Travel industry missing opportunity to cross-sell experiences
Tours and experiences B2B connectivity platform Globick has published research showing a significant opportunity to cross-sell in-destination experiences to travellers who have already booked a hotel or flight.
Globick recently conducted a survey with its partner NTT DATA – part of the global provider of IT and business services NTT Group – of a statistically relevant sample of Spanish travellers based in Madrid and Barcelona.
The survey anlaysed scenarios for a variety of different travel purchasing channels – including having purchased accommodation via a hotel website, a plane ticket via an airline website, a plane ticket an airline app, and a hotel via an OTA – at different stages in the trip experience, including at the time of purchasing the hotel or flight, a few days before arrival in destination, and once in destination.
Regardless of purchasing channel or time to arrival the buying intention of travellers with regards to in-destination experiences – when prompted by whoever they had already purchased their hotel or flight with – remained both high and consistent with only limited variation:
Overall 69% of those surveyed showed themselves open to purchasing an in-destination experience via such prompts. Museums would be the top purchase choice, with only 1% of people seeing themselves as ‘highly unlikely’ to purchase such tickets. Whilst sports events proved the least popular, with 28% being ‘highly unlikely’ to buy. In total 54% of respondents said that they had purchased in-destination experiences via such prompts previously. Moreover, it showed that more and more travellers are thinking ahead when it comes to in-destination experiences with 53% stating that they regularly buy such services in advance of arriving at the destination.
Xavier Boixeda, Co-Founder & CEO of Globick comments: “With each sale of an in-destination experience representing both incremental revenue and high-margins, for relatively little effort, it is surprising that there aren’t more intermediaries and direct points of sale already doing this.
“Hard to believe but this study shows that anyone not doing this is quite literally leaving money on the table – you won’t find an intention to purchase rate higher than 69% in many other circumstances, certainly not in a competitive market like selling travel to consumers.
“In our opinion this is because in reality travellers often decide upon the activity they want to do first and not the destination. No one visits Orlando for the swamps, they want Disney and Universal – likewise first timers to Paris are there for the Eiffel Tower and Louvre, not the overpriced rooms a long way from the centre.
“Because entrance tickets to such experiences were typically only sold at the door people historically have bought the flight and hotel first – but the digital revolution is slowly changing that and travellers expect advance tickets more and more.”
