How Tiki Pub Destin Stopped Answering the Same Guest Questions Every Day

During peak season, Yonder answered hundreds of guest questions, generated 205 new reviews in 90 days — and freed Tiki Pub Destin’s team from repetitive phone calls.

“When I really realised that they were working for us, it was when the calls stopped coming in.”

Tiki Pub Destin runs floating tiki bar cruises out of Destin Harbor to Crab Island, one of the busiest stretches of water on the Florida panhandle. It is one of several brands operated by Gulf Coast Adventures, where Bekah is General Manager.

Peak season on the panhandle is short and intense. For Bekah’s team, it used to arrive with the phone attached to their ear.

The Challenge: Ten-Minute Phone Calls About Parking

The questions weren’t complicated. What time should we arrive? Where do we park? Where exactly do we go? Can we bring the kids? What happens if the weather changes?

But they were relentless — and they often came at exactly the wrong time.

“Time to arrive, where to go, all the things where you're stuck on the phone and you're on five, ten minute conversations trying to direct your guests.”

Destin Harbor makes directions particularly difficult. Marinas sit shoulder to shoulder, and arriving at the wrong parking lot can mean a guest misses the boat.

“Locations are a big one, especially here in Destin. It's really hard to make sure you're going to the right parking lot, because all of our marinas are set like this.”

But the real cost wasn’t simply the time spent answering the phone. It was what happened to the guest standing directly in front of them.

“I'm very big on being personalised when our guest walks in. It's a ‘hey, good morning, how are you, what's the name we're looking for?’ And when you have somebody on the phone and you're saying ‘hold on one second,’ it's not always a great reception for people who are coming in and spending money with you.”

As phone calls can disrupt the in-person exchange during the check-in, the staff are delighted to have the support of Yonders chatbot to answer the common questions that were generating calls.

Fewer Routine Calls. More Time for Guests.

Tiki Pub Destin introduced Yonder to give guests another way to get the answers they needed. For guests already on the website, that meant they could ask the chatbot about parking, arrival times, capacity, kids, weather policies and other common questions — and get an answer straight away instead of reaching for the phone.

And Bekah didn’t need a dashboard to tell her it was working. She could hear it.

“When I really realised that they were working for us, it was when the calls stopped coming in.”

Importantly, the goal wasn't to stop customers calling. It was to give Bekah's team more time and space to help the customers in front of them.

Guests were still asking questions. They were simply getting answers through the channel they were already using.

“They could message this chatbot and they were able to get the answer straight away, put it in their phone.”

That meant fewer unnecessary interruptions for the team — and more time to focus on guests who genuinely needed their attention.

Three Months of Peak Season With Yonder

1 May – 31 July 2026

244 guest conversations handled by the AI chatbot

Guests asked about arrival times, parking, capacity, captains, kids, weather policies and other common questions — with most conversations handled from start to finish without staff involvement.

1,800+ guest conversations brought into one inbox

Website chat, SMS and email now land in one place. Two-way SMS alone carried more than 1,550 conversations during the period — a channel Tiki Pub Destin wasn’t running at all a year earlier.

205 new guest reviews in just 90 days

Yonder's Reviews platform reached roughly 1,190 guests by email and SMS, resulting in 205 new reviews at an average rating of 4.8 and an NPS of 89.

“One new review for every 7.6 bookings — without the team having to remember to ask.”

A perfect 5.0 across 950 Google reviews

Google review volume was up 240% year on year in May, while Tiki Pub Destin maintained a perfect 5.0 Google rating.

The Questions Didn’t Disappear. The Interruptions Did.

Guests still want to know where to go. They still ask about capacity. They still want to understand policies before they arrive. And some guests will always prefer to call.

The important change for Tiki Pub Destin was that every routine question no longer needed to be answered by a staff member.

For guests already browsing the website, Yonder’s chatbot provided an immediate way to get an answer. The calls reaching the team were increasingly the ones that genuinely needed their attention.

“They have helped us go from the frustration of phones ringing off the hook to phones only ringing when there's random questions that come through, like how big is the boat. But not about the basic stuff that customers need to know, that's in their emails that they don't read. So then they go and they use the chatbot.”

For Bekah, that means more time for the part of hospitality she cares about — looking after the guest who’s actually there.

Meet Guests in the Channel They Choose

The lesson from Tiki Pub Destin isn't that customers should stop calling. It's that routine customer questions shouldn't take staff away from dealing with customers right in front of them.

Some guests will look for answers on your website. Others will text. Others will pick up the phone. The opportunity for tourism operators is to make sure those guests can get a fast, helpful answer — without requiring a staff member to personally handle every conversation.

At Tiki Pub Destin, the AI chatbot takes care of many of the repetitive questions coming through the website. For operators receiving significant call volumes, the same principle can extend to the phone with an AI Voice Agent.

“Different channel. Same goal: give the guest an answer while giving your team their time back.”

Set It Up. Then Let It Work.

For a busy tourism operator, another piece of technology that needs constant management isn’t particularly helpful. That’s another part of Yonder that Bekah values.

“It's plug and play, set it and forget it, and that makes our jobs as operators so much easier. Adding a question that I know is going to be asked, just plug it in.”

As new questions come up, the team can add the answers. Yonder then helps answer them the next time a guest asks.

Gulf Coast Adventures now runs Yonder chatbots across several of its Destin brands.

“If you're leaning towards it, go a little bit further and get into it. If you're leaning away from it, go the other way. Use Yonder.”