Q: What were the Top 5 resort marketing insights of 2013?

photo of the author Gregg Blanchard

As the year comes to a close, we thought it would be fun to recap some of the top insights of 2013. We’ve ranked these by the total website traffic each one received. If you’ve got a specific topic on your mind, use the search box to the right. With nearly a hundred of these insights in the books, we bet you’ll find something.

Enjoy.

#1 – What are the most common email providers and domains resorts are sending to?
With questions about how big of an impact DKIM – which primarily helps Gmail deliverability – would make on a resort’s overall strategy, we dug into the data and found which email providers resort guests are using most.
http://www.ryansolutions.com/blog/2013/email-domains/

#2 – Skiing Lift Tickets vs Disneyland Day Passes: whose prices are growing faster?
Ski lift ticket prices have been on the rise for quite some time, but how does the increase in cost to skiers compare to other destinations like Disneyland? That was our question, the answer started some interesting discussion.
http://www.ryansolutions.com/blog/2013/price-growth-skiing-vs-disneyland/

#3 – Are advanced-bookers of ski vacations paying more or less than the last-minute crowd?
The go-to practice for filling rooms seems to be discounting. On the flip side, discounts are used to motivate advanced bookings. We wanted to find out who was paying more.
http://www.ryansolutions.com/blog/2013/adr-vs-lead-time/

#4 – Which summer subject line words get the most email opens for resorts?
Increasingly, mountain resorts are looking to summer to help the overall financial stability of their operations. So, looking just at email subject lines, we did a quick analysis of which words correlated to the most action.
http://www.ryansolutions.com/blog/2013/summer-email-subject-keywords/

#5 – Does the time of year a skier buys their season pass impact the likelihood they’ll renew?
Another ski topic, we wondered if how early a skier bought their pass each year was an indicator of how loyal they were and, in turn, how likely they were to renew the following year. Turns out our hunch was correct.
http://www.ryansolutions.com/blog/2013/month-vs-renewal-rate/

The Stash Rolls On
That’s all for 2013, but we’ll be back with another 50+ weekly insights in 2014. If you want to be notified when each one drops, stick your email below. See you next week.