Today’s consumers have easy access to reviews for any attraction they’re interested in visiting. Along with recommendations from friends and family, people can quickly decide what’s worth spending their money on and what’s not.
The increasing desire to travel to new destinations as well as the affordability of both domestic and overseas holidays have contributed to the steady growth in attraction admissions in 2018 (Mintel). However, despite the good market situation, the subject of visitors’ loyalty for the attractions still poses its challenges and remains of great interest to businesses leaders.
LOYALTY IN THE ATTRACTIONS SECTOR
Loyalty towards an attraction is vital due to the role it plays in obtaining profitability and its subsequent growth and development. There are two types of visitor loyalty attractions should be aware of: behavioural and attitudinal.
Behavioural loyalty simply means that guests keep coming back to your attraction and spending money at your location. Without that, there wouldn’t be any revenue growth.
Attitudinal loyalty tends to indicate a favourable personal attitude towards the destination. This attitude strongly shows the inclination of the individual to recommend your attraction to other people, even if they aren’t visiting regularly.
Word-of-Mouth is a powerful and inexpensive tool in promoting your offerings and maintaining a good reputation. Attitudinally loyal customers don’t have to be behaviourally loyal too. But whilst they contribute very little revenue to the business themselves, they do bring new customers who spend money at your attraction. Try and find out why these customers aren’t coming back. It might be that they are no longer your target audience. However, if they are, divert your efforts towards encouraging them to repeat their visit.
GET TO KNOW YOUR VISITORS
In order to gain or retain your guests’ loyalty, you have to firstly understand them and their decision-making process. Collecting feedback via Voice of Guest (VoG) surveys is an efficient and cost-effective way to do that. Surveys will give you a more detailed picture of your guests to help target them better. They also help identify visitors’ needs as well as their spending habits, which you can use to meet their expectations and deliver exceptional experiences. Remember to include demographic profiling questions in your VoG surveys to help you segment your customers and personalise messages and offers to each group.
DELIVER ON THE BASICS
To your visitors, there are certain factors that can either make or break their experience at your attraction. According to Avius’ data, the most common issues visitors face include:
- Limited parking spaces, or high parking charges
- Long queues
- Poor customer service
- Bad value for money
- Poor cleanliness and maintenance of the facilities
Gathering visitor feedback will help you identify which touch-points are the most problematic and cause customer dissatisfaction. If you listen to your guests’ comments and resolve issues quickly, you’re not only more likely to have higher satisfaction scores, but also better visitor advocacy. The likelihood of recommending an attraction to other people is considered as a clear indicator of loyalty.
BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING A GUEST RETENTION STRATEGY
Did you know that acquiring a new customer can cost up to seven times more than retaining an existing one (Invesp Consulting)? The benefits of implementing a guest retention strategy go beyond cost-efficiency:
- Better understanding of your visitors’ needs
- Helps identify opportunities for new product or service development
- Improved communication with your guests
- Increase in repeat visits
- Increased spend in gift shops or food & beverage outlets
Listening to customers and acting on their suggestions should be a crucial element of your retention strategy. The right VoG programme will integrate with your retention strategy to help you gather valuable visitor data you can act on. Your guests are more likely to form emotional connections and stay loyal to you when they’re given a voice. Combine this with rewards for faithful visitors to build a loyal group of brand ambassadors to boost revenue and grow your business.
By Natalia Kaczmarek
Today’s consumers have easy access to reviews for any attraction they’re interested in visiting. Along with recommendations from friends and family, people can quickly decide what’s worth spending their money on and what’s not.
The increasing desire to travel to new destinations as well as the affordability of both domestic and overseas holidays have contributed to the steady growth in attraction admissions in 2018 (Mintel). However, despite the good market situation, the subject of visitors’ loyalty for the attractions still poses its challenges and remains of great interest to businesses leaders.
LOYALTY IN THE ATTRACTIONS SECTOR
Loyalty towards an attraction is vital due to the role it plays in obtaining profitability and its subsequent growth and development. There are two types of visitor loyalty attractions should be aware of: behavioral and attitudinal.
Behavioral loyalty simply means that guests keep coming back to your attraction and spending money at your location. Without that, there wouldn’t be any revenue growth.
Attitudinal loyalty tends to indicate a favorable personal attitude towards the destination. This attitude strongly shows the inclination of the individual to recommend your attraction to other people, even if they aren’t visiting regularly.
Word-of-Mouth is a powerful and inexpensive tool in promoting your offerings and maintaining a good reputation. Attitudinally loyal customers don’t have to be behaviorally loyal too. But whilst they contribute very little revenue to the business themselves, they do bring new customers who spend money at your attraction. Try and find out why these customers aren’t coming back. It might be that they are no longer your target audience. However, if they are, divert your efforts towards encouraging them to repeat their visit.
GET TO KNOW YOUR VISITORS
In order to gain or retain your guests’ loyalty, you have to firstly understand them and their decision-making process. Collecting feedback via Voice of Guest (VoG) surveys is an efficient and cost-effective way to do that. Surveys will give you a more detailed picture of your guests to help target them better. They also help identify visitors’ needs as well as their spending habits, which you can use to meet their expectations and deliver exceptional experiences. Remember to include demographic profiling questions in your VoG surveys to help you segment your customers and personalize messages and offers to each group.
DELIVER ON THE BASICS
To your visitors, there are certain factors that can either make or break their experience at your attraction. According to Avius’ data, the most common issues visitors face include:
- Limited parking spaces, or high parking charges
- Long queues
- Poor customer service
- Bad value for money
- Poor cleanliness and maintenance of the facilities
Gathering visitor feedback will help you identify which touch-points are the most problematic and cause customer dissatisfaction. If you listen to your guests’ comments and resolve issues quickly, you’re not only more likely to have higher satisfaction scores, but also better visitor advocacy. The likelihood of recommending an attraction to other people is considered as a clear indicator of loyalty.
BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING A GUEST RETENTION STRATEGY
Did you know that acquiring a new customer can cost up to seven times more than retaining an existing one (Invesp Consulting)? The benefits of implementing a guest retention strategy go beyond cost-efficiency:
- Better understanding of your visitors’ needs
- Helps identify opportunities for new product or service development
- Improved communication with your guests
- Increase in repeat visits
- Increased spend in gift shops or food & beverage outlets
Listening to customers and acting on their suggestions should be a crucial element of your retention strategy. The right VoG program will integrate with your retention strategy to help you gather valuable visitor data you can act on. Your guests are more likely to form emotional connections and stay loyal to you when they’re given a voice. Combine this with rewards for faithful visitors to build a loyal group of brand ambassadors to boost revenue and grow your business.
By Natalia Kaczmarek
