Filed under: Destination development, Tourism marketing | Tagged: Curt

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

Tourism marketing is a tricky thing. At least in Sweden. Our tourism industry is based on about 7000 small tourism enterprises, still waiting to be discovered by the masses… Most of them are not even small, but micro-companies with one or a just few employees. There are of course a number of larger tourismrelated corporations, hotel chains, trains, cruiseships and airlines, but let´s leave them for a while.

Photo: Jessica Svensk

The question is why Sweden, as a brand name in general, our regions and most of our tourism attractions in particular, still are more or less unknown to most people abroad according to a number of market analyzes. I believe there are lot´s of possibilities for improvement of Swedish tourism marketing. But, unfortunately, problems are built into the system.

Tourism marketing doesn´t really fit in to traditional marketing models, for a number of reasons. One is that nobody “owns” the whole product – in this case a chain of services, consumed by the guest in the very same moment(s) it´s being produced by a lot of different people and companies providing ingredients for an outstanding travel-related experience.

Swedish micro tourism businesses cannot simply afford the costs required for effective marketing. So, except for some DMC´s and VisitSweden, tourism marketing has become an issue for the local tourism information centres. Who are employed by the local community. They don´t own the tourism attractions or enterprises they are supposed to market. They are also expected to make sure that everyone involved get a fair share of the marketing, as it´s paid by tax money.

Consequently, they can do market research, strategic plans and general marketing but are very limited when it comes to implementation of marketing strategies on an operational level. So they work primarily on the supply-side, putting together ads, brochures and tourism websites, PR and events. Expensive and long-term. Then there´s the political aspect. Tourist information centres are often seen by local politicians as a shopfront for attracting new businesses and citizens to their town, which is a complete different story.

What to do?
Well, considering the organizational circumstances it´s not easy to get the show on the road. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. The Swedish Institute, VisitSweden and other national bodies are doing an important job, but to get a leverage effect I believe we need the locals on board.

Where applicable, I´d suggest a market oriented perspective, based on market demand:

• Separate tourism business administration and the public economy. Be loyal to the market, not society.
• Forget about the equal fairness thoughts. Promote selected local “honey-pots” and allow them to grow by employing or incorporate suppliers.
• Educate or relocate incoming tour producers to your region.
• Use more of relationship marketing methods, including customer databases with in-depth client information and dialogue with guests.
• Use modern tourism statistics and communication tools. Not only traditional guestnights and passenger-figures from visitors. Measure those who thought about coming, but never showed up.
• Use internet better. Today, anyone can be a virtual tourist. Google Earth, Skype-cast, blogs, online movies, internet-TV and radio offers a range of possibilities for promoting a destination at low cost.

Next time I´ll let you in on some successful examples.

CBI, Centre for the promotion of imports from developing countries, launches its second export coaching programmme for tourism businesses that wants to expand to Sweden and Europe. Their first programme was a success that resulted in 45 companies closing business deals worth € 8 Million (~US$11,7 Million).

If you are running an incoming tourism business or a community-based tourism project in any of the 40 selected countries you are eligible to apply.

When your company participates in an ECP, you and CBI will have a common goal: to make your company do (more) business in Europe.

CBI will:
• Help you get technically ready for the European market;
• Provide you with skills and knowledge on the European market and its major players;
• Provide you with opportunities to enter the market, for example by arranging participations in trade fairs, individual presentations to buyers and road shows.

The CBI is a development organisation operating in a non-commercial market and does not require participants in its programmes to cover all costs.  The programme is open for application now. Natural´s Jan Wigsten is appointed as Scandinavian tourism market consultant for 30 countries in the program.

More information: cbi-export-coaching-programme

Are your marketing costs sky-rocketing? Spending a fortune on ads and brochures?

Let me tell you about one of the best marketing tools I´ve ever stumbled upon. No, it´s not one of  those pyramid-multi-level-marketing things. This one is for real. And I´m not paid to write this. It allows you to communicate exclusively with people that are genuinely interested in your stuff. No others involved. No more waste of time and money on “the subscribers mother-in-law” or other non-existing readers that happens to take a glance in the paper, which ad-sellers often include to boost their figures.

It was invented by a coincident a few years ago. Funny story. The sales manager for a hotel at Scandinavias largest wildlife park, was a bit short on conferences. She needed about 30 more bookings according to budget and time was running out.

She called a friend of mine, in those days he was doing customer research for chain stores, and asked him for an advice. His brilliant solution was a combination of customer research and sales tool.

They put a small printed flier by the Zoo entrance. The park is most famous for its marine world and the dolphins, so they asked a thrilling question, illustrated by a nice photo, in the flier: How about dating a dolphin? Just answer a few simple questions… A chance to win a weekend and meet the dolphins.

They also e-mailed the flier to about 2000 existing clients. Her idea was to get a 100 leads which eventually would get her 30 new conferences. The response was tremendous. She got 800+ leads and about a hundred conferences. How did it happen?

The key is the questions. Just a few, but important: How many conferences a year do you usually arrange? When? For how many people? When do you plan to have the next conference? You get the idea. She reached exclusively those clients interested in having a conference at a wilderness park hotel. She knew exactly how to prioritize her potential clients and could accordingly invite them for a study-tour.

The customer database then grew by itself. People continously replied to the questions, now online, entering their interests, names and numbers directly without any effort needed from the hotel. Except for drawing a winner now and then.

What´s your thrilling key question to sort out the best leads?

Suppose you´re hungry. You stroll down to your favourite restaurant back home in Ohio, Shanghai, Barranquilla or wherever you happens to live. You find a smorgasbord of mouth-watering seafood offered on the menue. One of them is, say, kräftor med vitlökssmör och ostpaj. Would you order it? Didn´t think so. Well, actually it´s a delicacy if you love seafood: crayfish with garlic butter and cheese pie. You just didn´t know. So why would you buy it?

The same goes for tourism in Sweden. The lion´s share of our attractions are unknown to most people abroad, mainly because they´re not marketed properly. If there is a website, which is not an axiom, it´s far too often in Swedish only. Or with a simple a summary in English.

It´s estimated that one out of four of the world’s population speak English to some level of competence. As of October 2008, the world´s population is estimated to be about 6,7 billion. That would give at hand that approximately one-thousand-sixhundred-seventyfive-million people, to some extent, understand English. About a thousand million people speak mandarin.

Nine (9) million speak Swedish.

A 3 minutes random selection of Swedish travel-related websites:

• A couple of nationwide coach operators: Härjedalingen and Y-Buss
• A Nationwide train operator (this is where you´re supposed to make reservations): Veolia
• An outstanding seafood restaurant with a superb location by the sea: Albertina Restaurant 
• A tourist information center offering wildlife & bear watching tours: Herjedalsporten
• An “information in English” from a tourist information center located in the midst of Stockholm´s world famous archipelago: Dalarö Tourism Information
• One of Sweden´s major family attractions with 350,000+ visitors/year: Skara Sommarland
• And finally a similar one in Leksand town – one who´s got it right: Leksand Sommarland

See what I mean? It´s a mystery why there´s no strategy from Swedish tourism authorities to make most of our attractions available to an international audience. Once you get here, there´s not much of a problem, since most Swedes speak better english than the rest of the english-speaking world will ever learn to speak Swedish. But that´s not an excuse for poor marketing.

Considering the fact that international tourists spend 7 times the amount of national tourists a day, and each spent tourism krona gives at least 3 more to the local super market, gas station or whatever, a translation support programme for tourism entrepreneurs would be like buying money for society.

Do I make myself understood?

/ Curt Landin

Fortunately, Swedish tourism is sky-rocketing anyway thanks to those who already have implemented a successful marketing strategy. You´ll find most of them at VisitSweden.com. Imagine what it would be like with another 5000 attractions or so to choose between…

How do you make cash out of a ”virtual tourist”? You turn them into real ones. There is a wide range of free, hands-on tools you can use to visualize how an experience at your place would be long before your potential guest has actually thought of travelling somewhere. Long gone are the times when you had to produce expensive colour brochures for distribution by stoneage mail.

Getting new tourists to a destination is a question about bringing people from being more or less unaware of your existence to a true confidence in that your place is the best place to visit. Just a few years ago, you had to make a strategic marketing decision if you should briefly display your trademark to the mass market or penetrate certain target groups with in-depth information about your business. Today, you can kill two birds with one stone.

Google Earth
It´s estimated that about 400 million people use Google Earth - virtual flights to anywhere in the world. Or even space! Tempt them by adding your tours, place or destination. Don´t forget Google Earth Outreach.

Skype
IP-telecommunication invented by a Swede, Niklas Zennström, and Janus Friis. Let your clients call you for free from any internet-connected computer in the world! Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls are always free. You can also have free group chats and conference calls with up to 25 people on Skype. Excellent for sales support or just to keep in touch with your distributors worldwide.

Blog
Oh-my-God, is anyone still counting how many blogs there are? Technorati alone states they are tracking over 112 million blogs, a number which obviously does not include all the 72 million Chinese blogs as counted by The China Internet Network Information Center. Tease your clients with daily anecdotes from your tourism business. Or be the destination expert. Your choice. Software? WordPress is free.

YouTube
With 71 million unique users a month, YouTube is the 6th largest audience on the net. Connect with your guests in a personal and targeted way - at massive scale. Upload a trailer of your place or the best spots around. Here´s a low budget sample: Come to Sweden.  You can do it better.

Free radio & TV broadcasting
How about hosting your own radio- or TV show? There are lot´s of free software to produce and broadcast a documentary, debate, educational clips or pure entertainment directly from your place. Google “free broadcasting software” and pick one that suits your needs.

E-books
Why not become an author? E-publishing is free. Write a book about your place, be it the history, wildlife or nightlife you´re offering to guests. Write it by using Open Office and turn it into a bestseller by PrimoPDF or similar tools.

Good luck!

Tags: Curt Landin, google earth, Marketing, skype, sweden, tools, Tourism, travel industry, travel news, YouTube

Todays tough business climate makes it even more important to be able to sell. Most industrys have seen an increase in competition, where the globalization has affected companies of all sizes and tourism is no exception. Thousands of articles has been written about how to “behave” for being successful in selling. Not this one.

From my experience, the human nature isn´t easily captured in simple role models. We´re more complex than that. Which is good news. Natural selling does not mean “born with”. It´s not that you can or can not do it. As I see it, it´s more of  a natural and serious attitude to selling, more based on emotions and personality rather than analytical facts. Your ability to be a natural seller can be trained if you´ve got the will to do it. However, it does require you to challenge your own style, be interested in other people as well as your personal development.

1. Be your self
Don´t play roles. There are numerous courses in ”successful sales behaviour”. I guess many of us have a common picture of a “vacuum cleaner salesman”, convincing his clients to buy something they don´t really need. Honestly, how many times have you bought something from such a person? Contrary, you don´t even notice a professional seller. You´ve probably felt that you´ve made your own decision to buy whatever they sold to you, because they knew what they were talking about, were nice & friendly and they solved your problem.

2. Realize that nobody loves everyone
When it comes to selling, it´s more important how you´re perceived by the client than having an in-depth knowledge about your product. Confusing? If your client likes you, you can solve anything together. Then it becomes equally important to know what you are talking about. But if they don´t like you, it doesn´t matter how much product know-how you´ve got. If the chemistry just isn´t there, don´t be an actor pretending to be someone you´re not. Let it go and scout out a new prospect. It will spare you a lot of time. And money.

3. Work methodical
Selling is often pure matemathics: “to get X orders I´ll have to give 4X proposals. To give 4X proposals, I´ll have to meet 10X potential clients. To meet 10X potential clients I´ll have to make about 40X phonecalls”. Every day.

4. Ask. Ask. Ask.
Statements doesn´t sell. Questions do. You´ll have to find out your clients problem (=their need) before you present a solution to it. Ask them. Then ask follow-up questions. Summarize to show you have understood everything correctly, as a confirmation to your client.

5. Use the words “because” and “means”
It´s useless to babble about all the features your product might “have” or “is”. Nobody is interested. As a client, I want to know what these features means to me. Often in terms of time or money. Sample: “We use chartered planes on some routes. This means you get more time to experience the local culture and visit three countries instead of one, because driving would take days and regular flights are just twice a week”.

6. Find out who´s in charge
There´s often more than one person involved in a buying decision, especially if we´re talking about higher amounts. Find out who they are, simply by asking. Try to meet them all, preferably all together so you hear the discussions and, consequently, can give proper information, argue for your offer and meet objections when/if something is questioned.

7. Find an easy way in
Find someone who likes you at the client company. Could be the receptionist. This person is not necessarily one of those allowed to make a buying decision, but he/she might very well know where there is a need for your services. Ask your way forward to the person who´s got the problem your product solves. Within tourism, it might be a distributors need for a better commisionable program or a company clients need for a corporate conference, study tour, board meeting hideaway or whatever. If you´re doing your job well with this person, he will lead you to the decision-maker.

8. Have a goal
Define a goal for your selling work. You have to know where you´re heading, otherwise you´ll probably end up somewhere else. “Build better client relationships” doesn´t work as a goal. “Make 30 phonecalls a day”, “find out who´s making the buying decision at company X” is better. Sale targets should be specific and lead you forward to closing the deal.

9. No = maybe
A “No”  is often a wish for more information. Unless you aren´t way out of your target group. As long as your product reasonably corresponds to your clients needs, there´s a basis for buying decisions. These can be influented by facts, such as price and performance, but also by your commitment and relations. Don´t take no for an answer. Ask questions.

10. The 2nd sentence is most important.
In your first sales call to someone, they should hear you smiling. Stand up while talking, take a look in the mirror and sing a song before you call. Belive me, it´ll do wonders for your voice. Everyone will listen to your first line: “Hi, this is Mark Anderson at XY Company”. But then? The 2nd sentence will make or break it. You need a hook, something different and unusual, but true. Something that makes it worth listening to your offer. Spend some time to find out some alternative introductions for different target groups and try them.

The punch-line: Ask a lagom tricky question. A one your client have no sufficient answer to, but you have the solution. 

You´re a friendly, natural talent. You´re in.

Tags: behaviour, Curt Landin, natural, sales training, selling tips, successful selling, sweden, tour operator, Tourism

How about having all the best travel related top stories continously updated and easily accessible wherever you are? Now you can. The site Alltop.com is a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet, containing high-quality information with unusual breaking news, stories, and rumors from sites you´re already visiting as  well as reviewed and evaluated niche-sites covering almost any special topic.

Alltop.com has grown tremendeously in just a few months to a valuable resource for anyone wanting to research a certain subject or industry. The site really rocks, challenging traditional web resources with a cool and fun attitude from the founders who describes themselves as “two guys and a gal in a garage“ by simply stating that “We like to shake things up and urge people out of their comfort zones”…

One of the best features is that you can customize its appearance to cover exactly those topics you are interested in.

Michael Moore, the famous American author, once asked his (American) readers: “So you think you´re clever? OK, who´s the president in Mexico? See… Most people in other countries knows who´s leading the country next to them”.  A quick glance at the Swedish incoming tourism market shows that, with a few exceptions, everybody´s basically promoting the same recipe: a dash of Stockholm, sweetened by an archipelago cruise, some crystal glass shopping in Småland and possibly spiced up by a night at the Ice Hotel winter time.

If you´re a standard tour operator or travel agent that´s fine with me. They are great first time in Sweden-experiences. But if you´d like to offer outstanding tours and this is what you suggest to your clients, I would say you´re on the wrong track.

Creating outstanding tours in Sweden is simply a question of cooperation but, honestly, how well do you really know those who are taking care of your clients in Sweden? And why would you cooperate more with them than just buying the ordinary tours?

Well, 1 + 1 = 3. Two approach angles are better than one. You complement each other, which improves your chances to close the deal with your customers and you get better sales results. When you get to know someone you also support each others in times of trouble and share the joy in happy days. You get inspiration, have fun at work and, more importantly, you´ll learn a lot, which improves your competence and sales ability. Your customers get a better service and quality, you get more customers, more money and hopefully a better life.

From my experience, there are a number of distinctions for non-functional teams:

• Watched communication
  If you speak up about something, you´re quickly criticized
• A lack in disagreement
  Actually, a degree of disagreement is good for business. In a team it must be allowed to express different opinions. Winning teams can handle it. Losers can not.
• Unwillingness to share information
  You keep some “secrets” to yourself. It might be good to you, but not to the team. And in the long run, you´ll most often end up being dumped. Tourism is teamwork.
• Low level of trust
  In tourism you can´t control everything. You have to rely on others. Double checking details is good, but if done repeatedly the wrong way you might rub a few feathers. Trust me…

So, what´s the characteristics of a winning team? I would say there are a number of trails leading to the road of success:

• A common vision and goal
  Do you and your Swedish supplier see the same picture of the future? Where are you heading within a couple of years?
• An identity as a group
  Are you talking about “we” and “them” or are you and your suppliers the same “we” ? Which one? Are you included in their “we” or is there a gap in between?
• Each member has a clear role within the group
  Do the people at your suppliers company understand what you´re expecting from them and do they realize the importance of their contribution to your tours?
• Clear and obvious “game rules” (routines, responsibilities, behavior)
  Tourism is a chain of services provided by a number of people at the same time it´s consumed by the guests in a series of moments of thruth. Successful tourism companies delivers. What they promised. Consequently, everyone involved must know exactly what to do, how and when. Do you?
• A high degree of motivation
  Tourism is about exploring and experiencing. You´re actually selling something that doesn´t exist (yet). It´s something that will be produced later, upon arrival of the guests. Thus, the staff involved has to be engaged and motivated to convey a sense of feelings and emotions for the destination or program you´re promoting.

The swedish tourism entrepreneurs I´ve met are a bunch of nice chaps, so why don´t you give a few of them a call just to get to know each other. It´ll boost your business and you´ll get a new friend or two.

Tags: cooperation, Curt Landin, Marketing, Stockholm, sweden, Tourism, travel industry, travel news, winning team

ıt´s amazing how much money tourism organizations are wasting on inoperative marketing. Ads and brochures that´s actually read by just a fraction of the estimated target group. Swedish municipalities, for example, are printing 4-colored brochures to an amount of SEK 800 millions a year (~US$ 100 Mn). Most of these fancy brochures are dropped in the waste bin after a quick glance at some nice photos.

Not to talk about advertising. H-U-G-E amounts are spent on traditional ads. Sure, you´ll probably reach some interested clients. But at least 3 out of four readers are not.

The same goes for measuring the results of tourism marketing efforts. Old methods like counting guest nights and passenger figures are still widely in use. I would say that businessmen coming to your town for a meeting with their local supplier or distant-living relatives returning home for a wedding party,  is not a result of tourism marketing just because they spend a night or two the local hotel. They would have come anyway.  “We can´t change measuring methods. If we do, we can´t compare it to previous years or other destinations”, is a common explanation. Stone age, I say. Give it up.

Before they travel to a destination, tourists search for information, evaluating the options. Will it be your place or somewhere else? People likes to know where they´re heading. Some of them will choose you, most of them will not. 

Like any company, tourism organizations measures their “products” performance. A customer satisfaction survey or similar questionnaires.  But what about those who considered your place, but choosed not to come? If you´re marketing by ads and brochures, or collecting surveys at the hotel or tourism centre, you´ll never know who these people are or why they didn´t show up. 

Todays E-marketing tools allows you to communicate with them, but I´m not talking about a simple newsletter. I mean dialogue. Questions. Answers. Problemsolving. They´ve already expressed an interest in your place, but for some reason they choosed some other destination this time. It´s your job to find out why and then change peoples attitude. Next time, or after a while, you´ve turned a lot of them into real customers by caring for their needs.

There are a number of ways to gather and save information about potential customers that are explicitly interested in your tours or destination, without having to spend a lot of money on those that are not.

One way is to build a society, club or community. Social marketing with a specified topic. In it´s simpliest form it might be a blog with registered users. Or running travel clubs for different tourism niches, like fishing, local culture, ancient architecture or whatever your destination has to offer certain target groups. Be the expert. Or invite one to provide you with expertise.

Competitions, lotteries, research studies, interviews, articles and movie clips are just a few samples of what´s attracting people enough to fill in their names and numbers because they want the information you´re providing. It´s all about content and interactive dialogue. You have to know your clients.
While your customer database is growing by itself, you can let other businesses that are of interest to your audience hang on to your marketing. Or you can join theirs.

But that´s another story.

Tags: Curt Landin, e-marketing, market research, Marketing, measuring tourism, social marketing, sweden, Tourism, travel industry, travel news