Binna Burra - open for business, in the week too. Courtesy Binna Burra.
Expecting a steady year-round flow of bookings for any destination is a big ask at the best of times. And we are not in the best of times, right now. So how can operators make most efficient use of their facilities and attractions to ensure predictable footfalls all year long? Jeremy Torr investigates.
Singapore, October 2020. Keeping booking numbers up in the off-season is always a challenge. Luckily, eco-tourism destinations have a slightly less onerous task than the sun-sand-sea destinations that feature huge crushes of humanity in summer, and empty beaches in winter. Broadly speaking, eco-tourists are looking for substance on their visits, rather than vacuous environments but even so, attracting bookings during winter, wet season, or post disaster can be a very real challenge.
“Now we have partially recovered from the 2019 bushfires, we have enough (usable) accommodation to keep our bookings up at the weekends, but our big challenge is getting people here mid week,” says Steven Noakes, Chairman at Binna Burra Lodge, Queensland. Noakes adds that one of the other major challenges that Binna Burra has faced has been raising money to help with rebuilding.
“We were what you could call the first ever Australian crowdfunded, nature-based venture back in 1933,” he explains, “so we have a long history of custodianship from people and families that have been involved for generations.” Noakes says that this sense of belonging to local society has made a big difference to visitor numbers - and raising money.
Generating Binna Burra’s level of community support involvement takes time – possibly years – but pays long term dividends to operators who can call on friends to help fill rooms as well as support in material ways.
Other strategies to homogenise and manage demand at eco-destinations come from federal trade bodies to marketing gurus to local government worthies. They include tried and tested options such as offering special Flash Sale prices timed for when potential customers are looking for options; calling on a well-maintained customer list (even using a newsletter to emphasise belonging); targeting the educational sector during term-time when specific activities reflect curriculum needs; staging a specially-designed competition that highlights the unique attractions of the destination; and setting up selected cross-marketing projects that call on the expertise of strategic partners. Add to that, says Noakes, the importance of imprinting.
A heritage of community and educational participation is a massive asset for generating repeat visitor numbers year round. Courtesy Binna Burra.
“Making your operation kid-friendly is so important,” adds Noakes. “This means they remember visiting when they were small, bring their kids in turn, and that goes down through generations. It’s a core part of our operation, and it is a strong part of the loyalty we see from (repeat) visitors.”
Building on all of these approaches can help bring more predictability and promote year round demand, notes Randy Durband, president of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, but operators must also dial in their unique situations and challenges to ensure they retain a unique and workable marketing angle.
"All (attractions) need meaningful destination-management plans and management structures that ensure sustainability in a very broad sense," said Durband. "And that includes addressing the issue of seasonality.”
Luckily, selective forms of tourism such cultural tourism and ecotourism “show lower concentration of tourist arrivals” across particular times of the year, and seem to be showing a trend towards evening out across the seasons, according to research. “The concentration of tourist demand for … cultural and ecotourism is more evenly (spread) throughout the year, ensuring the sustainability of development,” suggests Goran Ćorluka from the University of Split, Croatia. And even if the visitors do tail off, the relative downtime can be used usefully. Wendy Bithell of Vision Walk-Eco Tours used the spare hours to creatively diversify her business in association with a local government-run cultural program.
Wendy Bithell mixes real with online virtual as part of her strategy to engage more people, more of the time. Courtesy Vision Walk-Eco Tours.
“This year our Dark Science event delivers bite-size happenings and experiences,” says Bithell’s website. “They will take place online, in person, under cover of night and in the trees. We are looking at … ancient Indigenous Astronomy, creatures under cover of night, emerging forests and … discovering the art in science.” This kind of reaching out allows Bithell’s operation to establish itself as an expert operator, offers a glimpse of free marketing, and also showcases what real visitors can expect when they do visit.
As Australian federal agency Austrade notes, one key to keeping customer arrivals up is “creating a business environment where ecotourism and nature-based tourism can thrive”. It suggest that, like Bithell, operators can tap into National, State and Local Government policies and adapt them, at little or no cost, to encourage valid ecotourism experiences on an ongoing basis. But one of the most valuable assets for any operation, asserts Binna Burra’s Noakes, is its representative support base.
“We have had a Friends of Binna Burra group since 1985,” he says. “It is mostly older people that are members, but they are very active in plant propagation and tree planting, keeping weeds down and so on. But recently we have started a new group: Millenials of Binna Burra (MoBBs).”
Noakes says that today’s millennials “represent ambitious and creative young people capable of rethinking the world with their approaches to corporate social responsibility” and that they are vital to maintaining interest in eco-tourism. “As we lay the foundations of the (future) of Binna Burra, we would be wise to engage the inputs of the millennial generation,” he observes.
Indeed, innovative approaches like this are expanding the base, and the potential visit numbers too through “new and bold conversations with people who have the enthusiasm, energy and skills to initiate technological, social and environmental change” he adds.
“You can never stop people from littering, chasing animals and not considering the environment,” he says. “But we can help educate more people as to why it is not a good thing.”
Get more ecotourism insights from Steven Noakes, a speaker at the 2019 Global Ecotourism Asia Pacific Conference. The premier event of Ecotourism Australia will be held from 1 to 3 December 2020 in Margaret River, Western Australia. Live streaming options are available too; register today.