A deep dive into big tourism’s marketing and sales strategies and how to apply them to the ski industry. 

By Casey Parliament, Intouch

It’s no secret that Disney, Marriott Hotels, Sundance Resort, The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and every other brand name attraction or experience uses its good name to attract visitors. But how do they do it? How do those businesses get good names that not only attract guests but keep them coming back? 

Here, we look at four of the best attractions. We compare them to industry trends, changing consumer expectations, and global movements to understand why they are some of the best, and more importantly, what ski areas can easily do to emulate their success. 

Experience ≠ Expectations 

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“Mocked.” “Criticism.” “Crap.” These are words no resort or attraction wants to hear associated with their brand. But what caused such harsh criticism? When you dig into the media headlines and guest review sites, there’s a common theme: experience. Specifically, reality did not meet guests’ expectations for the experience. And this is the underlying theme that differentiates the good from the bad.  

So how do the best provide continually good experiences, ensuring guests get the experience they expect? There are three key areas to consider: marketing, product/service offering, and technology.  

It Starts with Marketing 

Get Personal 

Thanks to the likes of Amazon, Google, and Facebook, consumers now expect only the most relevant information to be shown to them. Anything else is, at best, ignored and at worst creates a negative brand experience.  

In order to craft completely relevant offerings, the most successful resorts and experiences intimately understand their guests ‘: 

• visitation patterns, 
• spend,
• geographic location,
• previous experiences and purchase history,
• parallel interests,
• preconceptions,
• concerns and hopes,
• lifetime value,
• constraints and considerations,
• visiting motivations (trip of a lifetime, or just there for an Instagram shot), and
• trusted media and influential friends.

This deep segment understanding allows the tailoring of products and services so that they are highly attractive to the most valuable guests, and ensures expectations are met from the outset. The Met’s tiered membership offering perfectly illustrates this. From its lowest level ‘Member with Early Views’ at $110 per year (low cost / high volume) to its highest ‘President’s Club’ offering at $25,000 per year (high cost / low volume), there’s a price point and associated experience to satisfy all of the Met’s most valuable target groups.  

This understanding results in not just repeat visitations but also cold, hard cash. In its 2020 annual report, the museum notes, “the Met’s loyal members are an invaluable source of support. This fiscal year, combined income from 106,208 households totaled $22.9 million. This includes revenue from member dues and donations to annual appeals, as well as ticket sales for member events and programs.” 

Disney does something similar but splits its target segments by motivations. Its overall high cost is no barrier to fanatical guests who will pay anything to experience the brand, while middle-upper socioeconomic families often view a trip to Disneyland as a “once in a lifetime” trip. This gives Disney maximum yield from different guest segments who are equally happy to pay for the experience.   

  
Right Time, Right Place 

Understanding the guest intimately also makes it easy to reach them with the right message at the right time and set the right expectation from the start. It’s no use advertising to thrill-seeking 23-year-old guys on a website geared toward moms. Same with timing—no one is thinking about skiing when it’s 90 degrees out.  

Instead, advertise to guests at the right time (e.g., when they are planning school holiday activities) and in the right place (e.g., Financial Times for The Met, “MiceChat” for Disney, etc.)  

Take a look at Sundance. 

It is advertising on Google so that when someone actively searches the phrase “Sundance resort” the ski area is immediately found via ad. The ad copy targets a segment and sets expectations: “Black ski runs designed for thrill-seekers.” That language is less likely to work if it’s shown on the mom blog “Love, Taza.” 

Disney understands this, too. Here’s an excerpt from its 2020 annual report: “Peak attendance and resort occupancy generally occur during the summer months when school vacations occur and during early winter and spring holiday periods. The licensing, retail and wholesale businesses are influenced by seasonal consumer purchasing behavior, which generally results in higher revenues during the company’s first and fourth fiscal quarter.” 

Competition, It’s Not Just Other Resorts 

Finally, the most successful resorts and experiences consider all the other options guests have, including the option to “do nothing / not visit.” Disney specifically calls this out in its annual report as a significant business risk: “Our theme parks and resorts compete for guests with all other forms of entertainment, lodging, tourism and recreation activities.” 

To address this, the leading resorts and experiences clearly define their value proposition and strategies to outcompete the alternatives. The Covid-19 pandemic has hastened this. 

Marriott Hotels says in its 2020 annual report, “For our more than 147 million Marriott Bonvoy members, we have focused on staying flexible and relevant, whether they are ready to travel to a hotel or not. We extended elite status and launched accelerator programs for our co-branded credit card holders. Our whole home rental platform Homes & Villas by Marriott International saw a significant increase in interest as many travelers sought drive-to destinations, longer duration stays and large spaces to allow for work, school and fun.” 

Know Your Guest, Define Your Experience 

Life is busy. Consumers expect organizations, resorts, and experiences to make their decisions easy.  

That’s difficult if you don’t have deep guest insights. It is easy if you do. By understanding your most valuable guest segments, you can better design experiences around their expectations. In fact, the most successful resorts and experiences know their guests so well that they not only meet the needs of their guests, but also surprise and delight them with experiences the guests never knew they wanted until they had them.  

It’s Not Just Packages and Tiers 

Pricing tiers and memberships are just the beginning. Add-ons, amenities, and interest-adjacent activities all work to delight guests and create unforgettable experiences that keep them coming back.  

Mostly welcome locals? Great, offer products aimed at shorter visits but more of them, e.g., weekday season passes. Mostly welcome international guests? Cool, you should be offering multi-day packages that include multi-day passes, rentals, and lessons. 

Here’s how Marriot does it: “Our marketing teams have also been focused on generating demand, enticing guests with many creative offerings such as “staycation” packages and encouraging guests to take their remote work to our hotels using Day Pass, Stay Pass and Play Pass packages, which offer perks such as early check-in, late check-out, supervised children’s activities and more.” 

More Exposure = More Fun 

Disney observes in its 2020 shareholder report that ‘add-ons’ and multi-product passes get the guest to pay more for a better experience and act as a gateway into spending more on services/products they wouldn’t normally have. “The resort includes theme parks; hotels; a retail, dining and entertainment complex; a sports complex; conference centers; campgrounds; golf courses; and other recreational facilities designed to attract visitors for an extended stay,” the report explains. 

And once again, Sundance excels by focusing on providing quality services at every point of the guest journey, thereby providing a complete resort experience. As outlined on its website, Sundance guests can “enhance [their] Sundance experience with one of our curated packages to help [them] experience more of what Sundance has to offer.” 

But beware. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. Vail Resorts’ strategic decision to drop season pass prices, dramatically increasing the volume of advanced purchase pass sales, has resulted in headline-grabbing backlash due to a perfect storm of guests demand and a lack of staff to meet that demand.  

Hit them with the feels. 

Every interaction evokes feelings. From the first ad a guest sees to the moment they return home, every interaction with your brand creates a feeling and defines your product or service.  

A single bad feeling (annoyance at a long line, uncertainty due to confusing signs, anger at difficult bindings) will ruin the entire experience and reflect badly on your resort. It will also reduce the chance of the guest spending more or returning.  

The good vibes need to be seamless. So, by truly understanding your guests, you can optimize your resort and experiences to meet expectations and surprise and delight your guest, maximizing good feelings while avoiding bad ones. 

Technology 

The final and most ubiquitous tool used by leading resorts and experiences to capture guests is technology. For resorts and attractions, better, cheaper, and more innovative technology is making operations highly efficient, offering greater value to the guest, and improving the experience. On the guest-side, cheap smartphones, continuous connection, online buying, real-time notifications, immersive realities, and a seamless transition from online to in-person are now the expected norm.  

Let’s look at the implications of those expectations. 

Do What’s Expected 

If a competitor makes it easier to buy or engage, guests will go there instead. The most successful resorts and experiences understand this at the most fundamental level.  

Here is Marriott Hotel’s risk assessment on technology: “A failure to keep pace with developments in technology could impair our operations or competitive position. The lodging industry continues to demand the use of sophisticated [internal] technology and systems … and technologies we make available to our guests and for our associates. These technologies and systems must be refined, updated, and/or replaced with more advanced systems on a regular basis, and our business could suffer if we cannot do that as quickly or effectively as our competitors or within budgeted costs and time frames.”  

The Met has this philosophy encoded in its guiding principles: “[We will] use technology strategically to share scholarship and content, engage audiences, and achieve internal efficiency.”  

Since Covid-19, the consumer trend is toward planning and buying online, and the desire to retain flexibility has accelerated. The easiest way to meet those guest needs/wants that is through modern, integrated technology. 

Make It Easy 

One of the biggest benefits of technology, when done right, is how easily it can improve the guest experience. 

• From planning (the “Plan Disney” tool, The Met’s planning page, and Sundance’s lodging filter)
• To purchasing (The Met’s transactional “engage” subdomain and Sundance’s eCommerce shop),
• From first visit (The Marriott’s contactless tech and Disney’s “Magic Key Pass”)
• To onsite experience (Sundance’s “Resort Conditions” page and Marriott’s “Bonvoy” app),

business leaders offer guests a seamless experience. At every touch point, no matter where the guests go or what they do, it’s easy.   

Be Smart 

Finally, leading resorts and experiences use technology to optimize operational productivity, maximize guest yield and happiness, and minimize overheads and bottlenecks. The key difference between the “ok” and the “amazing,” is that the amazing, such as Marriott, take their lead from guests, not shareholders.  

When faced with Covid-19, The Met was smart: “The Museum’s home page pivoted from encouraging on-site visits to featuring Web-based highlights, including 360-degree views of iconic spaces, behind-the-scenes videos, and dynamic explorations of exhibitions.” 

Smart ski resorts are using technology to smooth visitations, thereby avoiding a crush of people arriving over a short period of time. This minimizes the rippling impact on guest services, rentals, and food and beverage, not to mention lifts.  

Savvy ski areas are using technology to optimize operational productivity through smart rostering, they’re minimizing overheads through self-service improvements, deploying contactless technologies in new areas such as mobile F&B ordering, and utilizing data to make smarter business and operational decisions. And they’re maximizing guest yield and happiness by surprising and delighting guests with relevant products and services, effortless engagements, and AI driven personalization. All of which improves the guest experience, strengthens the brand, and enables marketing to start the positive process all over again.