Date :
18/12/2014
Knowing your market: mod-stalgia
Mod-stalgia, the idea of nostalgia, but with a contemporary perspective, could prove a valuable tool for Scottish tourism businesses. Mod-stalgia takes the emotional associations of the past but incorporates all the comforts of a 21st century holiday.
Glamping takes all of the fun bits of camping but adds a little comfort and luxury. It includes any type of accommodation from bell tents and yurts with wood burning stoves, timber wigwams, to treehouses and converted railway carriages.
Chris Greenwood Senior Tourism Insight Manager for VisitScotland and Graham Anderson of Loch Ness Glamping share their thoughts.
Some key points from the webinar:
- Holiday makers want to give their children the good bits of their own childhood holidays but without having to stay in a damp and draughty tent. It’s serious fun.
- Staycations: the stay-at-home holiday is an increasing trend among UK holiday makers. It’s great value for money and a chance to re-engage with your own area. Scotland has so much to offer close to hand, and it's particularly fun to show visitors around.
- Collaborate: work collectively on a community scale to create opportunities to dovetail the visitor experiences with other local businesses.
Music Tourism
This webinar discusses how music tourism is a huge draw for visitors, both local and international.
Speakers are Olaf Furniss, from community music industry advisers Born to be Wide, and Robert Philips, Chairman of The Salmon Bothy in Portsoy.
Music tourism is not just about rock festivals. It includes
- visitors touring folk or jazz festivals
- Going to a stadium concert
- Going to see musicals
- Seeing impromptu live music during a holiday
- Pilgrimages to record shops
- Seeing music as part of another festival, e.g. the Portsoy Boat Festival.
Some key points from the webinar:
- Music brings people to an area, not just cities - it’s a great draw for rural areas.
- Music establishes an emotional connection to a place.
- Glasgow's SSE Hydro demonstrates the influx of people on a large scale, but small community events, e.g. Ullapool’s Loopallu festival, bring in important revenue to an area.
- Collaborate: Build relationships with local businesses – e.g. caterers. It’s a two-way process. Portsoy festival takes music out into the community, e.g. to distilleries.
- Scottish folk music has a huge international appeal.
Booking trends and working with the travel trade
Rebecca Brooks from destination management tour operator Abbey Tours and
Alister Paul from Kings Manor Hotel in Edinburgh discuss their perspectives on current booking trends.
Some key points from the webinar:
- The huge trend in online booking has changed booking behaviour dramatically.
- With online booking there’s no way to contact customers before they arrive which makes things a little trickier. You don’t know what they want before they arrive.
- Opportunities: Accommodation providers can end up picking up the pieces when customers get it wrong. Work with local providers to sort things quickly and see it as opportunities to provide a good service.
- There’s a high demand for experiential travel – putting together packages for visitors. Over 50 percent of customers are looking for a packaged travel arrangement rather than trying to book for themselves. It’s most important amongst overseas group travellers.
- Growth markets over the next five years are South East Asia and China, India, Thailand, Korea, Japan, while Germany remains strong.
- Embrace social media. Tripadvisor is important for engaging with your customers. Don’t fear it, you have a right to reply and use it to set some context; you have the last word.