September’s International Day of Tourism is celebrated all over the world and can provide entrepreneurs with a great opportunity to pause and evaluate how the business performed over the peak summer period. How is your small business affected by tourism and what can you do to make sure you make the most of it?
Tourists can be great customers for your business as they are usually looking for unique experiences, and have the budget to pay for them. Attracting travellers to your business shouldn’t be difficult – all you need to do is a little pre-planning to work out where your potential customers are and how you can make your business as visible as possible.
Search
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world and can provide huge potential for growth when harnessed in the right way. Attract new customers by making yourself as visible as possible. Consider investing in improving your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on the website. This will boost how prominent your business is in Google’s search results when potential customers look for products or services that you provide.
Social media
While social media marketing plays a key role in any small business operation, it can also help attract tourists as they plan their holiday. Think about which social networks are your current customers engaging with and how can you target and attract similar users who are not local to your business? Facebook for example has lookalike audience tools, whereby you can target posts to a demographic similar to your current audience. Make information easy to find – your address, opening hours, telephone number and website should all be visible. As for the posts themselves, rich media – such as images and video – are proven to be more engaging and shareable than text alone.
Read feedback
If your business offers a service, sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp and Yell give customers an opportunity to leave feedback about the service you have provided, and provide insight to potential visitors. Make sure you keep track of what people are saying about your business, and always reply to people who have asked questions, made complaints, or given you praise. Tourists will often research a venue, restaurant or attraction before they visit and a bad review that is not addressed could lose your business. If you get a really great review, don’t be afraid to share it on your social media channels and website – this will inspire confidence in the quality of your business and could be the deciding factor.
Look at your service
Put yourself in your customers shoes. You should always provide a service that you would want to receive yourself. But in order to maximise your appeal to tourists, you may want to consider teaching your staff a few basic phrases in different languages. Free apps such as Duolingo can help with this. Consider what kind of information tourists are commonly looking for and make sure your staff are ready to provide it. For example, if you are a car hire company, you should know where the nearby tourist destinations are and what times and days they are open. Recommendations on how to spend a day, or how to find that local hidden gem restaurant can be invaluable information.
Expand your horizons
Think about where tourists might go in your city and bring your business to them. You could attend a prominent farmer’s or craft market in the city centre, for example, or take part in an annual festival. Search online and via social media to find opportunities and visit to see if your business is a good fit.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Kia Fleet sponsor of the Guardian Small Business Network Accessing Expertise hub.
