A guide to extending the tourism season for visitor attractions
After the year we’ve had – we’re looking at you, coronavirus – the need to balance the traditional swings in seasonal demand is greater than ever.
Extending the visitor season beyond July to September, or even May to October, has been on the tourism industry’s agenda for a while, but the loss of Easter, the May half-term, two bank holidays and June from the 2020 holiday season has nudged it even closer to the top of the ‘How to improve tourism for everyone’ to do list.
The benefits of a longer tourism season are clear. For visitors, the crowds are thinned and pricing peaks and troughs less pronounced. For visitor attractions and other tourism businesses, income streams are balanced more evenly across the year. And it’s good news for Government when employment figures and tax revenues are more evenly distributed too. Plus, a steadier stream of visitors means less pressure on local communities and the local environment.
Efforts are already being made to extend the UK’s season and claw back some of the revenue lost through coronavirus. Blackpool’s Illuminations will brighten up the resort’s winter nights until January, two months longer than usual. Haven, meanwhile, plans to keep 16 of its holiday parks open for four weeks longer than in previous years. Visit Cornwall hopes to draw in off-peak visitors with weather-proof activities such as pasty-making experiences. And with nervousness about flying still playing on people’s mind, the demand for shoulder-season staycations looks likely to get at least a short-term boost.
We can’t deny that the weather is a key influence on our relatively short tourism season. It’s natural that people are less inclined to visit outdoors attractions, events and beaches when the temperatures drop and the drizzle breaches your coat. Fortunately, there are plenty of other, more controllable factors involved, both in the short and the long term.
Here are 5 actions you can take, both individually and collectively as part of the wider tourism industry, to help chip away at the edges of seasonality.
1. Join VisitBritain’s Escape the Everyday campaign
VisitBritain’s latest multi-million pound domestic marketing campaign is designed to inspire UK consumers to travel more this autumn. Whatever the size of your visitor attraction, you can download the free toolkit, which includes marketing assets and key messages to share with your audience. You can also get involved by sharing with VisitBritain news and stories linked to the campaign’s three themes: Discover, Freedom to Explore and Treat Yourself.
2. Collaborate with other local tourism businesses
Tourists want to visit when the weather is good, of course, but there are other factors at play here. They also want facilities such as restaurants, bars and attractions to be open for business and transport to be as reliable as it in peak season. That’s more than an individual attraction can offer by itself.
One solution lies in collaborating with other local businesses to create a bundle that appeals to holidaymakers able to take a break outside of school holidays, such as empty nesters, young professionals and groups of hen and stag parties. Consider partnering with nearby hotels, restaurants and tour providers to create and market a temping package that works whatever the weather.
3. Highlight the benefits of visiting your attraction out of season
Use social media and newsletters to showcase the delights of a day out in your attraction in autumn and winter. Do your trees look especially resplendent in their autumn finery? Perhaps whisky tastes even better on a frosty day, or your café serves an excellent pumpkin spiced latte. Do some animals in your zoo behave differently in the cold? It’s also worth reiterating that fewer visitors means shorter queues and better views. Instead of shirking around the issue of poorer weather, make it part of the draw.
4. Tap in to the local community
The local and visitor economies are closely linked, and a loyal community of local visitors can help sustain you through the quieter months.
But how can you encourage more local people to continue to visit off peak? You could introduce local rates or free hot drinks for local people who visit during the winter months. Or you could introduce a paid-for, members-only group for local people who share interests that are connected to your attraction, such as environmentalists and zoos, foodies and distilleries or amateur historians and heritage properties and museums.
5. Continue to lobby for an extra bank holiday
VisitBritain’s strategy to help the tourism industry recover from Covid-19 included a call for “an additional bank holiday, or moving the later May bank holiday to October half term to stimulate demand when it is possible to travel.” The proposal was rejected by Government officials, but the campaign to add another public holiday to the rota has been around much longer than Covid-19. Let’s keep up the pressure.
Finally – and this may be a little off-the-wall – but could we consider coming together to lobby for greater flexibility (and no fines) for parents and carers to take their children out of school for a reasonable amount of time? A day or two allocated per family, to be taken between November and April, for example. As well as helping to extend the tourism season, used wisely this approach could help galvanise children’s education and strengthen family bonds.
