Worldwide
April 23, 2024
Worldwide
It can be very lonely running an attraction and even more daunting if you are considering creating one from scratch.
There are some great membership groups around to help. We love NFAN for the farm park market and BALPPA in the general attractions market and IAPPA and the TEA for all things themed throughout the world. All of these offer loads of camaraderie, the opportunity to share experiences and industry-specific training. They both offer great value for members and as with most things, the more you put into your membership, the more you get out of it.
But there are some areas where nothing less than exceptional professional advice, borne out of real experience, is required. Getting these right will mean you have a much greater chance of profitability and long term success.
Let's look at a few of them.
This is absolutely critical. Understanding your market from the outset and what numbers your attraction is capable of achieving will give you confidence in your investment and create a business offer that is differentiated, stands out from the crowd and has a clear place in the market. It also ensures you develop an attraction and experience to the correct scale of your potential audience.
We all know that cash flow is king (and queen) for any business. Understanding when the money needs to be spent and how it will begin to come in can be the difference between success and failure, but also the security you need to attract and justify the investment into your project.
One of the aspects of attraction design you have to consider is how many staff you will need to operate it on a cold wet Tuesday in February when the kids are (reluctantly) back at school. understanding how to staff your attraction on every day of the year you're open is an essential skill. It will ensure great customer service every day and keep your most expensive overhead - your people - down to a minimum too.
No-one enjoys paying for insurance, so why pay more for a lower level of cover. Some of the figures we have seen for some attractions are extortionate, with heavy increase this year. The membership organisations always have a few specialist insurers amongst them who would be worth speaking to in the first instance.
We know this isn’t the most exciting subject but it is essential for opening and operating safely. We have worked with specialists who know the industry, know the risks and know how to mitigate them for you.
With the hard work done, the soft stuff matters. Creating a strong brand that is clear and differentiated is critical for potential customers see you, understand your offer and want to visit. Inviting the right influencers and achieving the right coverage can create cool from before day one. Planning and managing the ongoing marketing, social advertising and listings will drive the right type of traffic to your website and your attraction.
AI is changing the face of ticketing but there's no substitute for a brilliant intuitive system that's easy to implement and creates a great user experience for visitors. If you don't know your conversion rate from browsers to buyers, we do, and we know how to make all of the incremental changes to keep your tills ringing!
And this is where our sister company Quercle comes in. Over our years of creating, operating and more lately designing and building attractions, we have met and worked with many or most of the best advisors in all of these sectors.
We know them, we have worked with them and we absolutely trust their work. So where the operating experience isn’t our own, Quercle has partnered with the best people and companies we know, to help make your attraction succeed.
If you'd like to talk any of this through, feel like you need some help, or friendly advice, drop us a line and if we don't know the answer we know someone who will.
