Whether your park has been welcoming guests for six months or sixteen years, driving repeat bookings is a constant struggle.
While it’s always important to try and draw in new custom, repeat bookings are a large part of any park’s success, so we’re going to look at 18 ways you can try to bring more repeat business to your park in future.
Loyalty Rewards
Repeat customers are important to your park, so make sure that they know how much you appreciate them with a reward for their loyalty.
This doesn’t have to be anything too extravagant and can just be as simple as a discount on their next stay, or perhaps a free night’s stay.
Using software such as EliteParks will allow you to monitor who your most loyal customers are so that you can target them with email offers to keep them coming back.
Show Gratitude
While we’ve mentioned reaching out to guests with loyalty gifts, you don’t necessarily need to offer them a tangible reward to show them that you value their custom.
Even a simple email to let them know that you’re grateful for their custom does a lot further than you might think, and it doesn’t cost you a penny.
Customer experience is hugely important and giving guests that little feeling of being appreciated will make them far more likely to return to you in future.
Regular Newsletters
Another good way to keep the relationship going with your previous guests is through a regular newsletter.
Email remains one of the most effective forms of marketing so be sure to take time putting a useful newsletter detailing the latest news at your park and in the local area.
Reach Out on Social Media
Social media is another good way to keep in touch with customers, both past and present to keep them updated with what’s going on.
Make sure to post regularly, and keep connecting with previous guests to try and drive them to make a repeat reservation!
This is a great roundup of how social media can help to drive more bookings in the travel sector.
Build Up Trust
One of the most influential forms of marketing is one which you can’t actually control, not directly at least, and that’s word of mouth.
Hearing positive things from friends and family members is one of the most likely factors to convince someone to stay at a park, so make sure that your guests have the best time possible during their stay so that not only will they’ll have trust in the park and want to come back in future, as well as convincing others to do so too.
Keep the Relationship Going
Make sure that once your guests leave your park, it isn’t the end of your relationship. If you’ve captured their email, be sure to follow up with them asking how their stay was and whether they have any feedback on how you could improve.
This is also an opportunity to offer a loyalty reward, as we mentioned earlier. Even if you don’t convince someone to book again, it’s important to keep a relationship going with them so that you’re in mind next time they want to book a break.
Share Good, Relevant Content
The content that you share on your site, blog and social media platforms is key to keeping guests coming back.
While you should ideally be producing your own content (this could be things such as area guides, things to do while guests are in the area, blogs about local history etc.), you should also curate content from other places and share this too.
The main thing is that this content is of actual value to your guests and is the sort of thing which is going to keep them coming back to your site or social media, even if they aren’t planning on booking straight away, keeping you visible in their social feeds and fresh in their minds.
Share Excellent Guest Experiences
If your guests have had a great experience at your park, be sure to make a big deal of it and let everybody know!
Consider asking guests who have particularly enjoyed their stay to contribute a testimonial to your website and share it on social media.
Make Booking as Easy as Possible
If you want someone to make a booking, whether for the first time or as a repeat customer, it’s important to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
Analyse your online booking system and make sure it’s as simple and straightforward as it can be, with no technical issues. Otherwise, you’ll find that users simply get frustrated and give up on booking!
Optimise Your Website
Creating a website which users have a good experience using is likely to keep them coming back for more, so this means taking the time to write good quality, informative copy and taking some professional photos and video of the park to ensure you show it in the best light. Be sure not to skimp on your web design and development either!
Make Sure You’re Mobile
More people than ever are browsing and booking on mobile devices, with as many as 85% of holidaymakers using a mobile device to book.
With this in mind, it’s crucial that your website is mobile friendly, with a responsive design and a booking system which functions properly and offers a good user experience, no matter what device is being used.
Remarketing
Another great way to keep your park at the forefront of people’s minds long after they’ve stayed with you is through remarketing.
Remarketing is a form of display advertising which allows you to target specific audiences and can be highly effective when used correctly.
You can read more in this post from WordStream, which shows just how effective remarketing can be at bringing return visitors back.
Make Use of Data
With tools such as Google Analytics and EliteParks, there’s now more data than ever before available to park owners about their customers.
It’s important to take advantage of all of this data and use it to drive your strategy, finding out what your customers like or dislike and getting an idea of their buying habits.
Create Urgency
Nothing spurs people into making a booking like a limited time only offer, or the feeling that they’re about to miss out on something.
As well as offering up season limited time offers, it’s a good idea to let people know when you’re almost fully booked up to give them that little nudge that they need to make a booking!
Set Yourself Apart
As great as your park may be, there’s always going to be others in your area who offer the same service as you, so you need to look at what you can do to set yourself apart.
You could go about this in a number of different ways, such as offering luxury features such as hot tubs or allowing guests to bring their dogs, which many parks don’t do (although perhaps this is for a good reason!).
Collaborate with Other Local Businesses
Get in touch with some fellow businesses in the area to see if you can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
For example, you could offer old guests discount off a meal at a local restaurant for coming back to your park?
More Than Just a Place to Stay
It’s important to emphasise to guests that your park is more than just a place to stay and really add value to their stay with events and facilities.
Having a regularly changing events calendar is a great way to keep giving guests something new to come back for, offering them a new experience every time they return.
Always Go Above and Beyond
You can try all of the marketing techniques that you want, but at the end of the day, the best thing that you can do is to go above and beyond in all of your dealings with your customers.
Delivering a great service to your guests is sure to give them an incentive to come back again, regardless of your marketing efforts!
Returning guests are absolutely vital to a holiday park’s success, so hopefully implementing some of these methods can help you to not just attract people, but turn them into loyal customers and brand advocates, who will the basis of the park’s success going forward!
Check out our EliteParks software to see how we can assist you with your booking system and beyond with our full Park Management software solution.
