6 ways to increase your peak season earnings

We know that high season is challenging. Especially now that we live in a world of restrictions and uncertainty.

Thankfully, technology can help you enhance your efforts and uplift your earnings by using the resources you already have. Ready to give your season a boost? Keep reading and find out how!

1. Encourage local visits

Since COVID-19 arrived in our lives, regulations from governments constantly change, and people don’t risk it by choosing far destinations for their holidays. Domestic tourism has been increasing a lot lately; people are taking this uncertain scenario as an opportunity to explore local sites. For you as an attraction, this can be a great opportunity. There is a bigger chance that local visitors will visit you more often, so if you use the right strategies and the right approach, you can turn them into loyal fans of your venue.

Make sure you are incentivizing local visits and reaching visitors who are looking for new or exciting experiences in their local areas. Why don’t you offer a “one free child ticket per adult ticket” promotion for the next month? Xcaret, one of the most famous natural parks in Mexico, is offering local residents a 40% discount to come and enjoy their facilities. Come up with original incentives and benefits to attract local guests and you will soon see an increase in your ticket sales.

Source: <a href='https://www.freepik.com/photos/people'>People photo created by marymarkevich 

2. Focus on the right pricing strategy

By following a flexible pricing strategy such as dynamic pricing, you will sell smartly based on weather, venue demand, capacity, and more. With the mix of predictive analytics and machine learning techniques, you get accurate predictions and forecasts about what is coming up, which allows you to ensure the optimal price both for you and your visitor.

In addition, dynamic pricing is an easy way to boost your revenue (it can indeed boost your revenue up to 50% or even more if done correctly) besides helping you improve your visitor spread and distribute your demand. Remember that the companies that have come out stronger out of the pandemic are those which have been agile enough to respond to adjust to changes rapidly.

Related read: 5 ways dynamic pricing can help leisure fight COVID19

3. Make your experience covid-proof

Capacity and safety issues are still very present in our daily lives. Many visitors are still not feeling comfortable in crowded places, and therefore they tend to avoid these kinds of scenarios, which means that, unless they can make sure they will feel safe within your venue, they won’t buy a ticket.

Ensure safety within your venue avoiding as many touchpoints as possible. Use technology to encourage the online purchase of tickets (in many leisure venues this is a requirement already), provide e-maps with heat mapping, contactless payments, time slots, or even give virtual queueing a try.  Right now, the safest your venue, the higher your revenue!

Also, provide your visitors with some useful information regarding this matter before their visits. Let them know what your attraction looks like, how they need to behave on-site, and what you are doing to keep them safe in advance. 

4. Use mobile apps for in-venue spending

The capacity of visitors you can welcome might be limited, but the amount of money they can spend is not! Did you know that Amazon reported that 35% of its revenue is attributed to cross-sells?

Mobile apps are the best way to stimulate in-venue spending since you are right in the pocket of your visitor. It allows you to personalize their experience and better adapt to their needs. Did you know that businesses that personalize app experiences see an average sales increase of 19% according to Marketingprofs?

For instance, by sending push notifications, you can send your guests the right message, at the right time. What about sending them a message at lunchtime? Tell them about the delicious menus they can find in your restaurants, they won’t resist the temptation! 

Related read: Integrating food and beverage into the Visitor’s Journey

Source: <a href='https://www.freepik.com/photos/woman'>Woman photo created by freepik

5. Establish an effective feedback system

Feedback is crucial for offering a better value for the money your visitors are spending as well as keeping your visitors happy. By collecting their thoughts and suggestions, you will immediately detect where you need to make improvements or changes to provide the best customer experience. 

Besides, good feedback and recommendation rates attract new visitors, especially now that we all look for new experiences online. Think about when you use Booking to book a hotel stay and you filter the rooms by “very good: 8+”. Same with attractions, customer rates, and opinions definitely impact your bookings. The better rates and feedback, the more bookings you will get.

Add a feedback module at the end of your visitor journey, if it is via email, via the app, or even by SMS to make sure you collect your visitors’ opinions. Due to different reasons such as busy schedules or not feeling comfortable with providing honest information, many guests are reluctant to give feedback, so analyze what is the best way to ask for feedback and actually get it.

6. Rethink your attraction

Related to the previous point, you certainly have plenty of room for improvement in different areas across your customer journey. Use your current resources and think about new ways to market your products and services. 

For example, now that we have highlighted the importance of reaching local visitors, ensure that there is always something new for everyone to enjoy. Take advantage of seasonal decorations or festivities to come up with new events and happenings. Halloween is coming soon, which can be the perfect excuse to organize something new within your venue and give your visitors an extra excuse to get their tickets already.

We hope you found these ideas useful to boost your season's revenue. As you see, it is not always about changing your whole strategy, but rather finding little things you can easily improve or change. And remember that your best ally is and always will be technology!

Feel free to reach out to the team to request further information or schedule a call with one of our team experts to discuss your venue's goals.