Category Archives for Video training and Industry Interviews

ONE  Way to accelerate your Tourism Marketing and create a successful brand is: 

Don’t let pricing boss you around in your tourism business. 

In order to set pricing for  your tourism product or service, it involves objective pricing instead of emotional pricing.

This is one of the big problems in the tourism industry. 

Let’s face it –   We all have our own views and perspectives about what we think about money. It often comes from how we were brought up. 

And these views affect what we charge for our products or services. 

Sometimes we set prices for our services too low or too high for emotional reasons: 

•   It could be because of the time and effort we put into it,
• What we feel it's worth or what we feel we are worth
• We feel pressured by how our competitor has priced theirs or 
• Generally we’re worried that a guest will complain because that has happened to us before. 

- It may often feel that everyone is looking for and asking for the best deal, but chances are you haven’t given them enough VALUE to base their decision on anything other than price.   

Value is a perception, not a calculation   - Simon Sinek

 ​How you get your guests to see the value in your offering (beyond price) is to build a strong brand over time, -- a brand that they are inspired by. Because of your purpose, what you stand for, how you do business your strong customer service, your reviews. -- > and because of all this;  trust emerges 

To set price, it is most effective when you go through a list of steps. 

1. It starts with writing down what your strategy in words based on the guest you want to attract to your business, who you are as a brand) and how you are seen/perceived in your industry. 
2. Then, following steps to look at all the factors (like all your costs, your commissions) will allow you to think of your pricing more objectively instead of emotionally. 
3. The last step is the communication part – because we want our guests to see the value they are gettihttps://blog.hubspot.com/sales/pricing-strategyng in our room, or tour or attraction, not just a price point. 

This is where well-crafted – persuasive communication focuses on their needs. 

And getting feedback on why someone in your target market didn’t buy is a helpful way to gauge whether pricing is an issue or if you haven’t given them enough in your brand to support your price and value. 

The same process applies to promotions and discounting – by following a list of steps and creating price objectives in a smart and purposeful way, instead of an emotional way. 

When you can set your pricing in a more systematic and informed way, it gives you more confidence in it, and in general, it makes setting price less daunting. 

If you found this video helpful Join our Community at the bottom of this blog post and enjoy our many free marketing resources for tourism brands like yours. 

For more marketing tips and how to set objective pricing in the tourism industry you can find them all here. 

One way to accelerate your Tourism Marketing and create a successful brand is 

When you let your Guests FEEL again. When you live and work with Purpose everything changes.

Purpose Marketing is What Your Consumers Care About.

We are in a societal crisis around the world. And this affects your tourism business. 

We are living in a world of speed, quick fixes, make money fast schemes,and artificial brands and lifestyles are sold to us every day 

This is all contributing to frustration, stress , and anxiety

Now more than ever, consumers are changing their views on brands and they value the  people behind them.  

Consumers are more cynical, but they value what feels authentic, transparent and REAL to them. 

They are Conscious consumers who value real stories, and the people and the brands who inspire them,

They value brands that don’t just make money, but they are equally focused on improving the world in some way. 

This is why we need more tourism brands that have a strong purpose, a purpose driven business, not a profit only one. 

Just having great features and benefits isn’t going to cut it. 

Sure, a brand may have all the benefits that a traveler is looking for – and it meets their  needs. 

But often brands are chosen because of gut feel  - meaning how your brand made that guest FEEL 

Because these travelers were INSPIRED by your business, not by the what you do and how you do it, but WHY you get up in the morning to run your tourism business.  That is purpose marketing at its finest. 

​A Great concept to explain this is golden circle: (by Simon Sinek)

 Most businesses have it all wrong, because they are focusing on communicating from the outside in.  

They talk about what they do-- their services, then the how – How they do it – like their strengths and their USP

 but few businesses do a good job of clearly communicating their why --- 

AND making money isn’t a reason for Why you should do anything and that won’t inspire any guest toward your business 

Money and profits are results of What you do. 

Your WHY is about your contribution, your impact,  your purpose and it will have an impact on others too.  

The WHY inspires people period. 

 It is why you get up every morning, to go to work and do your work. Its what fuels and what motivates you. 

Purpose driven marketing means you market your brand with your Why in mind First,  which actually leads to much better marketing

because it supports your features and benefits --the What of your business and how you do it (your strengths) 

 –and it goes deeper into the WHY of marketing.  

 When you START WITH WHY instead of the what and the how drives the behavior of not just your guests, but of you and your staff. 

The guests you want to attract come your way, because you connect with them and they resonate with who you are,

 they get you and what you stand for.

Purpose also leads you enjoying your work more, because you have something to get up for in the morning.  

Stress and frustration no longer have the control that they once had on you.

 Because you find value in the work you do and so do your staff because they play a big part in it. 

Many owners and operators in the tourism business get into this business because they like to Travel. And let’s face it, Tourism can be a fun business. 

But your purpose is bigger than that -- how you excite and inspire your guests to see the  world differently is more powerful than just enjoying travel.  

And when your business has more purpose, clearly communicated to your guests, YOUR profits will follow too. 

Did you know that: 

90% of people that work in businesses, that they believe have a strong purpose, report strong financial results?  

So a successful tourism brand starts with purpose --- which leads to attracting guests that get you, 

and profits follow , so you can do the work that you love. 

A purpose driven business- Are these not the best reasons to get up and go to work in the morning? 

Watch the find your why Ted Talk here

Join our community at Tourism Marketing That Works to find out more about purpose driven marketing and ask questions from our community of tourism professionals like you.

For more ways to accelerate your tourism marketing, get new tips and resources to improve your marketing every week.        

 I want to talk to you about a common problem I see often in the travel and tourism industry.

It is when hotel, tour, event, attraction and transportation operators assume every guest is always ready to buy.  They are not 

Often, businesses try to sell something to a guest who isn’t even aware of them yet.

This is like meeting someone for the first time and expecting to go on a date with them.

This scenario is when Advertising and Marketing can get really frustrating for tourism brands, and many give up.

See,  potential guests go through a journey, to find a brand, learn about a brand and then decide whether this brand can meet their needs and if they trust them

and that journey takes time.

Think about how you research, discover and then evaluate businesses when finding something that you are looking for.

If tourism brands don’t understand these buyer steps and how to help guests, it will result in wasted time, energy and money.

If this problem resonates with you, we have a great community group of tourism professionals.

In this group, we to discuss and solve tourism marketing problems.

Join our group at Tourism Marketing That Works,  its completely free – it’s a place we can all learn something new. 

For more common problems in the Tourism Industry you can find them here.

What is branding?  Before we get to this I want to talk to you about a symptom that relates to this. I want to talk to you about a common problem I often see with Tourism businesses. It is when hotel, tour, attraction, event or transport owners and operators: create a name, logo, and URL for their brand and then they assume their communication work is done. 

Branding is a significant component of your communication to your guests and it is so much more than these three things.

1. Guests aren’t influenced to buy you just by your name or your logo.
2. And they certainly won’t find you on the internet
3. They won’t buy your brand if they don’t get you or understand you
4. Or if they don’t trust that you can meet their needs or problems

 It takes a lot more than a name, logo and a URL to build credibility and authority for a business. And to persuade a guest to book, to remember and recommend a business in the future. So, Branding has a lot of work to do to communicate all this, it needs to go beyond the logo, name, and URL. 

A brand is like a personality - and it is a lot more than how it looks. 

A brand (a tourism business,) must help move guests from consideration to conversion --- which means convincing them that your brand is right for them.  

Does this answer the what is branding comment a little bit better? Do your potential guests understand your brand beyond just a name, logo and a URL?

If this problem resonates with you, we have a great community group of tourism owners, operators and managers. In this group, we discuss and solve tourism marketing problems. We would love you to join us, it’s a free group, and you can join us here at this link -- all you need to do is click on the link provided in the copy.  

Check out more of our common marketing problems here:

Pricing mistakes in the tourism industry

The causes of a wasted advertising budget

Interested in watching more common tourism marketing problems?  You can find all our videos here.

Pricing your tourism products or services is not an easy task, and often  pricing mistakes in the tourism industry can result (i.e. Pricing too low or too high)

Watch this video below to find out the problem that I see all the time with hotels, tours, transport companies, attractions, event owners and operators

Do tourism brands need to resort to price discounting their products and services or matching their competitor’s price points on a regular basis? 

It doesn’t have to be that way. 

Setting prices for tourism services can feel uncomfortable.  And sometimes our own personal beliefs about money can impact whether we set prices emotionally or set prices objectively.

Some tourism businesses believe that low prices are the only thing that guests seem to care about or pricing lower than your competition is the only way to bring guests in the door.

This is not true. ​

Maybe these businesses haven’t given guests anything else to think about other than their price.

Pricing is all about perception. It requires looking at your ideal guests and several factors beyond what your competition is doing.

In fact, you'd be surprised to know that if you price the same as your competitor but you seem a bit better than them (in your marketing, and in their overall first impression) often this leaves an impression in their minds whether you are a trustworthy brand and these potential guests wonder what they are missiing.  Again pricing is a perception - and in this case you just left money on the table

To avoid pricing mistakes look at all factors when setting a pricing strategy.

Are you setting your price emotionally (based on your view of money) or objectively by looking at all the quantitative factors? Factors such as:

• Your fixed and variable costs?
• Your sales and profit goals?
• Your commissions from all of your partners and OTA's (even your transport commissions)
• Seasonality for high and how season and the rates your OTA's change on their websites to account for the seasons.
• The demand for your product or service
• Your competitors pricing strategies (not to meet it, but to understand it)
• What is your guest is willing to pay?
• It also includes the  value you can put into your offering that your guests see as important (of value) to them.

As you can see there is alot that goes into pricing that needs to be thought through and considered instead of matching or dropping your price.

So are you looking at all the pricing factors in your business instead of just dropping price?

If this problem resonates with you, we have a community of tourism business owners, operators, and managers that want to discuss and solve tourism marketing problems like this and many more. 

We would love you to join us  by using this link here.

Here are more common problems in the tourism industry that might be affecting your business.

The causes of a wasted advertising budget  

For more tourism marketing resources click here