Best Practice - Attractions Passport

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Health and wellbeing tourism

Visitor Experience

A new resort knowledge product for tourism industr y staff.

The NCTA has created a suite of resort knowledge products in response to industry management feedback that customer-facing staff lacked confidence in promoting Bournemouth to visitors.

Knowledge of attractions was particularly weak.

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Attractions Passport

WHAT WE DID

WHAT WE LEARNT

To increase understanding of what Bournemouth offers visitors, the NCTA started by providing free, two-hour guided bus tours covering the local area. However, staff found finding time problematic.

Although the scheme was greeted with enthusiasm by hotels, ensuring attractions understood the benefit of the scheme was time-consuming. Some had their own schemes in place or already operated a complex series of discounts and didn’t want to add more, this was a barrier to participation.

To overcome this, the NCTA invited local attractions to give the staff free or cut-price entry, essentially familiarisation visits. Many of the hospitality staff have little or no knowledge of the surrounding area. Working shifts and strapped for time, the Passport provides staff with a cost-effective opportunity to experience the local tourism product on their days off.

All the major attractions in Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset were invited to join the scheme, and the majority of the most popular agreed to participate. Offers varied from half-price water sports lessons to free bike hire, free land-train rides and free entry to a water park.

An Attractions Passport booklet was produced which included a plastic Passport card to give staff entry. Each hotel was sent a Passport , large hotels received two, the card number was logged against the hotel to monitor use. Clear terms and conditions were set out to ensure the system was not abused, entry remained at the discretion of the attraction. Employees also had to provide proof of employment. Promotion was also included on the Bournemouth Ambassador website.

Hotels also needed to understand the value of the Passport and that they were to be used with discretion, offers were not intended to provide a day out for a staff member’s family!

Although the scheme was directed at hotels, participating attractions requested a Passport to allow their employees to discover other attractions and encourage recommendations, an angle that had not been previously considered and a positive spin-off.

Costs / Resources: Production costs were not substantial at £650 plus 1 day for Passport design. Howeveer staff resources of at least 12 days were required to negotiate arrangements and details with attractions.

CONCLUSION The success of the Attractions Passport will be evaluated throughout 2015. However, it has already proved a popular means of educating accommodation staff and offers a good alternative to online courses, seminars or in-house training.

Not all attractions fully understood the benefit of the scheme and their offers were variable.

The scheme rapidly generated considerable interest, and neighbouring destinations have asked the NCTA to consider creating an attractions Passport for their industry staff.