Pricing Strategies to Boost Online Ticketing Sales in 2024
January 19, 2024
There are constant ups and downs in visitor attraction management regarding visitor demand and ticket sales that can be influenced by school or national holidays, the day of the week, the weather, and more.
There are few better feelings than seeing your attraction thrive at peak times, but when you’re suffering from a downturn in guests, you may start to worry about your income.
In this blog, our industry experts look at the factors behind visitor inconsistency and suggest how flexible pricing could be the key to improving ticket sales throughout 2024!
What Can Cause Visitor Numbers to Rise and Fall?
There are several factors that can affect visitor numbers at different attractions and, while some are self-explanatory, there are others you may not have thought of.
For most attractions, peak times tend to be the weekends and school holidays (especially in summer) when people tend to be off work and out of school. This results in a comparative slump in visitor numbers during the week and in term time.
Additionally, outdoor attractions like theme parks or farm parks tend to be busier in better, sunnier weather while museums, historic houses, and aquariums may be more popular on darker, duller days.
Major infrastructural closures, like train tracks or motorways, current inflation rates, or natural disasters could also affect your attraction, as people assess the time, cost, and safety repercussions of a potential trip.
Your international visitor numbers may also be affected by flight prices, the strength of the pound in the global economy, or even geopolitical issues outside of your control.
What is Flexible Pricing Functionality?
Flexible pricing is the process of manually adapting ticket prices to your attraction based on external factors, such as those listed above, to help provide you with an increased and more consistent income throughout the year.
It can be used to give better deals to your customers during quieter periods, encouraging them to visit year-round, or when booking far in advance to help you better plan your operations and resource management.
Flexible pricing is a win-win for your attraction and your customers. Your guests can receive special deals and cheaper tickets while you are able to maximise your income during difficult periods.
Increase Guest Numbers and Visitor Spend
The most important way flexible pricing can help your income is by increasing the number of guests at off-peak times. By offering cheaper tickets or special deals when you expect to be quieter, you can increase the number of guests coming through your door.
This may sound counterintuitive as it means a reduced income from entry tickets, but there are a few reasons why this is not the case:
- These tickets may not have sold otherwise
- More visitors through the door can lead to an increased visitor spend within your attraction, at locations such as your gift shop or eateries
- If you operate a charitable organisation, this could result in a greater number of donations
- More visitors could mean more reviews and recommendations, both online and through word of mouth.
All of these can help boost your income now and in future, potentially opening the door to both first-time and returning visitors.
Reduce Staffing Costs and Expenditure
Giving early-bird deals will make people more likely to book in advance, allowing you to adapt your staff numbers and operations accordingly.
Fewer staff and large administrative tasks can be scheduled for the days when you can see low visitor numbers, allowing you to complete necessary operations more quickly and save on staffing costs.
Plus, if you encourage all your visitors to book digitally, you could implement a timed ticketing system which can help improve visitor spread over the course of a single day. This will help avoid a rush at certain times which can lead to a reduction in customer satisfaction. This could be especially useful during the school holidays and weekends, provided that your attraction doesn’t take a full day to experience.
Implement Flexible Pricing at Your Attraction in 2024
Using a digital ticketing system that can process and implement pricing changes quickly is key and could be the secret to you maximising your income this year. Not only is it a significantly cheaper alternative to AI-powered dynamic pricing software, but it also allows you greater flexibility in setting your prices when you need to.
If you twin this functionality with a comprehensive data analysis process, which can help reveal trends and patterns that indicate the optimal times to increase or decrease admission costs, you could start building a comprehensive pricing strategy to ensure maximum revenue year-round.
Get in touch with Vennersys to find out more about our flexible pricing functionality and how we can work together to develop a pricing strategy that could benefit your attraction! Call our office on 01908 735 274 or email contact@vennersys.com and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible.
