13 July 2026
Anna reads availability and pricing straight from Bókun, not from a stale PDF
Thorir Aron Stefansson, founder of annasvarar.is
It is a quarter past ten in the evening and Peter is sitting in a Reykjavík guesthouse with his phone in his hand. He and his wife want to go whale watching from Húsavík on Thursday, and he has two websites open to compare. On one he types into the chat: "is Thursday at one available, and what does it cost for two adults?" There he gets an answer within seconds, space on the one o'clock tour, the price for two, and a link straight to the booking page. On the other site there is a "contact us" and a phone number nobody answers at this hour.
Anna reads your tours straight from Bókun. When a guest asks about an available tour, she pulls the real availability and price in real time and sends a link directly to the tour's booking page. She does not complete the booking inside Bókun herself, the guest does that on the booking page, or the team steps in. But the answer he gets is correct at the moment he asks, not a copy of a price list from back in the spring.
When the price changed but the document did not
Prices in tourism rarely sit still. Summer pricing differs from winter, departures fill up or get cancelled for weather, and the schedule shifts between seasons. An answer drawn from a fixed price list, an old PDF, or last year's memory can therefore be wrong without anyone noticing.
And a wrong answer about availability costs more than no answer. Tell a guest Thursday is open when the tour is full, and he shows up cheerful to find there is no room. Quote him an old price that does not match the booking page, and he loses trust halfway through and goes elsewhere. In both cases it would have been better to say nothing.
The ways to answer about availability and price
The simplest option is to put a price list or an FAQ on the site, maybe a PDF, and hope it stays correct. It costs little, but it goes out of date the moment a price or a schedule changes, and it never answers the specific "is Thursday at one available."
The next option is to have a staff member look it up in Bókun and reply by hand. The answer will be right, but it only comes during working hours and only as fast as someone gets to it. The traveler with three tabs open has booked somewhere else long before the message is read the next morning.
The third option is a generic chatbot dropped onto the site. It can chat, but it cannot see your Bókun catalog in real time, so it either guesses at the answer or points to "contact us," and then we are back where we started.
The fourth option is to connect the answering directly to Bókun. Then Anna reads the availability and price from the same source as the booking page itself, answers the guest right away, and hands the matter to the team when it belongs with a person.
Frequently asked questions
Does Anna complete the booking inside Bókun? No. She finds the right tour, shows the available space and price from Bókun, and sends a link directly to the tour's booking page, where the guest completes the booking himself. Appointments such as a check-in or a consultation she does book directly into your Google Calendar.
Which plan do I need to connect Bókun? The Bókun integration comes with Plus and larger plans. Core, the smallest plan, does not include it. The full price list is on the pricing page.
Is the price Anna gives definitely correct? Yes. She reads it from Bókun in real time, the same source as the booking page, so the figure she quotes matches what the guest sees when he completes the booking. She does not rely on an old price list or a copy that could be out of date.
What happens if the tour is full or the question is more complex? Anna says so plainly instead of promising space that is not there, and points to the next departure if one is open. When the matter needs a person, she passes it to the team with a summary, and the guest is told someone is taking over.
This is why Anna answers this way
Anna is built to answer the traveler with correct information at the moment he asks, not with a copy that was right the last time someone updated it. For tourism she reads the tours straight from Bókun, real availability, dates, and prices, and sends a link directly to the booking page when the guest is ready. What she cannot or should not answer, she passes to the team with a summary. That way the answer comes from the same source as the booking itself, at any hour of the day.
The old answer was correct once. Bókun knows what is correct now, and that is where Anna reads it.
See what Anna does for tourism or try the chat right away, no signup needed. Related: when summer multiplies the inquiries and why a wrong answer is worse than none.