Northern Forest Tourism Network
Collaborating to Create a World Class Destination – Join Us!Product Development
By Kate Williams, Executive Director of Northern Forest Canoe Trail
Tourism products are organized visitor experiences that are structured to make it easier for people to access the assets and services of an area. Examples of tourism products include vacation packages and itineraries. The key distinction between packages and itineraries lies in how you pay for the organized experience – in packages you pay a single fee to a single entity, and all costs of the package (lodging, meals, etc.) are included. In itineraries, you pay for each part of the experience as you go.
With shorter average vacation lengths planned more and more last minute, tourism products appear to be an effective market response, as they make it easier to “plug in” to a focused experience in place. What makes these products most effective? What seems to work best in terms of product set up? Marketing?
Answers to many of these questions are still being explored in the Northern Forest Region. Please share what you know from your own experience. The Northern Forest Canoe Trail has been working with communities along our route for the last couple of years, thanks to funding from both the USDA Rural Development RBEG program and the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund. In 2010 we contracted the Carsey Institute of the University of New Hampshire to survey our partners to identify what is working best. And we also get anecdotal feedback from these same partners that helps us to understand successes and address what isn’t working.
What have we learned? More than we can capture here, but the top five lessons learned to date include:
- Tourism products can be incredibly successful. Our Northeast Kingdom Pedal and Paddle Package, launched in spring 2010 tallied 31 sales over the summer, yielding more than $22,000 for the host inn. These incredible results are an indicator of great potential in the many other areas across the region where world-class recreational resources and top quality services come together.
- Building packages and itineraries from the grassroots is the best approach. An idea for a “good” product that comes from above is less likely to succeed than inspiration for an excellent product coming from those who will be involved.
- Broader context matters. Even as building from the grassroots makes the most sense, a realistic sense of what the market wants is critical. County, state, and/or regional perspective can be helpful in shaping tourism products to meet identified needs.
- The success of a package or itinerary shouldn’t only be measured in terms of direct sales of that product or set of products. Sometimes, a product that is presented well on the web, linked broadly, marketed effectively, serves most effectively to attract people to the area by giving them an idea of what is possible there. The visitor may pick and choose from what the package or itinerary held so a sale for those complete products can’t be counted. But it was the sense of direction provided by that package or itinerary that got the visitor to the area, and that is a great outcome.
- Marketing matters. No matter how great a package or itinerary is, people need to know about it. With the vast majority of vacation planning happening online, posting products on websites is critical, and tapping into State tourism sites and other free marketing options can make all of the difference.
There’s still a great deal to learn about what works best in terms of product content, marketing, etc. But there’s enough existing evidence to suggest that tourism products make sense.
2 Comments»
Eyelet Curtains wrote @
‘`- I am very thankful to this topic because it really gives up to date information .;;
vacation packages that are both cheap and have good itinerary is the thing that i always seek ”