The tourism industry today is much different from what it used to be. Today, many and many visitors visit places not just to see, see, photograph and leave. More and more tourists are looking for what they cannot find in their habitat, namely experience, emotions and new impressions.
Experimental tourism, a field that is gaining momentum today, is replacing traditional travel methods. The creation of experimental tourism makes the connection between the traveler and the host community based on authenticity and the traveler’s emotions and pleasant memories. This is what distinguishes experimental tourism from the traditional when a traveler just comes, looks around and leaves. It distinguishes real travel from simply consuming a service.
So how do you create an unforgettable experience for your visitor? In this blog, I will share eight main steps to saturate your travel business customer with emotions for the year ahead.
Step 1: Learn more about your custumer
If you provide a service, then the client is the one who will bring money to your business. Therefore, you need to find out everything about your potential customers: what types of people will be suitable for the experience you are offering?
Step 2: Learn more about your community
Experiential tourism is about finding a balance between visitors and the community. Certain people types of people will travel to certain places, and some travel destinations are not suitable for some visitors, so those who plan to develop in their region should know this region, as well as what kind of experience and impressions the community can provide them.
Step 3: Create a story
The link between visitors and the place is storytelling. It is a story that is correctly told, which is well remembered, and which visitors will want to retell to their friends, that is exactly the “product” of experimental tourism. Stories can not only be told to the client, but the clients themselves can have their own, unique stories associated with their stay in any place or community.
Step 4: Create a plan
Theme creation and storytelling are an important part of the experience creation process. However, with poor planning, your story may not reach the client. It is necessary to work out the delivery of key points, as well as schedule all the stages of delivery of your experience so that they exceed the client’s expectations.
Step 5: Prepare your team and choose the right people to deliver the experiences
Since the goal of experimental tourism is precisely to create emotions and memories, all efforts should be directed personally to the buyer and with due attention to give the consumer what he came here for. To create personal experiences, employees must be personally involved in this process and have their own connection to the place and people. To do this, you need to choose the right people who will constantly maintain customer contact and interest.
Step 6: Pay attention to the right marketing
Since advertising is the engine of progress, companies should not skimp on marketing. Today, social networks are the most important resource for finding and sharing information, so it is important that your company has blogs, vlogs, online magazines and other ways to show your business on the Internet.
Tip: Use real photos of your clients as your promotion: Seeing the real emotions of real people, future clients will know that they can just as well be involved in this event.
Step 7: Set the price
Set a competitive price based on the value of your service. The price for the provision of a service should reflect the cost of goods, products, services and staff. The right combination of these values creates a unique deal and affordable price.
Step 8: Evaluate your delivery
Pay attention to the smallest details when providing a service. If something was wrong and does not go according to plan with one client, draw conclusions and fix it with the next client. Have feedback and suggestion tools ready, read and explore your customers’ blogs, invite them to come back and motivate them to leave a review.
Canadian Tourism Commission (2011) Experiences. A Toolkit for Partners of the CTC 2nd Edition. Retrieved from: https://www.destinationcanada.com/sites/default/files/2016-11/Programs_SignatureExperiences_Toolkit_Experiences_2011_EN.pdf