Digital and self-guided tours have been around for a while. But as we now enter a post covid world it’s worth re-examining why you should consider digitalising your tour or experience. A report published by Arival explains the self-guided tour industry in detail and looks at how tour operators can leverage this technology. In this article Sam Baldwin (Founder of Adventure Clues) expands on some key areas that you may wish to consider around digitalising your tour.
Meet the Change in Consumer Behavior
With the closure of international borders travelers are undertaking activities and tours closer to home. At the same time, travelers have been forced to change how they undertake daily activities and have embraced this world of ‘digitalisation’ to assist them with everything from working from home and online shopping to obtaining critical healthcare. And so even when the world opens up again there is new consumer behavior. Digitialising anything from walking tours, bike tours, or museum tours is an innovative way to meet this change in behavior whilst enabling people to explore cities and attractions in a new and adventurous way: with a device that everyone has in their pocket – the smartphone.
Generate a New Revenue Stream
Building a digital self-guided tour means the elimination of booking, organising, and physically leading tour groups, whilst having the ability to generate revenue outside of traditional business hours. It’s possible to have booking forms directly integrated into your website where the consumer does not need to navigate away from your site. Branding can remain consistent and your digital tour can include your business logo. Hospitality venues can increase foot traffic simply by including their venue within the tour or as the final destination offering customers a spot to rest, reflect, and refresh. Digitalising your tour is a sustainable way to increase revenue.
Every Customer Can Have a Different and Unique Personal Experience
The success of a digital tour is not reliant on the alignment of the tour guide and travelers sharing compatible personalities or interests. Travelers can take the time to fully immerse themselves in locations along the trail or quickly pass through locations according to their specific interests. Historical information or interesting facts can be included in the tour, which can use gamification such as cryptic clues and points scoring to ensure the traveler remains engaged. Within each tour, the software can introduce every customer by their first name, therefore, creating a highly personable tour.
Flexibility for Tour Operators and Consumers.
A digital self-guided tour can be undertaken at any time of the day without the restraint of social distancing requirements for larger groups. QR codes can be placed at the entrance to your attraction which customers can scan and form teams to begin their tour in small groups. In terms of the customer, when you are on holiday for example it can be nice not to feel rushed or have to be at a certain location at a given time to meet a tour guide. Because there is no tour guide the customer has total control and flexibility over their time. Digitalised tours also provide the opportunity for places to be explored that typically wouldn’t be within a regular tour such as national parks, universities, schools, museums, and gardens.
A New Audience
Digitalised tours provide the opportunity to get creative and to really entice a brand new realm of customers. When you digitalise your tour and customise it, you have the chance to engage with many more people with different interests. You can also create large events for team-building days for local businesses in your area. As a travel business, you’ll be wanting to find every opportunity to engage with people and to enable them to uncover and discover sights that they haven’t seen before.
Sam Baldwin is the creator of Adventure Clues which offers self-guided scavenger hunt tours and a platform for companies to create their own tours and sell them to customers or companies who want to have team-building days. Adventure Clues was founded when Sam arrived in Australia from the UK and was seeking an easy and fun way to experience and learn about the new landscape by walking around the city. The trail building platform is helping tourism businesses to increase revenue and promote their business during these times.
