How to attract tourists to the city. How to attract clients for a travel agency

Business on symbols that did not exist

Many tourist places, especially those that have appeared in recent decades, do not have any symbols of their own, by which this place would be unequivocally recognizable, like Belukha Mountain in Altai or a beaver in the ski resort of Bobrovy Log in Krasnoyarsk. The business idea is to create and popularize a symbol - it can be an animal, real or mythical, a sign, a statue or anything else - and earn money in the future by selling souvenirs tied to the newly created symbol.

The business plan of this idea will include several stages:
- Popularization of the symbol. At this stage, there is no profit, investments are organized in advertising, the manufacture of a prototype (a giant statue made of wood or snow, for example). After about a year, you can move on to the second stage.
- The second stage is the production and sale of souvenirs. The sources of profit and costs are obvious.

Success with virtually no investment will be realized when the author himself is directly involved in the manufacture of souvenirs, or even owns the production or is ready to create it.

The idea seems absurd, but there are examples of its successful implementation. This is the famous Museum of Mice, for example, or the Yeti as a symbol ski resort Sheregesh. In both cases, a large copy of the popularized symbol first appeared, attracting attention with its absurdity (a 3-meter statue of a mouse made of metal, a wooden Yeti statue with a pineboard in the hands, the size of a person), tourists are actively photographed against the background of these statues, soon a small tray with smaller samples, and in a few years it is already a well-established industry, bringing its owner a good profit.

	How to attract tourists to the guest house -
	How to attract tourists? - 5 ways -
	How to attract tourists to Russia -
	How to attract tourists to a travel agency - a brief guide

Video - Development of tourism in Russia:

If you want the world to change, become that change.

Mahatma Gandhi

Any obstacle is overcome by perseverance.

Leonardo da Vinci

Foreword

How can we attract tourists? How not to get lost in the background of thousands of proposals from other cities and countries? How to convince the Russians that it is possible to relax comfortably in Russia, and that a small town far from the Russian capitals is not necessarily a "hole"?

As the practice of recent years shows, these questions can be heard at all conferences, round tables and forums dedicated to the development of tourism in Russia. They also sound during our conversations with representatives of local and regional administrations from different parts of the country. And these questions are of concern not only to officials, but also to the heads of travel agencies, owners of hotels and restaurants, directors of museums, sanatoriums and even local residents who rent their living space to vacationers ...

So what to do? “Take an example from Myshkin!” - this dangerous advice is repeated like a broken record, all sorts of "gurus". Myshkin is a wonderful city, but, firstly, its strategy is far from suitable for everyone (there are about 6 thousand inhabitants in Myshkino), and secondly, it is pointless to copy the tip of the iceberg without seeing and understanding everything that is hidden from the eyes in thicker than water.

Three or four years ago, participants in tourist exhibitions representing Russian cities and regions said: “We just need money for advertising, and people will come to us!” Money was allocated, tourists did not go ... Today, a more professional understanding is coming that attracting tourists is not so much advertising as a whole task system, that need to be addressed at the regional level. And this book is a story about who and how should solve these problems, what mistakes and “pitfalls” can be here, what resources can be used in the work and how to place accents. And of course, examples of success.

The book “How to Attract Tourists and Become a Tourism Brand in Russia” is based on an analysis of the experience accumulated in Russia and the CIS, both successful and unsuccessful, as well as the experience of some foreign countries in the development of tourism and promotion of the territory in the tourism market. In addition, some observations and conclusions made while working on the projects of the consulting company "Konkretika" served as material for the book.

This book is methodical, sometimes unpleasant and even offensive, because it tells not only about the possibilities and hidden potential of Russian cities and regions, but also about their typical mistakes and shortcomings. But the main value of the book, in my opinion, is concrete practical recommendations explaining WHAT need to do and HOW to do, as well as 420 real-life examples that provide a rich platform for your own ideas and solutions.

I hope this book will help you in your work. Have a productive reading!

Nadezhda Makatrova,

Director of the consulting company "Konkretika"

Chapter 1
Travel brand: to be or not to be?

Fate leads the one who wants to go, drags the one who does not want to go.

Cleanthes, ancient Greek philosopher (IV-111 centuries BC)

Brands were not heard about in the Soviet Union. But at the same time, all citizens of our vast and multinational country firmly knew that:

If you want to go to the sea, then you have to go to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus or to the Crimea. With small children - to Anapa or Evpatoria;

If there are no vouchers for the Black Sea, then - to the Azov Sea, to Yeysk;

The intelligentsia preferred the Baltics;

If you need to heal, a direct road to the sanatorium of the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody;

For lovers of excursions and cultural and historical values ​​- Moscow, Leningrad, the cities of the Golden Ring and, perhaps, Pskov and Novgorod;

Military-patriotic education - Volgograd with its famous Mamaev Kurgan.

All Soviet people also knew about Baikal and Kamchatka, but they didn’t even dream of getting there - the flight is too expensive, a simple Soviet family can’t afford. Here they are - real tourist brands, created, by the way, with the powerful support of the state ...

Of course, there were many others in the USSR interesting places and routes - "hits" of the district and regional scale, where excursion groups from schools, universities, enterprises and institutions were continuously sent, but they could not compete with the all-Union "grands".

25 years have passed since perestroika…

Today, looking at the exhibition MITT or "Intourmarket" in Moscow, you can see on the stands hundreds, if not thousands, of new tourist sites and routes throughout the country. One is better than the other, with an intriguing description and amazing photographs. It would seem that new times - new names.

No matter how!

Ask an ordinary Russian what cities or resorts in our country he considers the most popular among tourists, and you will most likely get the same list. True, Crimea and the Baltic states (as foreign countries) will have to be deleted from it, and St. Petersburg will take the place of Leningrad. Let the interlocutor include foreign resorts in the list, and Turkey and Egypt are guaranteed to fall into the first line. I'm talking about mass routes. Skiers habitually call Elbrus, fishermen - Astrakhan.

"How so? Why? The tourist potential of Russia is not limited to 10-15 popular routes?! We have two orders of magnitude more!” - one of the readers will be indignant. The potential may not be limited, but the perception of a tourist, according to the laws of marketing, alas, is not rubber. The law says: the number of bright, memorable images on the market is limited. I recommend that you reread the highlighted phrase two more times.

It only at first glance seems that it is enough to come up with “something original” and you will be noticed. You can think of anything you want, but here's the question:

- Will they remember this (against the background of competitors' proposals)?

– Will they buy it (comparing different offers)? And buy not one season, but at least ten years in a row.

For clarity, I will give two useful analogies.

1. Each class has its own "excellent", "losers", "clown", "athlete", its own "beauty". And sometimes - your "outcast" (remember the movie "Scarecrow"). It is very problematic to characterize all the other children in terms of their role in the class.

2. In the 90s, many different shops and shops opened in Russian cities, and today most of them have “died”, giving way to network players. By the way, in Europe, about 80% of goods are sold through chain stores.

What is the implication of this for tourism?

In five years, a new pool of tourist brands of all-Russian significance will be formed in Russia. It is clear that Moscow and St. Petersburg will automatically retain their leading positions due to their exceptional starting opportunities (just as there are three main TV channels in the country and ... all the others). In a privileged position will be the resorts on our warm seas(unless there is a sudden change in climate). And who else will be included in the list of the strongest is still in question ...

If the heads of the city and regions mentioned at the beginning had been actively developing over the course of 25 years of perestroika, and did not rely on the tourist resources accumulated over the previous decades, then all the rest would not have been destined to catch up with them in the foreseeable future. However, development was remembered only 5–7 years ago, thus giving a chance to their neighbors.

The importance of getting into the leader pool is illustrated by the Zipf (Zipf) curve

Picture 1

Zipf distribution (Zipf)

Those cities and regions that find themselves at the tail of this curve may not count on anything serious ... Perhaps they don’t need this, and tourism for them is like birch sap in an ordinary grocery store: they almost don’t take it, but there is an assortment .

At the same time, our conversations with representatives of local and regional administrations show that in many parts of Russia tourism is taken seriously, hoping to use it to give a new impetus to the development of the territory and replenish the budget. For this purpose, short-term and long-term programs are developed everywhere, new tourist brands are announced, advertising catalogs are printed, exhibitions and presentations are held, journalists are invited, etc.

Why can't many cities and regions make a breakthrough and significantly increase the tourist flow? What needs to be changed at work? A detailed answer to these questions will be devoted to subsequent chapters of the book, but here I will only outline the key points.

1. Cities and regions, like people, have desires, but there are “heredity” and “natural inclinations”. When choosing a new image, the second is useful to consider. It is difficult for a tall teenager to become an outstanding Formula 1 pilot or a single figure skater - long legs get in the way. And in volleyball or basketball, high growth, on the contrary, will come in handy. The same principle applies to territories. It is possible to argue with nature, but it is expensive, and not everyone has the patience. (See Chapters 2 and 3 for more on the impact of location on brand building and promotion.)

2. A brand without reference to the target audience is doomed. The strength of a travel brand is not determined by the size of the advertising budget or the amount of promotional products and the big name of the PR agency that came up with the slogans and logos. A good brand is, first of all, a good idea, that is, an idea that makes this object interesting for a specific target audience. And this target audience should be clearly aware of why this object is better for them than others. In other words, a strong idea in itself generates a targeted tourist flow. (For more on positioning and targeting segments, see Chapters 4 and 5.)

3. We need not single solutions, but a system (!) of solutions.

Fact: in the face of fierce competition, single successful finds are copied “for the next season”. Therefore, a strong brand, in addition to the key idea, implies a system of related solutions - it works better to attract tourists, and it is more difficult to copy it.

Have you ever been to a well-organized wedding? And on badly organized? The difference between the first and second is that at a good wedding, the guests enjoy the process without thinking about anything. Everything has been thought of for them. At a poorly organized wedding, guests bicker with the toastmaster, either looking for something to do, or struggling with the consequences of their own or other people's activities. The region is, of course, not a wedding, but the principle of consistency is the same here: big things are made up of little things. (See Chapters 6, 7, and 8 for more on creating tourist sites and useful additional services for tourists.)

4. Interference - inertia of thinking and lack of feedback. Often, residents who contemplate their hometown, town or village day after day cannot break out of the framework of established stereotypes and look at places dear to their hearts through the eyes of a newcomer ... (No wonder there is a saying in American consulting: “The client is in the pan, and the consultant he thinks broader - he is out of the pot.”) If the managers of tourist sites, as well as local and regional authorities, from time to time were interested in the opinion of tourists, travel agencies, investors, and consultants about the attractiveness or unattractiveness of their territory, many problems could be avoided. And invented slogans and brand ideas would not cause sympathetic smiles. (You will learn more about the stereotypes of tourists and travel agencies regarding holidays in Russia in chapters 9 and 10.)

5. To promote a brand, you need not so much money as a working head. In a sense, Russian cities and regions are lucky: there is foreign experience in promoting tourist sites. There are marketing techniques that are successfully used in the most progressive industries, for example, in retail, telecommunications, etc., including in Russia. Therefore, the channels and means of promotion must be chosen critically, and not rely on the advice of a "familiar" advertising agency that earns not on the real attraction of tourists, but only on advertising. Remember how in the monologue of the brilliant Mikhail Zhvanetsky:

“For five thousand rubles, he somehow managed to survive. I was already suffering for ten thousand rubles. But he felt real need when he began to receive sixty thousand rubles.

(For more on effective ways to promote tourism potential, see Chapter 11.)

6. A brand is not created by one person or his team. It is a product of the entire territory as a whole. A brand idea or promotion concept can be developed by one or more professionals in the field of territory promotion. This is fine. But to turn ideas on paper into a working brand, the participation of both the authorities and the local business community, and the involvement of local residents, and not just the initiatives of travel agencies, museums, hotels and restaurants, is necessary. A tourist will not be delighted with brand new lanterns if they illuminate a garbage dump or a broken road; if homeless people sleep next to a modern hotel, and inquisitive local teenagers opened the car left in the parking lot, taking part of the contents of the salon as a keepsake. This is a complex work for years to come. (For more on the issues of interaction between the tourist industry, government and local residents, see chapters 12 and 13.)

Yes, things are not as simple as we would like with travel brands…

Unlike sales of everyday products (tea, sausage, bread), here you need to build a strategy for years to come, and then achieve its step-by-step implementation. Is it possible otherwise? It is possible, but it will resemble Brownian motion... And your neighbors-competitors will learn from your mistakes.

It has its own rules of the game and its own methods of work, somewhat similar, but somewhat different from other areas of the economy, so you will have to master a new area of ​​​​knowledge - territory marketing.

And I want to end this introductory chapter with words from Holy Scripture, partly consonant with the ideas expressed above: “So the last will be first and the first last, for many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16; 22:14).

So it's time to roll up your sleeves...

Chapter 2
About marketing tasks of tourism development

We rarely fully understand what we really want.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French thinker and politician of the 17th century.

It is believed that a well-posed problem is a half-solved problem. If we analyze the situation with attracting tourists and creating tourism brands in our country, we will find that the task of "develop tourism" with the same wording carries a different meaning for different cities and regions. There are, of course, subtasks common to all: in particular, increasing the awareness of specific tourist sites, positioning the territory in the tourist market, or setting it apart from competing neighbors. But there are also special tasks that depend on the level of tourism development in the region, on the image of the region in the eyes of Russians, and on the guidelines that the authorities of the territory have set for themselves in the field of tourism. If we take as a basis the experience of developing tourism in the territory and analyze the tasks that arise at different stages, then we can conditionally divide all territories into five groups:

Group 1. "Old Guard". These are the regions and municipalities that Russians strongly associate with certain types of tourism, where a steady tourist flow has formed over many decades. These include the cities of the Golden Ring, resorts Krasnodar Territory and Caucasian Mineral Waters, Dombai and Elbrusye, Karelia, Altai, Baikal, of course, Moscow and St. Petersburg and a number of other territories and natural objects. The promotion of these territories has been actively carried out since Soviet times, but they also have an urgent need to develop new types of tourism, create new attractions, improve the level of service, etc. Why? To ensure that energetic competitors do not "steal away" their tourist flow, as well as to increase tourism revenue. Marketing tasks relevant for this group of territories are presented in Table 1.

Table No. 1

The solution of each of the listed tasks is not limited to advertising and PR, but implies a whole list of interrelated activities, including organizational and technical ones. The tasks mentioned above will also be useful for territories from other groups, but for them they are not top priorities.

Group 2. "Hidden reserve". This includes territories that really have significant objects of display, but did not have powerful advertising support in the past - "promotion" from the state - and for this reason are not very popular among Russians, and even more so among foreign tourists. Exceptions are residents of their region and immediate neighbors. These include: Perm Territory, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Buryatia, Adygea, the South Urals, Bashkortostan, the Arkhangelsk Region, Khakassia, etc. interaction with travel agencies, etc. Overcoming them is a matter of time and the will of the territory's leadership. As for advertising and marketing tasks, first of all, you need to pay attention to the tasks presented in Table 2.

Table number 2

Group 3. "Adapters". These include cities and regions, the tourism industry of which was based on a certain topic, which has lost its popularity among Russians over the years. As a result, there are attractions, but few tourists. The most striking example here is Ulyanovsk.

This group also includes those territories, the flow of tourists to which has become noticeably smaller compared to the Soviet period due to fears, misconceptions, and misunderstandings that have appeared in society. This applies, in particular, to the regions of the North Caucasus, as well as to those regions where there have been emergencies involving tourists. These seemingly different groups have the same task - to move from an already established niche in the mind Russian tourists into a new, more promising one. The key tasks for representatives of this group, as a rule, are the tasks presented in Table 3.

Table No. 3

Group 4. "Hermits". These are the territories that, for all their uniqueness, remain aloof from vigorous tourist activity due to the remoteness and high cost of passenger transportation from large Russian cities. This group can include Kamchatka, Chukotka, the Kola Peninsula, Yakutia, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territory and others. Sometimes the situation is complicated by a special access regime. Along with attracting Russian tourists, such regions should immediately establish work on the international market due to the greater solvency of foreign tourists and their increased interest in places untouched by civilization. Specific tasks for representatives of this group include the following (see table No. 4):

Group 5. "Clean sheets". These are cities, districts and regions that have embarked on the path of active tourism development quite recently, and in relation to which the bulk of Russian tourists have not yet developed any intelligible ideas. This includes the Republic of Komi, Mordovia, Udmurtia, Bryansk, Voronezh, Tambov, Kursk, Belgorod, Kirov, Omsk regions and a number of other republics, territories and regions. Of course, these regions also have something to be proud of and something to show to tourists. These are museums, temples, monasteries, reserves, ancient city buildings and estates, sanatoriums and boarding houses, etc. However, for a long time all these objects were focused mainly on residents of their region, and not on the flow of thousands of guests from all over the country - hence absence of stereotypes.

Unlike the others, this group of regions should start not so much from their own resources and ambitions as from what others do not have, that is, look for free niches and close them. It's difficult, but there is no other way.

It is possible that the idea to develop tourism in these regions is nothing more than a fashionable fad in connection with the next “party task”. If so, then there is no need to waste your efforts. It is better to invest the allocated funds in landscaping or social projects. If the leadership of the municipality or region takes tourism seriously, then it is necessary to start with the marketing tasks presented in Table 5.

Table No. 5

The formulation of tasks is, of course, good, but how to solve them and what exactly to do? We will talk about this in the following chapters of this book. And summing up this chapter, I will mention three more tasks that all territories face to one degree or another:

1. Attract investors to create tourism infrastructure (this applies to both external investors and interaction with local businesses).

. This type of distribution was originally discovered in linguistics and reflected the relationship between the frequency of use of words and their popularity. But later it turned out that such a distribution is also characteristic of biology, economics, sociology, science of science, etc. More details: Vikentiev I.L. Living dictionary of a business coach: 300 terms, 190 examples. - St. Petersburg: TRIZ-CHANCE, 2007. P. 149.

The proposed classification was developed by the author and, like any classification, is a simplified model. However, it helps to better understand the differences in setting goals for territories with different “tourist heritage”.

The term "price justification" was proposed by S.V. Sychev, director of the company "Sychev and K" (Rostov-on-Don). Justifying the price implies a convincing answer to the question why the price of a given product or service is the way it is, and why the investment of these funds is justified.

A fairly significant proportion of our regular customers are various travel agencies operating both in major cities millionaires, as well as in small provincial cities in Russia and abroad. Regardless of the scale and specifics of the agency's work, for everyone, without exception, the primary task is to attract customers and the desire to see them as their favorite regulars.

In this material, we will try to highlight some of the important points, in our opinion, without which the success of travel companies in an ultra-competitive environment is almost impossible. We hope this information will be useful to newcomers to agency activities or simply adopted.

So, a little about the most important thing:

1. Travel agency website

The website of a travel agency is one of the indispensable tools for attracting customers and promoting tourism services today. If a few years ago it was enough to have a business card website with information about a travel agency with directions and contacts, today technology has gone far ahead. Business card sites, or even the absence of it at all, no longer attract the mass consumer, when all sorts of online services for searching and booking tours, tickets, hotels, excursions, in general, various tourist products are already working around. In fact, the main task of the site is to actively participate in search engines, clearly and in maximum detail to show the future tourist all kinds of company offers, and be sure to provide the opportunity to place an order or book a tour you like. It is important that the site itself is user-friendly, informative and easy to navigate. Each of tourist destinations for which the travel agency works, it is desirable to colorfully arrange photos, routes, hotel descriptions, additional services, and, of course, truthful prices. Eye-catching holiday promotions and special offers on the main page of the site will always be appropriate and be sure to be studied by visitors. Do not forget that for many visitors to the site, reviews and recommendations from other tourists play a certain role. The visible active participation of the travel agency's clients, as a rule, evokes a feeling of trust and openness. If the site contains various online services for the selection of tours, air and railway tickets, hotels, car rentals and any other ancillary services with the execution of an application or reservation, this gives the site the advantage of round-the-clock 24-hour work, automatic support for the relevance of offers, an integrated approach to service to your potential customers. Be sure to be in the most prominent place and an element of quick feedback from the company's employees, for example, in the form of a call order form or an online consultant. To date, a certain proportion of tourist clients do not want to call up or go to a travel agency at the stage of selecting a tour or paying for it. Do not exclude such tourists from your future customers.

A good website often encourages a purchase. And how to bring more customers to this site is the second and very important task. There are many methods for promoting tourist sites now, the only question is the size of the advertising budget. Let's consider the main advertising mechanisms from expensive to free:

· Website optimization for search engines

The so-called search promotion as an Internet advertising tool is generally responsible for the visibility (rating) of the site in the process of searching by customers and for increasing customer traffic to the site through transitions (clicks) to it from search engines. The higher the site ranks on the search results page for key client queries, the more likely the user is to go to this site for the information they are looking for. As a rule, the first 2-3 pages of the search are the most viewed. And then either the user formulates his request differently, studies the results on subsequent pages, goes to cross-references or to other search engines. The site is optimized both from the inside in the admin part of the site, where you can prescribe keywords for search engines. And also various methods of black and white optimization have some popularity. This includes exchanging links with similar sites, registering in directories, distributing company news, posting articles, participating in forums, etc. As a rule, the result of the work done is not immediately visible, but only after a few months. It is labor-intensive and, therefore, rather costly. Without special training or dedicated specialists, it may not bring the desired results. The main thing in this matter is to correctly approach the process itself or the choice of the contractor. For clarity: in order to correctly build optimization criteria, you can take into account and study the statistics of key queries on any search resource: wordstat.yandex.ru(from Yandex), adwords.google.com from Google, adstat.rambler.ru from Rambler.

· contextual advertising

Contextual advertising is another kind of using text advertising of a travel agency on the search results page in search engines and various thematic partner sites. Submission of advertisements in search engines is carried out above and to the right of the results with the indication "as an advertisement" or within the partner sites themselves. Again, the right choice of key queries and payment for them to search engines play an important role here. This method is much less expensive than search engine optimization and does not require high professionalism of the performer. The advertisement will be guaranteed to be shown the number of times you need, and the payment for its placement will be deducted gradually and not so hard on your pocket. Contextual advertising is suitable for promoting hot tours, promotions, special offers, as well as hotels and complex tour packages, promoting a travel agency or advertising a tour operator. The most popular contextual advertising services now: Yandex.Direct, Yandex Advertising Network, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Begun.

· Tourist sites (forums, reviews, articles, reviews)

Placing master classes, expert articles, thematic interviews, presentations of new destinations, competitions with prizes on tourist sites, of course, will be a significant plus for a travel company actively promoting its brand. You can also attract the attention of visitors with the help of banner advertising. The main thing is to monitor its effectiveness. An effective way to advertise a travel agency, promote tours, build loyalty and image of a travel company is participation in travel forums. Nowadays, there are many sites and portals for tourism, where visitors leave reviews, photos, share their impressions of their trips, learn information about countries, resorts, cities, culture and customs of the visited country, etc. A travel company can use and demonstrate its professionalism by leaving useful articles and recommendations on various tourism topics. This format of direct communication allows you to talk about the benefits of a particular type of recreation, increase confidence in the company and its employees. Of the most popular and most visited tourist sites in the tourist environment, we can distinguish: Tonkosti. en, tourdom. ru, Tourprom.ru , Travel.ru , Tourbus.ru , Votpusk.ru , Travel.mail.ru, Travel.rambler.ru, Turizm.ru, Otzyv.ru, Turpravda.com, Tourinfo.ru, Svali.ru and many other regional portals. Be experts in your field.

Travel agency advertising in social networks is a fairly effective and still free way to promote tourism services, the tourism product itself, support the image of the travel agency and brand awareness. increases every day. Just like on a website, it is quite possible to inform customers on social networks about their promotions, special offers, hot tours and discounts, to accept applications and requests for tours. It is important that social networks are an effective tool for studying the opinions of their consumers, their preferences and wishes, and satisfaction with the services received. Do not forget about comments and useful articles in the blogosphere. Form a social image, try to be closer to your customers.

3. Loyalty programs

To sell tours and special offers, a travel company can cooperate with various coupon services. According to the reviews of the tourists themselves and travel agents, this just starting service is gradually gaining some popularity and brings the desired sales. Of these most promoted services, one can note biglion .ru, groupon.ru, kupikupon.ru, kuponkin.ru and so on by analogy. You can also interest customers with all kinds of joint promotions with tour operators with advertising both on their website and on other partner sites (the so-called cross-marketing promotion). To support the client base of regular customers, you can organize the issuance of certificates and loyalty cards with discounts and open source software on the travel agency website. We must not forget that there is a category of customers who will always and under any circumstances look for discounts and Special offers. Make an attractive offer to your customers.

4. Selling tourist product

In the matter of advertising, one cannot but say about the tourist product itself. After all, most of the advertising company is always aimed at selling a tourist product. Choosing the right tourism product and your target audience is generally task number 1 before starting all tourism activities. The range of tourist services is quite wide: inbound and outbound tourism, mass and individual destinations, VIP tours, medical resorts, business and educational trips, etc. Each area of ​​activity has a number of features and requires its own special approach for advertising on the site and promotion on the Internet. It is certainly easier to sell last-minute tours to popular visa-free countries, but the competition is higher. And vice versa, if you have exclusive tour packages, you will have to be careful and work clearly in your segment. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the choice of a tourist product and additional services. There should always be something that sets you apart from your competitors.

5. Corporate culture

This is one of the important points in our opinion in the process of attracting customers. When even every potential client is on the account, the work of a travel agency cannot be imagined without maintaining a corporate customer base. The advantage of such intra-office programs should be precisely those tools that will allow you to build relationships with customers more effectively. The most popular tools in automated software systems include e-mail and sms-informing services, selection and booking services, task planners and organizers, reminder systems, guides to countries and customer tours, and various crm elements. Since the effect of word of mouth has not yet been canceled in tourism, you should definitely take care of the pre-sales and after-sales ethics and manner of communicating with customers. When attracting potential tourists to the site, you must always be ready to professionally answer any of their questions, quickly select options for requests and explain the advantages of this selection. All this gives the work of a travel agency manager an irreplaceable professionalism. The main thing is that more than one visitor to the site and the client who seeks services does not go unnoticed and unaccounted for. And the proof of high-quality and professional work with clients can be various independent ratings in which the travel agency can be evaluated. Examples of such ratings at http://firms.turizm.ru/firms_rating/ , travel top. en. Turn your experience to your advantage.

This topic, of course, is much broader than described in this article. The print media and other offline methods of attracting customers are not affected here. It is also important not to forget about the seasonality of demand and the appropriate adjustment of the advertising mechanisms used. Correction for your main target audience, whether it is a VIP vacation or mass destinations, is also important when choosing promotion methods. Form a positive image of your company, improve the quality of work and loyalty to the company, do not forget about your brand recognition.

If readers are interested, we can, with a certain frequency, develop a series of publications on topics that are most relevant in tourism. It is enough to indicate your questions in the comments to this article.

Think about what makes your city unique? To do this, make a list of all the activities and attractions that are in your city. Tourists are more interested in things they can do and see in a city than where it is located. First of all, tourists will find out what entertainment is available in the city, and only then - where is it located. Examples: watching white nights in St. Petersburg or rock climbing in Krasnoyarsk.

• Focus on activities and attractions that are unique to the city. Even a small or odd landmark can draw visitors and attention to a city (from the world's largest paper clip to artificial waves on a river). Ask yourself: “Why is this city worth visiting? What is there that tourists cannot get or see elsewhere?”
• Work with the tourism development committee and focus on the top three things your city has to offer. The more facts you provide, the more interesting the city will become for tourists.

Conduct a survey among residents of the city. The survey is an important tool in assessing tourist attractiveness. With it, you can collect information about the city and make sure that the public agrees with the tourist vision of the city. Talk to people face-to-face or conduct a telephone survey. Ask the following questions:

• What do you think attracts visitors to the city?
• What kind of visitors might be interested in the city?
• What can be done to make the time spent by tourists in the city brighter?

Conduct a survey among tourists. You can talk with tourists face to face at a local supermarket. Tourists can also be asked to sign up for a newsletter and send them an email survey. Ask the following questions:

• Where are you from?
• What interested you in our city?
• How did you hear about this attraction?
• What institutions have you been to?
• What facilities or services does the city need?
• The words of previous tourists or current visitors to the city will help to understand how to improve the stay of tourists in the future.

Make a marketing plan. To do this, you need to define target marketing segments. Determine the target places that will attract the largest number of tourists. It can be a well-known hiking trail, an important cultural and historical monument or a museum. Then categorize those places by trip length and identify the customer base that the city might be interested in. Draw a diagram and break it down into the following categories:

• Geographic locations with a section for day trips, night trips and long visits.
• Recreation in the bosom of nature, such as camping, hiking, fishing and picnicking.
• Entertainment - historical monuments, fairs and festivals, shopping and local food.
• Other travel purposes such as business trips and family travel.

From Rostourism. In 2014, which is associated with the beginning of the crisis, 42,921 tourist trips abroad were registered among Russian citizens. In 2017 - 39,629.

Yes, there is definitely a downward trend. But 7 or even 8 percent is not the figure that can "kill" the market. People travel, and in the TOP-20 for 2017 there are Germany, Israel, Italy - countries with far from the lowest prices.

If so, where are the clients?

Many travel companies emerged in the first decade after the collapse of the USSR. At that time, people who had just collapsed the "Iron Curtain" were enough to simply hand over a plane ticket and a hotel reservation, and that's it. The person is happy. He has escaped to see the world and can tell his friends how it is abroad.

Time has passed, and now the bulk of potential customers for the tourism business are children of the 80s and 90s. With a different worldview, more free and independent.

They do not want to lie belly up on the beaches of Antalya. Unless once a year, when you need to "walk" parents and a small child. And they don't want to crowd with dozens of complete strangers around the next cathedral or monument. It is they who can organize their own vacation via the Internet, without intermediaries.

What do they want? Bright, juicy impressions that are difficult to get on your own. Hot air balloon flight over Cappadocia. Walk through the "secret" courtyards of Istanbul. A trip to the "Hobbit Village" in New Zealand. Participation in the national holiday. They want to realize their dreams and sparkle with beautiful photos on social networks.

Conclusion: the market is changing, and we need to change with it.

Promising niches for the next few years

Here we come to the main point. You can talk as much as you like about how the world is changing, but where to run? What can be done to attract the current generation of tourists who are hungry for variety and experiences?

First of all, move from standard solutions to unique ones. Develop your own routes, establish relationships with new format tour operators, collaborate with private guides.

And most importantly, treat the tourism business as creativity, and not as a craft. Creativity is in fashion today - in the broadest sense of the word.

Here are some examples of fertile niches:

• Organization individual tours. People who have money don't want to travel like everyone else. Give them the opportunity to book a tour with the most flexible conditions, without standard solutions. This niche is already beginning to be explored by large tour operators, such as TUI and PAC. They organize trips on individual requests to almost any country in the world, without reference to ready-made "packages". There are also small private companies like White Label Travel, which specializes in the premium segment. But this part of the tourism market can still accommodate many companies.
• Organization of thematic tours. Biking trips, diving tours, cooking classes - find those destinations that interest you and where you can offer something unusual. It is with this approach that Velovuyki, who organize cycling trips around Europe, or Safari Tours, which specialize in diving tours and dive safari, have become popular in their niches. By the way, large tour operators also often make such programs - designed not for a wide audience, but for separate thematic segments. This means that the market exists.
• Organization of author's tours. Bloggers have huge readerships, and many of them specialize in travel. In partnership with them, you can develop unusual programs. For example, one of my favorite projects, Travel Inside, grew out of a purely "blogging" format. They do not have a special thematic niche, they use a different approach - they collect their own warm audience that travels only with them. You can do the same or partner with popular bloggers and organize tours together.
• Organization of tourist groups in a club format. Accommodation, transportation, entertainment and attractions are the bare minimum for organized groups. But you can go further and arrange parties, socializing and other team building elements during your trips. Prominent representatives of this format can be One Life and Mikhail Kozhukhov's Travel Club. Their clients are not just groups that meet every few days and say goodbye forever. No, they ride with them and with each other for many years.
• Organization of tours in Russia for foreigners. All the same approaches can be used within your own country (unusual, author's, thematic tours). Examples include Express to Russia or ExploRussia, as well as foreign companies such as Responsibletravel, which organize tours to Russia for foreigners. They focus not only on history and typical walks in the center of Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also on natural attractions, holidays, national cuisine. The market exists, but is not yet filled with competition, and the scope for new business is huge.

Personal experience

I started working in the tourism business in 2015, in the midst of another crisis. The bulk of clients are from the countries of the former Soviet Union. At that moment, my husband and I managed to intuitively find the right direction and we founded Time 2 Travel club - a company for organizing individual travel.

What worked well:

• Experience and own example. We travel a lot in Europe and Asia, we constantly write about it on our social networks, and customers trust our advice on choosing attractions and hotels. Moreover, they want us, as people who have seen everything with their own eyes, to advise them on the best options.
• Individual approach. We do not offer ready-made tours, but ask what the client would like. Yes, often the choice comes down to one of a dozen popular countries for which we already have blanks. But this is how the client gets involved in the process, starts planning a trip even before the moment of payment, feels that this is his trip, his dream is being realized. And, as a result, he goes with us to the very end, and does not look at how his competitors are doing.
• Honesty. We play openly and tell our clients: this is the cost of travel, this is our commission. Oddly enough, they trade extremely rarely - apparently, they understand that earnings on one trip are not so great, and they do not fantasize about huge hidden commissions. We also always honestly tell people what they pay for, why one option is more expensive or cheaper than another, what to expect on the spot. This is highly valued and pays off handsomely in the form of positive reviews.

With the organization of individual tours, this was a good decision, and we decided to go further. Now we are expanding our business and will soon launch an online project under the same name Time 2 Travel - a search engine that will bring together organizers of excursions, tours and tourist attractions, as well as travelers who are looking for unusual experiences.

Photo: on

This new project grew out of our pain as travel organizers: it's hard to find quality excursions and entertainment. When clients ask to organize a walk around Istanbul or Paris, the last thing they want is to get on the standard “historical information” that lasts several hours. I would like to find a person who loves this city, lives it and not only tells and shows, but gives travelers impressions.

Here we can again return to the issue of free niches in the tourism business. Agree, a guide is not the rarest profession. But if you do not work like everyone else, but do something unusual, of really high quality and from the heart, and not according to standard templates, it will be much easier for you to find your audience and sell your services to them at good prices.

A few key words

Free niches are constantly appearing on the market and finding them is not so difficult. What you need is to keep track of how people's preferences change. Yesterday they just wanted organizations within the framework of "visa, ticket, hotel" - it was necessary to meet these needs. Today they want entertainment, impressions and beautiful photographs - these new desires must be satisfied. Tomorrow this will also change and other areas of tourism will begin to gain popularity.

To keep your finger on the pulse, it is useful to regularly read social networks and forums, listen to feedback, and most importantly, ask your audience directly. This should all be part of a continuous and regular workflow.

Don't be afraid of negative reviews. When a client says something is missing, they are giving you the most valuable free consultation and actually pointing out what needs to be improved. In the same way, you can follow the reviews of competitors and draw ideas: what their customers like, what they don’t like.

With this approach, you are unlikely to run out of ideas. Of course, then there is a lot of work to be done to implement the plan, but this is a topic for another story.