Who publishes the site
Southern Lakes Tours is published by ScalePact, a tour operator marketing firm led by Hamza Liaqat. ScalePact works with tour operators on their marketing. It doesn’t run tours, own boats or sell trips itself.
That background is why the site reads the way it does. Most of the questions a traveller has before booking are the same questions operators answer every day: where do I meet you, what happens if it rains, is lunch included, how long am I actually on the water. The pages are built around those.
The same team publishes two other tour comparison sites, one for Sydney and one for Belize. The full list of titles is on ScalePact’s own site.
What the site does
- Groups tours by what you’d actually search for. One page for Milford Sound cruises, another for day trips from Queenstown that include the cruise, another for glacier heli hikes. Not one page per listing.
- Compares them on the facts that change your day. Duration, boat or group size, what’s included, pickup or meeting point, refund rules and who each one suits.
- Shows live prices and availability from Viator on every card, so the number you see is the number you’ll pay.
- Names a pick, and a trip to skip, on each tour page, with the reason.
- Answers the practical questions on separate guide pages: driving the Milford Road, when helicopters fly at Franz Josef, what’s free in Wanaka.
How tours get onto a page, and in what order, is set out on how we choose tours.
What the site does not do
Bookings and payments aren’t ours. Viator takes them, and the operator runs the day.
We can’t change, cancel or refund a booking, and we can’t see yours. Questions about a booking go to Viator or the operator, as our booking help page explains.
Placement isn’t for sale. Operators can’t pay to be listed or to move up a page.
Not every tour makes it on. Those with too few reviews or a low rating stay off the grid, and so do wine tours, which this site doesn’t cover. Ticket-only attractions and airport transfers aren’t here either.
No review on the site is written in someone else’s name. Where a page repeats what a traveller said, it names the traveller and links to where they said it.
Where we cover
| Area | What’s on the site |
|---|---|
| Queenstown | The base for most trips, and the things to do guide |
| Milford Sound | Cruises, day trips from Queenstown, and a travel guide for driving in |
| Franz Josef | Glacier heli hikes, guided tours and a guide to the free walks |
| Wanaka | Day trips from Queenstown, local tours and a things to do guide |
| Te Anau | Day trips, Doubtful Sound cruises and a things to do guide |
| Mount Cook | Day trips from Queenstown and a guide to the walks |
| Dunedin | Tours, food tours and a city guide |
How the pages stay current
Tour listings change. Operators add departures, drop lunch, change pickup points and adjust their refund rules, sometimes without much notice.
Prices and availability on every card come live from Viator, so those are always current. The written parts of each page (what’s included, where you meet, who a trip suits) are rechecked against the current listings every quarter. Each page shows the date it was last checked at the foot.
When a recheck finds that a page no longer matches the listing, the listing wins and the page is corrected. Anything that changes a fact a reader might act on goes in our corrections log with the date.
If you spot something out of date before we do, tell us. It’s the fastest way a page gets fixed.
Contact
Email hello@southernlakestours.com. We reply within 3 business days.
That address is for anything about the site itself. For a booking, a refund or a change to your tour, go to Viator or the operator; the contact page says which.