Donna and I just got back from a trip to Wisconsin to visit our daughters and grand children. It was interesting to see how tourism in Door County compared to what's happening here. It was practically a mirror image.
It has been a long-term trend nation-wide for vacation periods to be shortened from the traditional week long vacation that we enjoyed when we were kids. Today people are busy and vacations tend to be three to four days; this holds here in the Northeast and in the Midwest as well. This does not bode well for cottage rentals that are still in the Saturday-to-Saturday or Sunday-to-Sunday mode. It limits the market. I think you’ll see more cottage rentals change their traditional week long rentals to allow shorter stays in the future.
It’s also been a trend, but now is simply reality, to see reservations come in just prior to a planned stay. The Internet is a marvelous planning tool for the tourism industry. Today, 60% of all tourism planning takes place on line. The good news is that little places like Camden, Rockland and Door County can (and do) have great websites that are as good as anything in the country. We can’t cross promote like Orlando or Aspen or San Diego, but we can give the viewer a great experience.
Only ten years ago, most people made their summer and fall hotel reservations months in advance to be sure to guarantee a room in the inn. Today, the same potential visitor can go online and check out room availabilities. If there are plenty of occupancies in the area, they can hold off on making a reservation. Add to this the fact that most of us have become amateur meteorologists. We can get reliable weather information online for weather up to ten days out. If it looks like a rainy weekend ahead, it may be better to stay home and rake the leaves. The tourism destination loses out.
This has resulted in many tourism destinations becoming weekend, holiday and weather-driven. That’s not healthy for the tourism industry.
The answer may be in refocusing tourism marketing efforts to places that require a plane trip to get here. Right now we are primarily a drive market for people who are a tank away. What if the state shifted some promotion from our core markets of Boston and New York to cities that are one hop away from Portland, Bangor or Manchester airports? Think about it. When you fly somewhere you book early to get a great rate. Then you book a car to be sure there’s one waiting for you and you reserve your hotel room so that you don’t get stuck without a reservation. Now if you go on line the week before your trip and see that there may be some inclement weather, the process of canceling the plane trip, the rental car and the hotel is pretty problematic. You go, regardless of the weather. We win. The hotel has a reservation and the restaurants, stores, museums and other attractions get customers trying to stay dry.
1 comment:
Hello Bob
You make some interesting points here. My focus is the Ontario, Canada, cottage tourism industry and we are firmly fixed on the Saturday/Saturday, Sunday/Sunday regime of reservations,in high season. This year I noticed a much higher proportion of first time vacation renters looking for shorter periods and being sadly disappointed. However our cottage owners here should not become complacent. As you point out, there is a trend toward savvy consumers driving the market in different directions and these new demands may take their toll on the industry in the future.
Tourism is changing and we must all look for more creative ways of dealing with it.
Heather at www.cottagenews.ca
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