For years now, multi-day tours have gradually risen in popularity. It is now not only commonplace, but expected for tourism businesses to offer special grouped deals, offering several destinations and itineraries mixed together as one jam-packed experience. Multi-day tours have more to offer for less money than if you were to purchase the different adventures separately, and they are oftentimes considered more unforgettable simply because you have more time to enjoy them.
In every kind of vacation, preparation is essential. Multi-day tours establish a safer, more secure way of traveling because they are organized, planned, and often done in groups.
In this article, you will learn more about multi-day tours, including what to consider when creating one and what to include.
What is a Multi-Day Tour?
Multi-day tours are a tour option that lasts for more than one day. In order to successfully plan a multi-day tour, here are a few things to be aware of:
1. You may need a Tour Guide.
A tour guide is a necessary component for your multi-day tour. Your guide will be the one to help your guests immerse themselves into the culture, activities, and experiences of the area. Tour guides help to organize the events and help guests to make the most out of their allotted time.
On the other hand, guests who seek freedom and privacy throughout their tour may find it best to book a self-guided tour. Self-guided tours allow guests to flex their organization, planning, and decision-making skills. Some people find it more rewarding to engage in this kind of tour because 1) they are free to decide what to do with their extra time, 2) they do not have to engage in activities that do not interest them, and 3) they can budget their money more to their liking. Self-guided multi-day tours are best for guests who feel knowledgeable and comfortable enough to fully immerse themselves into the area without any extra assistance.
As responsible tour operators, it is important to learn how to gauge guests’ different needs and to help them determine which tour option would be best for them.
2. Create the best schedule you can ahead of time with your knowledge of the area.
As with any other kind of tour, there are certain months or “peak seasons” when multi-day tours may be more popular than usual. As the tour operator and as the expert of the area, it is up to you to find the right time/best time of day/best season to schedule your tours and to plan accordingly with your guests’ best interest and safety in mind. This is a large responsibility and not to be taken lightly.
3. Consider creating a custom tour option.
Guests are more likely to return if their tour meets or surpasses their expectations. An easy way to satisfy your customers is to tailor their tours to their liking and to accommodate them as much as possible. This is why you may want to consider creating a custom tour option.
Based on your own judgement, tour operators should determine which aspects of the tour that guests may have some control over, and then decide to what extent guests may alter their itinerary. Customization can help guests feel more involved, which in turn may make them feel more satisfied with their overall experience. Creating custom experiences for your guests will make their tour feel special and will help your company stand out from the competition.
4. Take into account the distance between multiple tour destinations.
Multi-day tours usually involve complex itineraries and multiple locations. Something important to consider when creating a multi-day tour is the distance between destinations. Being mindful of travel time and transportation will help you estimate how much of the schedule should be allotted to each destination and will help you plan out activities.
5. Prepare for emergencies.
When out in terrain, your tour guide may be the only source of help and safety during an emergency. Make sure you’re prepared for worst case scenarios at all times. It is better to be over prepared than under prepared when it comes to these situations. It is the tour operator’s responsibility to assess the environment’s safety before each tour and to cancel/reschedule tours if need be.
What is included in a Multi-Day Tour?
Multi-day tours should include multiple activities, new experiences, and a well-planned itinerary. Some things to consider include:
1. Ground transportation
To create a smooth and seamless experience, it is thoughtful to include ground transportation or a shuttle service if short or difficult transportation is necessary. Not all tour operators offer this kind of service, but it is a nice touch that would definitely help your company stand out from the competition.
2. Tour Guide
As mentioned previously, a large factor to consider in planning a multi-day tour is the choosing of your tour guides. Your tour guides will serve as your company’s face and will help facilitate throughout the entirety of the tour. This is an important choice, and can make or break the success of the experience.
3. Hotel accommodations
If hotel accommodations are necessary to be added to your multi-day tour, it is important to have the logistics and scheduling of this sorted out in advance.
4. Meal packages
When it comes to multi-day tours, meals are often included in the package. Be sure to work food and drinks into your budget, and to consider meal times when creating the schedule.
5. Custom activities
Multi-day tours can also include activities specifically added at the request and additional charge of your guests. Think about what you’d like to offer as an add-on for your tour, and the logistics of how you’d successfully and smoothly provide these additions.
Promote Your Multi-Day Tour
Creating a successful multi-day tour does not happen overnight. It requires attention to detail, large scale planning, and many moving parts. However, once complete, it could be quite rewarding to create a business through introducing others to some of your favorite destinations and activities.
Let us help you get your dream off the ground. Our skilled team here at AAMP Agency is available to answer your questions, and to help create a marketing plan perfect for you and your needs. Schedule a consultation with us today, and take your business to the next level.
Using social media to market dream destination activities and services is a great idea. For you, social media can be such a great tool because it’s all about pictures, and posting pictures of beautiful exotic places draws people in. Thinking about some of these steps will help you maximize your social media marketing’s potential.
Establish Your Customer’s Personas
One of the first steps you should take when it comes to marketing your destination services is to think carefully about your customers . Are the activities you do geared mainly towards young families? Young professionals? Students? School groups? As you think carefully about the specific audiences that you are trying to resonate with, it will become easier to figure out the best marketing strategies to use.
Post Consistent Content
As you start to tailor your target audience, you’ll be able to gear your content towards them more specifically. But even with good content, you aren’t likely to make a lot of headway with your social media if you don’t post consistently. Posting consistently is very important to help draw authentic leads to your business .
When users stumble upon your content from various methods, there should be enough content to scroll through to convince them that your account is worth following. If they do decide to follow you, make sure that you keep delivering regular great content so they stay.
Make Quality Content
As an expert in the tourism industry in your particular area, you have a wealth of knowledge that could be incredibly beneficial to prospective travelers. Figure out a way to take that knowledge and produce content that maximizes it. As you think about the different activities or spots you want to post about, consider what the right medium is to do so.
For incredibly beautiful beaches or hikes, you should lean towards pictures or videos to draw users in visually. For tips and tricks on maneuvering a city that is less than car-friendly, you might want to post a slide deck.
As you figure out your social media marketing approach, incorporating these ideas will help you get off the ground. But continue to keep careful tabs on your different metrics to know how things are going and which things are working. Having this data will help you pivot quickly and jump on new opportunities.
“Dear Belize” Campaign Offers A Free Trip for Two To Promote Their Destination During The COVID-19 Pandemic
On May 6th, 2020, the Belize Tourism Board had announced a giveaway as part of their “Dear Belize” campaign. The virtual postcard campaign’s goal is to inspire future traveling to Belize, following the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the next few weeks, those entering must submit a video to win a free trip to Belize once it is safe to travel again.
For anyone wanting an amazing getaway to Belize, participants must create a short video explaining why they love the Central American/Caribbean destination, and a winner will be selected at random. The Dear Belize team will be taking advantage of the user-generated content, and sharing their favorite submissions across all of their social media platforms!
The prize includes a free eight-day trip for two Belize, which includes roundtrip airfare, luxury accommodations, and an opportunity to experience rainforests, stunning waterfalls, historic Mayan ruins, and more. Belize is also home to the largest Barrier Reef in the Northern Hemisphere and has an incredibly wide range of eco-activities, lodgings, and cultural offerings.
The requirements for participants are simple and can be found here!
Are you having trouble creating new content for your social media? Thinking of content for your social media can be incredibly difficult, especially if you’re doing it by yourself. It takes a great sense of creativity and effort to continuously pump out new content that won’t seem repetitive or make your followers bored. Even as a tourist destination owner, there’s only so much that you can think of.
It can be difficult, especially if you’re making posts several times a week. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 7 social media ideas for you to try that will help you come up with fun and engaging content to use for your tour or attraction! Improve your social media presence and, in turn, you will improve your public image and the amount of exposure you will get. We’ve been able to test these ideas with many of our clients, so we suggest trying some of them yourself.
1. Share Moments of Visitors
What ultimately makes people want to go to an attraction is seeing other people having fun at it! Take pictures of your guests and visitors and share their photos and experiences on social media. Not only do they get to see themselves have fun, but other people can see how much fun they’re having as well!
You can also create a fun hashtag for it. Make your visitors feel involved with your attraction, and it’ll drive more people to come. This is a fun and interactive way to help your social media thrive!
2. Do a Contest or Giveaway
This idea is a bit trickier, but the pay off can be amazing! People love contests and giveaways because they get the chance to win free stuff and who doesn’t like free stuff? The trick is to provide a prize that’s worth playing for and a method of entering the contest that isn’t too bothersome. Make the conditions too steep, and no one will take part in the contest.
For example, you could give away free tickets an event your hosting and, to enter, they would have to tag somebody that they would go with. It’s an easy way to enter the contest with a great prize worth playing for. Maybe you could give away a gift card that they can use at your attraction. Get creative with it and cater it to your brand!
3. Do a Live Video
Facebook Live Video
Now, if you haven’t utilized this tool on Facebook, you should. Live videos are exactly what they sound like: real-time videos on Facebook. They are interactive and make the viewer more likely to like your page or post a comment. Live videos are successful because they make the viewer involved in the filming process.
You can do Facebook live videos of events that you’re hosting, of the inside of your school, or of a sweepstakes that you’re conducting. The possibilities are really endless with Facebook live videos. There are a multitude of different ways to use them!
One company that does it really well is Starbucks. They use Facebook live to promote community or social events their company hosts such as this one they did back in 2016 for Voter Registration. Use Facebook live as a marketing tool when coming up with ideas.
4. Holiday-Specific Posts
There are a multitude of different holidays that you can talk about on your social media. Of course, there are the big holidays that everybody celebrates like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Halloween. But there are so many lesser known holidays that you can choose to celebrate or post about! A simple yet efficient site for holidays is Holiday Insights, which provides a list of well-known and not so well-known holidays.
And many of these holidays may or may not apply to you! If you’re a pizza shop, then there’s really no reason for you to celebrate margarita day on your attraction’s page. But the ones that do can help inspire social media posts or even help you create promotionals and deals. There’s a holiday out there for anything and everything. Even if your followers don’t know about the holiday, seeing a post or promotional about it will spark their interests regardless.
5. Show “Behind the Scenes”
Every attraction or business has a public image to manage, but it’s always nice to give a “behind the scenes” look at the lives of the workers. In fact, many attractions base their entire social media content based solely on behind the scenes content. There are several different kinds of posts that show what’s happening behind the curtain.
First, funny posts of your work place. Everyone has a sense of humor, why not show it on your Facebook page? Second, progress posts that show how a project is going. Third, casual posts that just give snapshots of the lives of your employees. Remember, people love seeing an attraction business that doesn’t take itself too seriously!
6. Social Media Exclusive Deals
Every social media platform has a way for you to promote products or deals. Use it to your advantage! There a ton of different ways to promote deals that can only be found on social media. If they can only find these deals on your social media, then they’re more likely to come back to the page and show brand loyalty.
If they want more social media deals, they’ll have to pay attention to your page and actively look for these deals!
7. Jump on the Bandwagon
This one will take a bit of effort, but if you’re regularly on social media then it will seem effortless! Jumping on the bandwagon means to join in on a movement or trend that is popular at the moment. Social media trends are constantly changing, so you have to really be paying attention to capitalize on it. But it’s a fun and easy way to get attention for your Facebook page and show that your attraction is fun and relevant!
The beauty of social media is its versatility and efficiency! For attractions and tourist destinations, it’s free advertisement! These ideas should help create interesting and engaging content for your social media. And if you need additional help, contact us here at iWerx!
According to Pew, those born between 1981 and 1997 are now the largest generation (75.4 million people), and they travel more for both business and leisure than older generations. Traditional advertising campaigns had worked previously with older generations, but millennials are often leery of destination marketers, forcing businesses to adapt to non-traditional methods. While millennials might take more persuasion, it is not impossible. Keep reading to learn Why & How You Should Market Your Destination or Attraction to Millennials.
1. Get Social
It's no secret that millennials love social media, in fact, a study conducted by EMarketer had shown that 90% of millennials use social media. Almost every aspect of millennial's travel is shaped by social media. Whether its gathering travels inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram, to online reviews on specific spots and tours, to sharing their experiences on their own platforms. Social media is everything, and tour operators, attractions and any business tourism-related should be capitalizing on it. So how does a business get social online? Check out these examples:
• Targeted Facebook Ads • User-Generated Content (Read more about it here) • Sharing engaging & relatable content which includes – Geofilters on Snapchat – 360-degree videos – Virtual Reality experiences – Blogs, articles, etc
2. Make it Instagram Worthy
While sharing your own content is amazing, finding ways to encourage millennials to post and share their own experiences is even better. Again, read more about user-generated content here to understand just how useful UGC is. Also, we've written about being an insta-worthy attraction before, so check that out here. Here's the gist:
• Offer to take their photos for your customers • Find nice spots that will provide a good looking photo • Remind your guests to tag your account and use your hashtag
3. Look into "Bleisure"
Baby boomers are starting to retire or are so advanced in their careers that business trips are less common. Millennialls are now the driving force in business trips, and they like to take advantage of the travel opportunity. Millennials are more likely to buy flight upgrades during a business trip, and a more likely to extend their trip by a few days to turn it into a mini-vacation. Businesses in the tourism industry should encourage this behavior by inspiring them to visit your destination or attraction, and include messaging about extending business trips, adding activities to their itinerary and upgrading their experiences.
4. Encourage Loyalty
Unlike older generations, Millennials are more open to loyalty proframs in fact Expedia has said that 51% of millennials find loyalty programs important when they are booking hotel stays. Only 30% of baby boomers found loyalty programs important. By encouraging loyalty, DMO's and businesses can keep a connection with the customer and find ways to get these visitors to return. Offer a good enough loyalty program, and they'll be telling their friends and family as well.
5. Personalization
Millennials like being able to have an experience that can be catered to their interests! They are also searching for simple, and if something is already planned out for them then that is even better! To add personalization in try updating your website and content for easy booking, support, and information. Your business can also promote suggested itineraries featuring on-location & local experiences.
6. Be Authentic
Millennials do not want to feel like the stereotypical tourist. They crave authentic and local experiences. According to the Huffington Post, 86% of millennials would rather experience a new culture, compared to 44 percent who prefer to party or 28 percent who prefer shopping. Take this into consideration when trying to provide immersive experiences.
Millennials are expected to be the largest generation, surpassing even the Baby Boomers by 2028. They also have an estimated $200 billion of spending power, making their generation one to appeal to. At AAMP Agency | Adventure & Activity Marketing Pros, we are tourism & destination marketing experts. We specialize in digital marketing an understand just how important a successful marketing strategy is for your business. Contact us today for any questions or to start growing your business today.
