AI instead of a team and a six-figure quote. That's what puts a genuinely customised solution within reach of a small operator who'd never have justified the traditional route.

3. It grows with you.
Software built this way isn't a one-and-done deliverable. The longer you use it, the more familiar you get with what it does — and the more ideas surface for what it should do next. Every new idea gets logged and worked through, so the tool keeps evolving alongside your business instead of staying frozen at version one.

Frequently asked questions

What is tourism industry software development?

Tourism industry software development is the process of building custom digital tools — quoting systems, booking add-ons, scheduling or management tools — specifically for how a tour, coach, or travel business operates, rather than using generic off-the-shelf platforms. Drumroll Please, run by Dave Edwards in Sydney, builds these tools by directing AI through the development process, which brings the cost down enough for small tourism operators to afford a genuinely custom solution.

Is custom software development affordable for a small tour operator?

Yes, when built using AI-assisted development. Traditionally, custom software required hiring a development team, which put it financially out of reach for most small operators. Dave Edwards charges $125 + GST per hour, so a week's work (around 40 hours) is roughly $5,000 + GST — a fraction of what a traditional development team would have cost for comparable work in the past.

Do I need any technical knowledge to get custom software built?

No. The process runs entirely on plain-English conversation about what your business needs. Dave Edwards handles the technical side, directing AI to build and refine the tool based on that conversation.

Is there a real example of software built this way?

Yes. Coach Quote (coachquote.au) is a live quoting and job management tool built for coach operators. It calculates a full profit-and-loss breakdown for a job in minutes, factoring in fixed and variable costs, so operators can quote accurately instead of guessing. It was built by Dave Edwards directing Claude AI through the development process, and has been in active development for about four months.

Can custom software replace my existing booking system?

Usually not, and it's generally not recommended to replace a working booking platform like Rezdy. Custom software built this way is typically used to fill a specific gap — such as quoting, job costing, or internal workflow management — rather than replacing an operator's core booking system.

Let's talk about your idea