When it comes to tourism, that industry’s stakeholders – travel agents, resorts, and airlines among them – are primarily united in their goals: to make travellers happy and themselves profitable.
One example are the Facebook groups resorts run to give vacationers a forum in which to get their questions answered well in advance of their departure date. Many modern tourists want to be as well-prepared for their vacation as possible, especially if even a quick smartphone Google search in a foreign country is as prohibitively expensive as it is for Canadians. So, if their resort can help them out – for example, by explaining how to pre-book a dinner reservation at an in-demand resort restaurant – it helps to create an allegiance that may see them return the next year.
Savvy resorts are also keenly aware that their visitors will be posting about their vacations on social media. So, they create photo opportunities that are easy to share on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms. That may mean installing a beautiful ocean-side gazebo or making sure that food is plated beautifully. These are simple and inexpensive ways to make visitors feel luxurious without charging them luxury prices.
A related strategy is the ‘familiarization’ (or ‘fam’) trip. This involves resorts or tour companies inviting journalists or social media influencers to tour a property for free (or at a vastly discounted rate) in order to generate positive content for their audiences or followers.
Interestingly, some of the biggest travel influencers are travel agents. Not only do they generate photos and videos for their social media channels, but they can directly sell potential tourists on the properties they have visited personally. Clients benefit from the agent’s direct knowledge of a resort, and the agent gets a working vacation. Plus, the latter are naturally more likely to recommend the destinations they have actually visited.
Another key method employed by resorts to maximize patronage and minimize their spend per tourist is to use their experience (and data analytics) to identify vacation package price points that are low enough to attract the average family, while offering just enough amenities to keep them happy.
For instance, Cuba is a top destination among Canadian tourists. This is in part because the industry knows that Canadians visit the island for its beaches, not its food. That They accomplish this by employing a variety of insider strategies the end user does not see. Many involve making it easy for a traveller to ‘interact’ with their vacation, not only beforehand, but during and afterwards. These interactions not only reinforce excitement surrounding their trip, but loyalty to their resort and travel agent.
means we will put up with relatively bland meals and a lack of entertainment if the resorts put their dollars into keeping their beaches beautiful and safe. Tourists willing to spend a bit more are likelier to pick the Dominican Republic, where the food is better and the beaches are nice, but the rooms may not be great. Because the resorts and tourists mutually understand that cutting corners in this area is acceptable, everyone benefits.
Resorts give further comfort to unseasoned travelers by bundling these vacations into an inclusive price, so the customer doesn’t have to stress about much more than simply showing up at their departure gate on time. That provides a comfortable experience that is appreciated by vacationers who don’t have much experience traveling outside the bubble of resort life. Speaking of inclusive pricing, one of the key ways travel industry stakeholders drive bookings is to push tourists to drink. Thanks to decades of successful marketing and the perhaps unwitting collusion of Hollywood (think The Hangover series), ‘great’ vacations are often tied into the consumption of alcohol. That might mean resort bars offering customers big fruity drinks that look great on their Insta feeds or slightly higher inclusive prices to access ‘top shelf’ liquor. Nowadays, when it comes to tourism, boozes and beaches go together.
Another decades-old strategy of travel package retailers and all-inclusive hotels and cruises is to create FOMO around holiday travel. While the industry knows that flights and hotels are up to 60% cheaper in the weeks after a major holiday period (like Spring Break), they continue to cultivate consumer desire to want to travel at these most popular times of the year. This, in turn, drives profits for stakeholders like the airlines, agents, hotels, and resorts, because bookings and prices are inflated by the demand. What do tourists get? Bragging rights over friends and colleagues who didn’t spend their holidays in crowded airports!
There’s no doubt that travel industry stakeholders want to make money. But they are keenly aware that they can only do so when tourists enjoy getting on a plane, but don’t feel they’re getting taken for a ride.
Sean Plummer | Contributing Writer
