Who doesn’t want to add revenue to their business? It’s the same in every industry including the travel industry and it might be especially true for small businesses.
I love the story of Red Ryder BB guns. The company was actually making windmills and giving away BB guns to customers. Then they started selling the guns, probably to make some extra cash, when they realized that maybe the BB gun industry was more lucrative than windmills.
I’m not saying you should start producing BB guns to make some extra cash for your destination travel business, but there are some other ways you could add some revenue streams to your business.
Here are a few ways to find those opportunities.
Look For Additional Add-On Services Or “Second Visit” Services
Let’s say a visitor comes for their first visit to your tour. They go through, they love it, but now they might not have a reason to come back. They’ve already seen the main tour. Some will probably come back, but some will simply add it to their memory bank and never come back.
We have this tourism area near where I live called the Wisconsin Dells and they have water tours to view the unique rock formations. There are a dozen different ways to tour the area.
Let’s say you have a tour. You can have a main tour, but offer different options or add-on services that are unique. Each tour takes visitors on different tours to different aspects of the area.
This would give people a reason to come back on a second visit; maybe even the next day.
Sell Complimentary Items
This is like the BB gun idea above. It started out as complimentary and turned into something the windmill company could sell.
My dad used to fly for Midwest Express airlines out of Milwaukee. They offered complimentary cookies to fliers. I think eventually they offered those cookies for sale because people loved them that they wanted to take some home.
Try offering some unique complimentary items at the beginning of our tour. Then offer more for sale at the end of the tour. Who knows. Maybe it’ll turn into a complete different business.
Identify Potential Win-Win Partnerships
I love golf and I like to go on stay-and-play trips. I haven’t been on too many, but it’s fun to get a few friends together to go golfing for the weekend somewhere new.
Stay-and-play is an example of a win-win partnership. The hotel or lodging gets guests that might only be looking at the golf course and the golf course offers potential players a place to stay while they visit. And the golf course might even get another round out of visitors.
Partnerships are usually all over in your area. Look at restaurants, hotels, inns and even retailers or whatever it might be. Look at what your customers need or would likely also enjoy and see if you can work to put some kind of package together.
Survey Clients For Upsell Ideas
Upsell is a great way to add revenue. I worked for a shoe cataloger and we were always pushing upsells. It wasn’t the main way we made money, but the extra cash was nice for the bottom line. We would offer shoehorns, shoetrees and things like that.
You probably have a few ideas of what you could sell to your customers, but survey them to see what they would want. Just ask a few customers after the tour or as they’re leaving if there was anything they wish they would have had on the trip.
Then find out where you can get those items or services and offer them as upsells when new customers buy your main offering.
Sell Regular Items Visitors Need, But Might Have Forgotten On Their Trip
Your visitors are traveling away from home and a few are likely to forget at least one thing when they leave the house. Maybe a toothbrush or water bottle or something like that.
Offer these regular items. You could offer a water bottle with your company logo on it. Or maybe some sunscreen or a baseball cap.
There are lots of things people need while traveling. Go outside items that relate to what you do and offer things for the general traveler.
Look For Bundle Opportunities
Finally, look for bundle opportunities as a way to get people to pay a little more than they would normally spend. If you’ve ever watched American Pickers you know that Frank loves to bundle items. There is just something about it that gets people interested.
Bundle your tour with one of your upsell items. Bundle your tour with a stay in a local hotel like the stay-and-play package.
Bundling gets people to spend more money.
Final Thought
You don’t have to try all these ideas, but look through them again and see if there is one that could work to add revenue to your travel business this year. You can try most out for just a little investment and some work to make connections. And you never know if one of the ideas will turn into something lucrative for your small business.
Image: Dustin Gaffke
