Apacheta - Tours and Activities Booking Platform with Nominative Permit Control
Booking and Operations Platform for a Cusco Tour Operator
Designed and built a clickable booking and operations console for a Cusco operator of treks, Sacred Valley day tours and cultural workshops: every booking from every channel in one list, departures with live capacity, guides and vehicles, and trail permits and Machu Picchu entry tickets allocated to named travellers before the submission deadline.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, bookings, booking detail, departures calendar and permits, plus a New booking panel. Each of the 30 demo bookings opens its own detail with participants, payments, permits, messages and activity.
One-day trail permits and Machu Picchu entry by circuit and time slot, on a 28-day calendar from held to allocated, assigned, submitted and issued. Submitting is blocked while a passport is missing, then the names lock.
Treks refund in full minus the permit cost more than 30 days out, 50% from 30 to 15 days and nothing within 15. Day tours and workshops refund in full until 24 hours before. Each booking shows what a cancellation now would return.
Five weeks of departures across 9 products (3 treks, 3 day tours, 3 workshops), 30 bookings with 70 participants from 15 countries, 9 sales channels, 11 guides and 5 vans.
The Problem
Wayrapampa sold through its website form, WhatsApp, three OTAs, a dozen hotel desks and walk-ins, with availability in a spreadsheet the office updated by hand. Van seats were sold twice on busy July mornings, a trek was once confirmed to 19 people for 16 places, passport details for permits arrived as photos and were re-typed, guides left at 4:30 a.m. with lists missing last night's bookings, and weather cancellations meant phoning every traveller and refunding by hand from three payment gateways.
Our Solution
Apacheta puts every booking, from every channel, against one live capacity per departure. The office sees today's departures, the next 14 days' load and what needs attention, each booking shows its participants' data status and the refund its policy allows, and the permits screen allocates scarce, nominative permits to named travellers and blocks submission until every passport is in.
The Challenge: Scarce Seats, Named Permits, Many Channels
A Cusco operator sells the same small vans and trek groups through its own site, the phone, hotel desks and OTAs, while the most valuable products depend on daily permits issued in each traveller's name. One wrong number or a late passport can turn a traveller away at the checkpoint.
One Capacity, Many Sellers
Direct web, phone and WhatsApp, walk-ins, hotel desks, an agency and OTAs all sell the same departures, each with its own commission. Without one live count per departure, overbooking was a matter of time.
Permits Issued in a Traveller's Name
Access to the Inca Trail network and Machu Picchu is generally regulated by the Ministry of Culture with SERNANP: permits are limited per day, nominative against passport data, not transferable, and the trail closes for maintenance part of the year. The data has to be complete and correct before the list is submitted.
Weather and Policy at Scale
Snow alerts and trail closures cancel whole days of departures. Each affected traveller needs an offer and a refund under the policy version in force when they booked, and permit costs are not refundable.
Peruvian and Foreign Rules Together
Law 29733 sets consent and stricter handling for health data, while most travellers come from the EU, UK and North America, where GDPR may also apply. Law 29571 requires the full price and conditions before purchase and a virtual complaints book, and every sale needs a SUNAT electronic voucher.
Our Approach: From Trail Rules to a Clickable Console
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 11 roles from operations manager and permits coordinator to guides, suppliers and travellers, 53 screens across the operator console, an offline guide app and a mobile-first traveller site, and the data model for products, schedules, departures, permit allocations, bookings, participants, payments, electronic vouchers, disruptions and audit entries. Wrote down the rules the design follows: Law 29733, GDPR for foreign travellers, Law 29571 and the Libro de Reclamaciones, SUNAT e-invoicing, permit rules and operator registration with GERCETUR.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key console screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with a weather strip, today's departures timeline and a 14-day load heat grid, bookings with status pills, filters and a quick view panel, booking detail with masked passports, student ID checks and SUNAT vouchers, the departures calendar with guide assignment and manifests, and the permits calendar with its submission queue. The New booking panel shows seats and trail permits left as you fill it and will not sell more seats than remain. All actions run on local state.
What a Production Build Adds
Payments through a Peruvian acquirer such as Niubiz, Izipay or Culqi with Yape, Plin and PayPal, e-invoicing through an authorised provider such as Nubefact, OTA connectivity with Viator, GetYourGuide or a hub, WhatsApp and email messaging, maps and weather feeds. Staff auth by role and refund limit, an append-only audit log, counsel review of every rule, and the remaining screens: disruptions, channels, catalogue, suppliers, refunds, complaints, data requests, reports, the guide app and the traveller site.
Why It Works: The Day Runs From One Screen
Today at a Glance
The dashboard opens on Cusco, Sacred Valley and pass weather with alerts, a timeline of today's departures from 03:30 to 20:00 with seats, guide, vehicle and incidents, and a list of what needs attention: missing passports, departures without a guide, under-minimum groups and permit lists due.
Permits Cannot Go Out Wrong
Each permit day shows held, allocated, assigned, submitted and issued, with closures shaded. The queue counts down to each deadline, links missing participants to their bookings, blocks submission until the data is complete and locks names once a list is submitted.
Personal Data Shown Only When Needed
Passport numbers are masked to the last four digits, and opening the full number or a traveller's fitness answers is recorded in the audit log. Data deadlines per product tell agents when to chase.
Policy Versions Travel With the Booking
Each booking keeps the cancellation policy version it was sold under and shows the refund a cancellation now would return, with the non-refundable permit cost set out, so agents quote what the traveller agreed to.
Related case studies
View all: Travel & hospitality
Almendro - Direct Booking Engine and Rates Console for a Costa Rican Hotel Group
Designed and built a clickable hotel console for a Costa Rican group of seven boutique hotels and eco-lodges: a dashboard of direct business, every booking with its price, payments and policy snapshot, a rates and availability grid where derived plans follow the best available rate, and a refund queue with approval limits.
Thila - Guest Experience App and Staff Console for a Maldives Resort Group
Designed and built a clickable staff console for a Malé hotel group with three island resorts and one city hotel: arrivals prepared from online check-in, passports verified at the jetty, guest requests routed to departments on SLA timers, and seaplane, speedboat and car transfers built into manifests.
Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab
Location
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab