Tourists Want to Be Educated
The majority of tourists, over 80%, travel to NYC without having planned every activity on their itinerary. They arrive seeking information that will help them determine how they will create their ideal vacation. Therefore, you should approach in-market tourists with the goal to educate them on how you enhance their trip better than the plethora of alternatives.
Today’s tourists evaluate experiences more critically than ever before. They want to know if an experience warrants their time and money (time usually being more precious) — what the industry is calling the “worth it” factor. Knowing that visitors possess different criteria, how do you convince them to choose you?
You must educate them.
How will your guests feel when they leave you?
Experience seekers choose activities based on their expectation about how they will feel after leaving the venue. Will they be inspired, blown away, smarter, happier or some other memorable emotion? You have built your destination to create an intended reaction. How you market your experience needs to be a combination of listing factual information and emotional takeaways. Explaining you can see for 40 miles from our observation deck or won seven Tonys or procure farm produce daily describes your attributes but doesn’t connect with patrons’ emotions. What sticks with your guest is the views took my breath away, the score left me humming, or the food tasted fresher than anything I ever had. You want to win their heart as well as their head. Most marketers describe the experience adequately, but establishing the emotional connection is what closes the ticket sale.
Describe Emotional Impact
Describing the emotional impact you deliver can be hard, but is essential if you want to break through the competitive tourism market. Here are some key concepts:
- Determine what will resonate by asking your happy customers what they most like about your experience. Ask regularly, don’t assume you know.
- Social media and reviews can also provide insights into words that resonate with prospective visitors.
- Superior marketing communication presents your experience’s “features” and then backs it up with the “benefits,” how the attendee will feel.
- The emotional reaction will be your differentiator.
City Guide has built our media as a platform for you to educate millions of tourists and hundreds of concierges. The ads, the articles and the listings present an opportunity to describe both the emotional benefits and the attributes of your experience. The biggest advantage is that tourists consume this information at the moment they are deciding which museum to visit, show to see, restaurant to eat at or attraction to attend. City Guide media educates millions of in-market tourists about how they will feel when they leave your destination. That will convince them to purchase your ticket.
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