The devil is very much in the details when it comes to long range missions. Generally speaking, you need to scan the tourist beacon just like with any short range mission. Your standard sensors are good enough for that. The big problems are:
- Getting to the system: Some missions require extreme jump ranges and/or FSD injections to get to the destination system and back. Beware of destinations like Altum Sagittarii Prime (Quemeou YE-A E0), the system is known as the ship-slayer for a reason.
- Finding the beacon: The tourist beacon is just another POI, so it will only show up in your navigation panel if you are within 1000 Ls of it. This is usually not a problem in the bubble since the beacon is associated with a planet, and the systems are either common knowledge or have a handy navigation beacon right by the entry star. Out there, having an ADS is mandatory, but some missions are to beacons in deep space far away from any planet.
- Surviving: Some of the planetary beacons are on worlds with extreme high gravity. If you get a mission to Kyloalks DL-Y G17, you will have to land on a 9.9G world. Dipping your ship to scan the beacon will result in an impact on the ground. There will also be NPC pirates in the tourist beacons who will scan your ship and attack for that survey data cache you picked up. I am still wondering how a pirate can make a living at Sagittarius A*...
- Bugs: Some missions are known to be broken, the bugs have been reported by various people on the official bug forum, and nothing happened except the usual "we are looking into it". While you will get a refund for your lost credits, it is still very annoying.
My recommended "must have" equipment for doing long range passenger missions is basically the same as for long range exploration:
- ADS/DSS to find things
- SRV to pick up materials and scan some planetary beacons (possibly even a mining laser for emergency material gathering)
- AFMU (just in case)
- materials for several J3 injections and premium AFM refills
And I also recommend googling for the target system name as well as checking EDSM to get warnings about hard to find/hazardous/bugged beacons.