There’s a saying in consumer sales, “Who doesn’t like a deal?” and it holds true. It’s why coupons, discounts, and deals have been around since the earliest days of retailing. The adage applies no differently to any aspect of the travel industry, including ours: Things To Do and Experiences. Unlike some other travel sectors, however, Experiences has some unique circumstances. Most activities within a trip take place in a single destination or two. Most people aren’t taking a plane or a cruise ship from Experience A to Experience B. Unless visitors have planned to join a moving tour such as on a bus, a van, or a train or have their own RV, they’re likely to be staying in one central place of lodging and enjoying their activities in that market. That is why in-market deals can be so enticing to consumers. Rather than the visitor having to research and find multiple, different activities in one location but have to book and pay for them all individually, deals give consumers an easier, one-stop-shop way to find and book a fun or interesting itinerary (or do so in at least fewer stops). This ease of purchase is great for consumers, but there’s also good reason for those deals to be enticing to you, the Operator, too:  They can help you sell more of your own tickets.

In-Market Mutual Support Already Exists

Tourism is quite the, well, hospitable industry. In any local market, most activities and attractions know of and support one another. The sailboat tour of the bay may suggest that guests cool down post-tour by grabbing a frosty on the local craft brewery tour, too. Or, after a day spent at a serious art museum, guests just may be ready to spend the evening on a very rousing ghost tour. All experience operators realize that if a tourist comes to visit and has a great time, every business in that market benefits. It behooves everyone to work together to make the experience of their destination’s visitors the most entertaining, fun, and positive it can be. Those visitors will go back home and tell their friends and family about what a great time they had, and that word of mouth will drive more new visitors to that destination. Plus, people who have a great time are much likely be repeat visitors themselves.

Local Brands Win by Playing Off One Another

What if there was another hot local activity or attraction that you just knew many of your guests would love to do…or were booking ahead of time anyway? Wouldn’t it be great if you could leverage that other brand’s popularity to help YOU sell more tickets in advance? What if you could easily build and sell these kinds of bundled deals on your website without any of the previously mentioned hassles? Your website visitors might see the deal and think, “Oh Wow! We wanted to do both these activities anyway, so heck yeah! We’re going to buy this deal now!” Or, “Wow, that package deal looks like a great price so we’re going to book that now!” This is the power of the bundled deal. Woo the visitor to your website, close them on booking your experience with a powerful offer.

It’s already not an uncommon practice for one attraction to recommend others to visitors once they’re done with their experience at that attraction. It’s also not uncommon for attractions to focus attention on their online marketing to attract those visitors in the first place. What’s less common, though, is for attractions to partner-up and actually create pre-trip online deals that sell access to more than one venue in a single sale.

Why? Well for one thing, the technical execution of this concept may not be easy. It’s one thing to sell inventory online that runs through your own ticketing system; it’s another thing entirely to figure out how to sell that for another local partner operating on a different ticketing system. Few operators want to manage other aspects of this kind of deal-building process – contracting, rate negotiation, collecting and disbursing payments, etc. What a pain! Isn’t that what resellers are for anyway?

Work Both Avenues

Sure, resellers are great for helping you sell more tickets – Redeam is a big advocate of resellers — but they don’t have to be the only channel you rely on. You need to work as many angles as you can to help you sell more tickets, whether that’s direct or by third-party. Selling bundled deal packages on your own website is a great way to ensure you get more conversions before your guest leaves and goes somewhere else to buy something else, that’s all!

Does this easy, on-site bundle idea interest you? Stay tuned, then, because Redeam will soon be announcing a new offering that will make this possible for you and your enticing fellow local experience operators, …including the ability to partner with your local hotels to create all kinds of unique and compelling packaged offers!

To get some more insight on in-market cross-selling, you may also want to watch the recording of our 2020 live Q&A, “How In-Market Operator Marketing Coalitions Drive Sales.”