It’s no secret that the past two years have been full of uncertainty and upheaval for many industries. For attractions, this period has resulted in some key shifts and accelerated several consumer trends, and for operators, as visitors return in force, it’s never been more important to stay ahead of the game.
Arival is a key source of information and insights for the in-destination experiences industry. It connects and informs attractions through its events and insights, as well as its community of individuals and companies. Anyone who is involved in creating and selling tours, activities, experiences, and attractions can benefit from its research and events.
Ahead of the company’s annual Arival 360 event in Las Vegas, we spoke to co-founder and CEO Douglas Quinby, to gain some insights into what the attractions industry looks like right now, and where he sees it heading in the future. We also talked to two leading attraction operators to get their view on these top trends, and to understand how being involved with Arival has helped them to stay informed and to plan for the future.
Arival: a company on a mission
Introducing the firm and setting out its goals, Quinby says:
“Our mission at Arival is to advance the business of creating amazing in-destination experiences. So, we produce events as well as research and insights for creators and sellers of tours, activities, attractions, events, and experiences.”
Essentially, the company was born from the fact that Quinby and his Arival co-founders, Bruce Rosard and Alex Kremer, had observed a gap in the market, where attractions operators needed a service designed specifically for their needs:
“There has been an overabundance of data, research, and events for airlines, hotels, and travel agencies, but very little for the tour, activity, and attraction operator when it specifically came to tourism distribution, tourism marketing, and digital trends. Ironically it’s the attraction, the experience that drives travel in the first place. Attractions are the ‘why’ of travel.
“Our events and our content focus on education, exploring industry and consumer trends, and conducting research to help these operators understand what’s happening and grow the market.”
COVID speeds up digital trends
Talking about the key consumer trends that they have seen over the past couple of years, Will Obbard, European commercial partnerships director at Merlin Entertainments, and Haley Ward, vice president of sales at Hudson Yards in New York City, both say that the way guests interact with attractions has changed.
While operators have been trying to encourage more digital interaction, such as booking online and downloading apps, for some time, COVID sped up the adoption of digital technology. People have become more used to interacting in the digital space, across many different sectors.
“We’ve all seen more adoption of digital,” says Ward. “We’re using Zoom to have conversations, for example. The use of QR codes is a lot more common too, as a contactless solution. People are using them, they’re familiar with them. So now, for instance, we can put out a menu for our champagne bar with a QR code, which allows us to be more dynamic.
“That familiarity that people have with the digital sphere now is allowing more of that to happen, so it pushes us into this next world of information getting and engagement.”
“At Merlin, we’d already started to move towards digitalisation, in terms of things like third party distribution and pricing,” says Obbard. “I think as a bigger organisation, we probably had more ability to be able to do that, but certainly COVID has sped up the industry.
“That’s a good thing because customers now expect that they need to book and sometimes can get better value from doing so and that’s becoming consistent throughout the industry. I think that more adoption of digital helps everyone.”
New consumer trends: the rise of online booking
Since the pandemic, Ward says that Edge, Hudson Yard’s 100-storey-high observation deck, has seen a trend in consumers planning more in advance and researching their destinations ahead of time.
“Even as we’ve moved out of limited capacity and limited hours, we still find that more people are coming to the website to plan their visit,” she adds.
The same is true for Merlin Entertainments’ attractions:
“We’re seeing far more digital bookings both through our website, QR codes and through online third parties,” says Obbard. “Merlin implemented pre-booked dates and times across most of our attractions during the pandemic. This enabled us to control the customer flow and capacity. Customers are getting used to that now and we think that’s here to stay.”
Ward agrees that online booking is unlikely to go away:
“Attractions are finding that it’s great for helping to manage crowds, and it’s allowing for better customer service. Overall, it makes for a better experience on both the operation side and on the customer side.”
Attractions catch up
Quinby points out that, when it comes to online booking, visitor attractions have been lagging behind the rest of the travel sector for some time, not just in terms of offering online booking, but in making it a great guest experience and making it better for the visitor if they plan in advance.
“We’ve seen in our research that visitor attractions generally were about eight to 10 years behind the rest of travel and tourism in enabling online booking. And then with the pandemic, when attractions could reopen, they had to implement capacity restrictions. In many cases, they had to require advanced booking in order to manage some of the issues around the regulations as they could reopen.”
“That drove a lot of change and accelerated that consumer trend of moving offline to online quite dramatically. It’s a very clear shift.”
Guest expectations are changing
Increasingly, guests expect this level of digital interaction and engagement from attractions. We’re used to booking online for flights and hotels, we’re used to shopping online, so it’s a familiar concept.
“We expect to do things online now and to use our phones. So, we should be able to access our visitor experiences in advance,” says Quinby.
COVID has also triggered a change in guest expectations in other ways:
“The pandemic has reinforced the demand for and the importance of leisure time, of having shared experiences with friends and family,” says Obbard.
“Everything we do at Merlin is focused on giving the guests a memorable experience; we are continually looking for new ways to delight our guests, whether that be through the use of technology, like augmented reality, or through working with our IP partners. Guests expect to be entertained in new and fun ways, so we are always working to spread that magic through our attractions.”
Key consumer trends: the demand for memorable experiences
One of the ways that attractions can meet this demand for a memorable experience is by offering something extra, something unique that their guests can’t get anywhere else. For many operators, this has led them to develop some innovative new packages and products.
“Early days post-pandemic, people were just excited to be out,” says Ward. “But as things carried on, we noticed that folks were tending to stay a little bit longer, that they were interested in doing things like buying champagne and making purchases in our shops. They wanted to make the most out of the experiences that they were getting.”
“So, we looked at how can we give additional experiences. We’re an observation deck, but we like to think of ourselves as an experience from top to bottom. Right now, we have a floral theme for spring and summer so we can activate some photo moments inside. We also activate our bar – we did a great promotion recently for national tequila day where we had blenders operated by bicycles on the deck.
“It’s about giving these moments of interest and engagement for the visitor where they might have not expected to see it. We’ve also seen a focus on both VIP packages and budget options. We’re seeing a push coming in through the passes or other places where people are looking for more budget options. And we’re also seeing a push into the VIP packages, where people want to have an additional experience.”
More package options
For Quinby, it’s about working to create an experience inside of the attraction.
“It can be something as simple as what some of the observation decks do, where you’re not simply buying a ticket and going up to the top and getting a view, but you go up for a date night, with champagne and a sunset view, right. That is an enhanced experience.
“It’s not just about the exhibit or the view or the monument. It’s creating additional opportunities to enhance the guest experience.”
“All of our research has pointed to robust consumer demand for experiences. Especially this year, as people are coming back into travel, they are taking longer trips and they’re spending a lot more, even though we’re seeing a lot of pressure on consumer spending because of inflation.
“After two years, they don’t just want to go visit the attraction, they want to have the ultimate experience. We’re hearing from many attractions of increased demand for premium experiences.”
Looking ahead
With the current economic situation, it’s not clear how long this will remain the case, however:
“Are we in a little bit of a revenge travel or revenge experience bubble? Perhaps we’ll get back to a more cautious type of environment. Should the travel industry and the experience economy companies be thinking about this over the longer term? This is an important topic that I’m hearing right now across the board.”
“Right now, we’re seeing huge demand in certain destinations and people are getting out there and travelling. But at the same time, we’re already seeing, in the US market, a little bit of a deceleration because of rising fuel prices, for example.
“That will be a big topic of conversation in the fall after we all get through this boom summer season.”
Pricing strategies are changing
With this in mind, consumers will be keen to find the best price for their experience, which leads to another trend that has picked up speed over the past few years: dynamic pricing or variable pricing.
“One area where attractions are missing an opportunity is in pricing strategies,” says Quinby. “We recently surveyed about 120 attractions across the US and Europe. And it was amazing to see how the vast majority of visitor attractions have one set ticket price. It’s the same price, every day, every time of day, and they set it on a seasonal basis, or an annual basis in some cases. They may not even make changes for several years.”
“But this is changing. Some attractions are beginning to implement strategies around variable pricing or even dynamic pricing, where they’re using dynamic inputs such as forecasted demand, or other factors to drive pricing and increase yield.
“In our survey, while most visitor attractions are not engaging in any type of dynamic pricing, there’s an enormous amount of interest. More than half of the respondents said that while they are not currently implementing it, it is a high priority. They’re all looking at pricing strategies, especially in an inflationary environment and rising costs.”
The future of ticketing
Both Obbard and Ward feel that this change in pricing strategies is vital. Edge uses variable pricing for peak dates and some set times, and Merlin uses peak and off-peak pricing. A lot of its attractions also offer advance pricing promotions.
“Dynamic pricing is something we’ve been looking at since day one since we opened,” says Ward. “Certainly, I think that it is the future for ticketing. It’s going to become an industry standard, just like bookings for hotels and airlines.”
“Getting the tech to catch up is important. There are a lot of options when we’re talking about our webstore and our website, which certainly we’re looking at. But also, it’s important to think about distribution networks too, so that at the end of the day, we’re all serving up the same message to the consumer.”
Obbard agrees that there is some work to be done in terms of the technology side:
“I think dynamic pricing is still at the very beginning of the journey. Very few operators are delivering truly dynamic pricing. But I think variable pricing is becoming more normal and being trialled by attractions more than ever. This has been made possible through the work that a lot of attractions have done in terms of timed ticketing and capacity management during COVID.”
The benefits of variable pricing
When it comes to the trend for variable pricing, there are benefits both commercially and for the consumer experience.
“The obvious advantage, of course, is making more money,” says Quinby. “However, dynamic or variable pricing can also be a powerful contributor to the solutions around creating a better guest experience and reducing over-tourism.”
“It reduces the queuing and crowding in our attractions to give customers a better experience by incentivizing them to visit at quieter times,” adds Obbard. “It essentially flattens the demand curve. This allows the guests to spread throughout the day or throughout the days and therefore have a more enjoyable experience. We’re seeing that reflected in our KPIs, in terms of customers enjoying the experience more because it’s less busy.”
With the change in guest expectations, the old model of getting as many people through the door as possible is no longer valid:
“There are ways that you can still achieve the same commercial value without having to focus solely on volume,” says Obbard. “I do think variable pricing is here to stay and it feels like it’s going to become quite mainstream.”
Distribution networks
As well as what they charge for their tickets, the way that attractions sell their tickets has evolved in recent years too, with the proliferation of third-party resellers and online travel agencies (OTAs). For many operators, these distribution partners now play a bigger role than ever before.
“We’ve seen an enormous shift from offline to online, both through direct booking channels and online travel agencies,” says Quinby. “We’ve seen huge growth from the likes of OTAs in tours, experiences, and attractions this year.”
“A lot of visitor attractions have had to reduce staffing over the past couple of years for obvious reasons. So, we see a lot of the teams now, they’re half the size that they were pre-pandemic. They’re struggling to ramp up and they’re looking at alternative approaches to distribution and leveraging technology to do that.
“One of the big trends has been the rise of connectivity and channel management; the idea that you connect to one platform, and that platform provides you with the connectivity to a lot of partners.”
New solutions to meet changing consumer trends
There can be a lot of inefficiency within distribution, adds Quinby:
“There’s still a lot of manual exchanging of booking information. We still see a significant percentage of visitor attractions that are using email and other modes of communication to work with reseller partners.
“But now, there’s a growing array of technical solutions for visitor attractions. Your ticketing systems can connect to channel partners, which gives direct connectivity so that you can build real-time availability and ticketing.”
“There’s also a new initiative underway within the industry called OCTO, which is open connectivity for tours, activities, and attractions. That is a specification standard that an organization has just set up to facilitate connectivity for a lot of the ticketing providers and distributors.
“Right now, in this marketplace, you’ve got hundreds of distributors, potentially even thousands. And you’ve also got hundreds of technology and ticketing providers. Each time they want to connect to another distributor, or another distributor wants to add supply from that attraction, they either have to build an API to that ticketing system. Or they have to do some type of manual connection. A specification standard and channel management solutions will be important contributors to more efficient distribution .”
A core part of the business
From the operator’s point of view, Ward says: “We love working with our distributors; they are a core part of our business. Overall, we’ve seen a similar split between our direct sales and our partner sales. But what we’re seeing is that the distributors are becoming more tech-focused, and more tech dynamic. So, there are new things we’ve been able to do in our webstore like variable pricing and introducing upsells.
“We’ve never been able to do that through our partners before. But now, as people are adopting APIs and thinking about how they can adopt variable pricing and dynamic pricing, the distributors are in on that game, so we can use them to amplify our message
“We consider indirect sales to be important, beyond just selling tickets. That’s because they’re acting as a megaphone, hitting markets that we’re not necessarily focused on all the time, certainly internationally. The more that the tech evolves, the more that our relationships are evolving, and we’re relying on them to share everything from variable pricing to just general awareness about our attractions.”
Important touchpoints
Obbard adds:
“There’s never been so many touch points for our customers to engage with us through both our direct channels and with our brand partners, but also our third-party distribution channels, like online travel agents or employee benefits companies.
“All of these interactions with our guests are important opportunities for us to sell our brand stories. They help us to shout about what we do and then drive consideration and hopefully decisions to visit us. Third-party distribution is a big part of our sales marketing strategy. So, it’s important for us that we have a consistent message in what we’re saying, directly and indirectly, to our consumers.”
“Ultimately, we work with partners to increase our exposure and reach customers that we find it more challenging to reach out ourselves directly, such as our international guests. Those partners can help us showcase what we do, and ultimately then drive incremental guests to our attractions.”
Arival helps attractions get ahead of the trends
With all these rapidly evolving consumer trends in the travel and tourism industry, it has never been more important for attractions to stay ahead of the game. Arival helps operators to do this in several different ways, as Quinby explains, starting with its research on industry trends and consumer trends:
“We do ongoing industry surveying, so that visitor attractions and tour and activity operators can benchmark their performance versus the rest of the industry. We track consumer trends on what consumers are booking, how they’re booking, when they’re booking, and what they are looking for. And this is across the whole guest experience, from the planning process, and decision-making process to the actual visit, and then that post-experience stage of sharing and remembering as well.”
“So, we cover all the aspects of the visitor journey and future trends. We also produce a lot of guides on specific topics, such as distribution management and connectivity, to help operations understand some of those themes, and to help them begin to act and formulate strategies and identify potential partners to work with.”
Exploring consumer trends at Arival 360
In addition to this, Arival runs several events throughout the year. These bring operators together to share insights, learn from expert speakers and connect with potential partners in the travel and tourism space. One key fixture in the calendar is its annual Arival 360 conference in Las Vegas. This is a three-and-a-half-day event dedicated to growth-minded creators and sellers of tours, activities, attractions & experiences.
“For Las Vegas, we have dedicated programmes for visitor attractions. These will focus on many of these big trends that we’ve been talking about. We have a multi-market research project that’s currently underway and we will present some of the key findings specifically around consumer trends for visitor attractions, especially heading into 2023 which is likely to be a very different year from 2022.”
“We will also have dedicated educational sessions. These will focus on things like dynamic pricing strategies, channel management, immersive experiences, and the guest experience.
“One of the key benefits, however, is just that attendees can learn from each other. You can have, let’s say, a visitor attraction from one market connecting with a visitor attraction from another market. They’re not competing with one another, but they can share best practices and insights on vendors they work with and things that they’ve done. And then of course we have a lot of key technology providers and potential partners attending. So, those attractions can connect with them as well.”
Getting involved
“I’ve been aware of Arival since it started, and I have worked with Arival since 2018; I participated in Arrival 360 in 2018 as one of the speakers,” says Ward. “We find that it is an excellent forum for discussions and connections. It allows us to explore things in more of a safe space with others. That is something that I don’t think existed before Arival.”
“Certainly, we’ve done good business on the shop floor at Arival, we’ve had meetings with some of our key distributors. But we’ve also had interesting conversations around tech and industry-wide conversations where I’m talking with my competitors or folks we don’t work with; we were never able to have those kinds of conversations in such a significant way before.
“I would recommend Arival because it allows you to draw connections across the industry. It also lets you put your finger on the pulse of what’s going on, to hear from some of the big names and big tastemakers in the industry.”
Catch up on the latest trends in Las Vegas
Like Ward, Obbard has been a fan of Arival since its inception:
“I attended the first Arival in Las Vegas and spoke on one of the panels about third-party distribution. It’s a great place to catch up and network with our key partners in the leisure industry. I think there’s been more and more need for that following the lockdown.”
“It’s a great opportunity to get our key partners in one room and talk about the latest consumer trends, uncovering risks and opportunities and working together to resolve them. It’s also an opportunity to listen to other people in the industry and learn from other perspectives and other attractions, to see what’s happening with technology, with customer journeys, what are the latest trends.”
Arival 360 Las Vegas takes place from 10 – 13 October 2022. Speakers confirmed to date include Vince Kadlubek (Meow Wolf), Adrian Jones (Artechouse), Eric Marshall (Universal), Wenda Huseman (Pursuit Collective), and Dan Hurst (Up at The O2).
For more information and to book a place, please click here.
