Tips
Every attraction has some level of balance between destination guests and local, drive-market visitors. What Covid-19 has forced our industry to do, however, is learn how to increase the one (locals) to make up for the other (travelers) while we wait and hope for travel to return to something near pre-pandemic levels.
At the heart of generating sustainable demand from any market lies a critical effort: data capture.
No matter your visitation today, more and better data for each of those guests will increase the likelihood you can bring them back again and again and again. Luckily, gathering data for this group is simpler than you think.
Email addresses are a must, especially from transactions. While you should certainly consider asking folks for their email address at the ticket window, the momentum behind online booking gives you a perfect excuse to put more products online and capture it there. This can also help decrease time and touchpoints once a guest is on-site.
While emails from non-transactional sources won’t convert quite as well, they certainly hold value if they’re designed around attracting quality instead of pure quantity:
One benefit to capturing someone’s phone number is the first three digits. While not perfect, area codes are a simple way to identify rough location for someone who enters your database. Mobile numbers also give you one more channel – SMS/texting – where you can reach them with offers and bring them one step closer to pulling out their credit cards.
Our SMS partner, Mobiniti, has built-in campaigns that make it easy to capture potential visitors and then convert them to paying customers. Things like:
With a transactions you might get more data, but whether it’s an online form or a script for your team in the gift shop, asking for zip code is a simple way to give you a more granular view of a guest’s location before they convert.
It’s extremely important to remember that a drive market guest is looking for different products and experiences on a different timeline than a destination visitor. Capturing something that lets you separate these folks from everyone else in your database is critical so you can send deals, news, and information they’re most likely to be interested in and, then, act on.
Are there more data points you could capture? Of course. And the easiest way to get those is with an online transaction.
But when you think about all the potential guests in your drive market who haven’t yet entered their credit card number and billing address, finding ways to capture these three bits of information will give your marketing team everything they need to get these locals one step closer to a data-filled transaction.
Start selling more of everything your resort has to offer.
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