Create More Visitor Offerings
Visitors do not want to have to search around for what to do at your destination. Besides when they search, they are not familiar with your destination and have no idea how to judge the quality or accuracy of what they find.
They also do not want a website filled with mile long lists of entries with no descriptions. So many destination websites have lists of restaurants – sometimes more than 50 – with nothing but an address and telephone number and no idea what type of food is served, the price range, or any other information. This kind list is not effective. At least put in a brief description of the restaurant’s offerings.
The first rung of creating more visitor offerings is to describe the experiences that visitors can have at your destination. Visitors want you to describe the experiences with enough content and words so they can understand what the experience will be like. If you have a heritage experience, describe several locations visitors can explore that contribute to that experience. If there is a restaurant located in a historic structure, or retail shops located in restored historic buildings, add those too.
Worried about calling out particular locations and not featuring all locations? Visitors don’t want the lists, they want to understand the experiences they can have. The businesses and organizations in the community must be educated about the need to do so. We can help do that by explaining visitors needs and wants and work to help placing every objecting business or organization into an experience that features their location.
The second rung in creating more visitor offerings is looking at the types of locations that can effectively be combined into tours, tracks, trails, visitor ready itineraries and scenic byways (all detailed below).
Thirdly, look at the attractions, assets and resources in surrounding communities and determine the strengths in those locations that can be combined with locations in your community. There is strength in regional approaches when there are unique locations that occur nowhere else in the region, or in some cases, even nowhere else in the country. Those locations are very special and warrant promotion to visitors.
Fourth, you can look at other special designations that your community can obtain. One of our team members worked with her State Senator and Representative to have her destination officially designed the Visual Arts Capital of Texas. That placed her destination head and shoulders above any other destination in the state of interest visitors who enjoy exploring the arts. It’s that kind of approach that really creates effective distinction.
