Visitor Attractions in a league of their own.

If you were to take a glance sideways from visitor attractions to live professional sport, you would notice many parallels to be drawn in terms of the desire to encourage visitors and fans to get up from their armchairs and PlayStations and participate in a live event.

In both sectors, digital marketing plays a central role in encouraging visitors with various offers, and the promise of a fantastic day out(perhaps a harder commitment for some sports teams to guarantee the right result!).

In both cases the technology and human resource investment in websites development, social media content, customer data capture and not least, a slick process for making bookings and ticket sales has been considerable. In fact, digital engagement in recent years has been a game changer, particularly since the Covid pandemic. Whether we are talking about SEO, dwell time, uptake of calls to action, or Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), our digital presence has never been more important.

But maybe, that is where the similarities end. For many sports teams, particularly those at the pinnacle of their sports, such as the English Premier League and F1 Grand Prix, digital engagement can be an end goal in its own right, as the revenues associated with digital participation are huge. A quick skim of the horizm Digital Value of Fans report 2024 shows that the Premier League alone has almost 1 billion followers and generates over £540 million in annual revenues. In the case of Manchester United, that is 0.65p for every fan that visits their site.

Much of this revenue comes from brands. More than 4,000 are activated digitally through sport, and it might not surprise you at all that well known brands such as EA Sports, Red Bull and Adidas top the tree in terms of digital impressions, and of course, revenue.

The overall digital objective for a visitor attraction is completely different. Yes, to inform and educate, and perhaps even encourage donations or memberships, but by and large it is to encourage and process transactional visits to your venue.

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Whether you are a zoo, a farm park, an FEC, a museum or a white knuckle ride, in the majority of cases, visitor engagement and the associated revenues only comes through a physical visit, which creates two significant technology considerations for all attractions, large or small.

1. The “call to action” in terms of bookings via a website is so much more important. For most football fans, they go to support their team, and their team alone, and will tolerate a poor online experience (the same might be said for over hyped rock bands!).

For the rest of us, that slick online experience is imperative. On average, more than 75% of visitors take this path to booking, and, as the loyalty to an attraction will, unfortunately, rarely be as strong as to a football team, which is unashamedly tribal. Reducing clicks, signposting the booking journey and conversion rate optimisation are all essential techniques in getting people to visit you, and if it’s not good, boy, will they tell you about it. Mainly on social media and customer satisfaction sites such as Trust Pilot.

Of course, this is all totally unreasonable for your local zoo or museum, when you consider the budgets and expertise available, but the average visitor doesn’t consider this when making their comparison with their favourite low cost airline, online retailer or Football Club. (Not that they are all particularly good).

2. It doesn’t end there. Hopefully the weather has been kind and the family pass has delivered a fantastic day out. The queue wasn’t too long, no one got lost, and you didn’t run out of ice cream. But, for the family to maximise their day out experience, and possibly upgrade to an annual membership, and for you to enjoy record revenues, receive a “gift aid” declaration and an animal adoption, technology has a huge role to play, way beyond getting them to visit in the first place.

Scanned ticket entry must be quick, the “in venue app” must signpost, educate and help avoid queues. Food and drink should ordered online (without logging in again), retail items are plentiful, and action photo’s capturing the moment, immediately availible and reasonably priced.

When visitors book in advance, online, expenditure on the day often comes from a separate budget (or wage packet) and coupled with the “feel good factor” of the day, is an “open goal” (to borrow a sporting metaphor).

With the old adage out of sight out of mind, ringing true, CRM is an imperative.

Don’t overdo the communication, but making visitors feel valued and welcome, alongside a discounted offer to return soon, is essential. Did you know that on average it is 5 times more expensive to find a new visitor than it is to harvest revenue from an existing one?

By way of conclusion, digital technology is every bit as vital for a modern day visitor attraction as it is for your local football or rugby team, but not solely the website, the booking system and the slickness of the online sales funnel are critical in retaining the interest of a busy parent. Post COVID, levelling up was all about making your digital presence as good as the “in the flesh” experience. But 3 years further on, this is a given, and the pendulum swings back towards “in venue” technology designed to augment the visit. For those operating in immersive experiences, the distinction between online and physical experiences is already blurred, but for everyone else, the need for intuitive, easy to use customer facing technology; be this ANPR parking, self service kiosks, wearable tokens, online accounts or talking exhibits, each are equally as important as getting visitors to your park in the fist place.

For me, the key take away, is that for Attractions to deliver maximum customer satisfaction, and significantly, for the associated commercial revenues to be measurable and actionable, IT systems, and of course the accompanying customer data, must be joined up.

This is why we mustn’t loose sight of the start point, the website and the ticket booking system which initiates our digital footprints, taking us along the yellow brick road to OZ (or should that be Wrexham’s star studded and hugely costly journey to the promised land of the Premier League) and back again. (and again!) ….leaving behind nothing but your (digital) footprints.

Achieving this is easier said than done, but to review your current digital ecosystem, consider the pro’s and cons of “single platform” vs “best of breed”, understand the value of well documented API’s , stretch your budget through a SaaS approach, and harvesting, analysing and actioning customer data, speak to Pete at Digital Tealeaves.