Why don't people travel
Dec 7th 2003, 11:23 am
#46
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Why don't people travel
Bjorn Olsson <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm surprised - and disappointed - that the experienced and (usually)
> open-minded world-traveller who have been to so many countries on all
> continents is in this case content to dismiss 150 million people as
> "horribly mean", based on an amalgamation of experiences with a few
> bureaucrats and stories from other travellers.
Here's my take on this situation.
If you want tourists, start with the adventurers. These are a subset of the
tourist demographic who are willing to put up with some adversity in order
to have a quality experience and an absence of other tourists.
From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do not
need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is some basic
infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a positive
experience.
Infrastructure:
Accomodation can be basic, but needs to be adequate. Hot showers & clean
facilities are important.
Food too can be basic, but you need to be able to provide balanced meals for
a range of tastes at a reasonable price. Local dishes are good, but it may
be useful to include some items familiar to the places from where your
visitors originate.
Public toilets are a good idea - make sure they are clean.
Transport needs to be available to get people to and from their destination,
and also to any local attractions/activities.
Publicity:
Often people don't hear of good places to go, they hear about "hot"
destinations [and are sometimes disappointed because 'everyone' goes there].
Find ways in which people already at those other places can have your area
brought to your attention, and maybe decide to make a side-trip. Leaflets,
free phone services etc can help.
Utilise the WWW. A useful thing is for a region to have a website which
provides information on the area, what there is to do and see, history, and
lists of facilities. It is important to list *all* places for accomodation,
restaurants, transport, etc - not just the ones who are prepared to pay a
fee. The purpose of this website is not to make someone rich, it is to show
prospective visitors that the region has features that will make it an
attractive destination, and has the facilities and infrastructure to make
for a comfortable stay. Instead of making one person rich, this website can
benefit everyone. Make sure that when someone searches for your region [or
other notasble aspects] in google, this website is found.
The Experience:
The mindset of *all* the people they deal with can have a big impact on the
visitor experience. As you have seen from this newsgroup, the stories people
tell after visiting a place will spread - it is important that these stories
be positive rather than negative. Positive stories are money in your pocket.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that these vistiors are much more wealthy
than the local people, and so they are a resource to be plundered at every
opportunity. The visitors may in fact be wealthy from your perspective, but
from their perspective they have a limited budget, and may have been saving
for years for this trip. Therefore they will have a positive experience if
they feel they have had a good time and been charged a fair price for
everything. A positive experience means that they will tell positive stories
about their trip, which means more visitors will come next year and so on.
There is a saying "less is more" - in this case, if you take less from the
tourists you have, there will be more in the future, and you will make a lot
more money than if you charge sky-high prices for shoddy service, charge
"tourist prices" for visitors, or make them pay "taxes" or "fines", or any
other kind of rip-off.
Make sure there are things to do and places to see, and make sure visitors
have easy access to information about this. Provide information in the
language[s] of your main visitor groups.
People don't want to see squalor, graffiti, drug addicts, crime, get sick
from bad food, be robbed or hassled by officials. They can get that at home.
As you've seen, any kind of visa, permit etc that requires spending money,
filling out forms and trying to figure out arcane rules [especially with the
possibility of being fined for being in the wrong place at the wrong time]
is a *big* impediment to anyone contemplating a visit. The bottom line is
that there are endless place in the world people can travel to without these
headaches, and as long as they exist, these restriction will put people off
from visiting. I realise that these things are hard to change - nevertheless
you should press for this at every opportunity. Many other countries
function perfectly well without requiring people to notify the government of
their movements, and any such requirement is taking money out of your
pocket. In the meantime, while such restrictions exist, consider ways to
help people out with this, by providing information, or maybe a service to
help people with the documentation etc.
Feedback:
Listen to your visitors - there will of course be some for whom nothing is
good enough, but if people keep telling you something, that's often a
business opportunity - a way to make the visitors happy and for a local to
make some money. If people want somewhere to go at night, open a pub, if
they want guided walks, provide guides, if they want to kayak the river,
hire out kayaks.
The Future:
By targetting the backpacker market, you can bring tourists to a region
without having to spend vast amounts of money. Do not be concerned that
these visitors will not have enough money - there are vastly more "budget"
tourists in the world than there are rich people who only stay in five-star
hotels. Experience in my country has shown that backpackers stay longer, and
actually spend more per visit than more upmarket visitors.
Also, where the backpackers go, others [and investment] will follow.
> I'm surprised - and disappointed - that the experienced and (usually)
> open-minded world-traveller who have been to so many countries on all
> continents is in this case content to dismiss 150 million people as
> "horribly mean", based on an amalgamation of experiences with a few
> bureaucrats and stories from other travellers.
Here's my take on this situation.
If you want tourists, start with the adventurers. These are a subset of the
tourist demographic who are willing to put up with some adversity in order
to have a quality experience and an absence of other tourists.
From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do not
need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is some basic
infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a positive
experience.
Infrastructure:
Accomodation can be basic, but needs to be adequate. Hot showers & clean
facilities are important.
Food too can be basic, but you need to be able to provide balanced meals for
a range of tastes at a reasonable price. Local dishes are good, but it may
be useful to include some items familiar to the places from where your
visitors originate.
Public toilets are a good idea - make sure they are clean.
Transport needs to be available to get people to and from their destination,
and also to any local attractions/activities.
Publicity:
Often people don't hear of good places to go, they hear about "hot"
destinations [and are sometimes disappointed because 'everyone' goes there].
Find ways in which people already at those other places can have your area
brought to your attention, and maybe decide to make a side-trip. Leaflets,
free phone services etc can help.
Utilise the WWW. A useful thing is for a region to have a website which
provides information on the area, what there is to do and see, history, and
lists of facilities. It is important to list *all* places for accomodation,
restaurants, transport, etc - not just the ones who are prepared to pay a
fee. The purpose of this website is not to make someone rich, it is to show
prospective visitors that the region has features that will make it an
attractive destination, and has the facilities and infrastructure to make
for a comfortable stay. Instead of making one person rich, this website can
benefit everyone. Make sure that when someone searches for your region [or
other notasble aspects] in google, this website is found.
The Experience:
The mindset of *all* the people they deal with can have a big impact on the
visitor experience. As you have seen from this newsgroup, the stories people
tell after visiting a place will spread - it is important that these stories
be positive rather than negative. Positive stories are money in your pocket.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that these vistiors are much more wealthy
than the local people, and so they are a resource to be plundered at every
opportunity. The visitors may in fact be wealthy from your perspective, but
from their perspective they have a limited budget, and may have been saving
for years for this trip. Therefore they will have a positive experience if
they feel they have had a good time and been charged a fair price for
everything. A positive experience means that they will tell positive stories
about their trip, which means more visitors will come next year and so on.
There is a saying "less is more" - in this case, if you take less from the
tourists you have, there will be more in the future, and you will make a lot
more money than if you charge sky-high prices for shoddy service, charge
"tourist prices" for visitors, or make them pay "taxes" or "fines", or any
other kind of rip-off.
Make sure there are things to do and places to see, and make sure visitors
have easy access to information about this. Provide information in the
language[s] of your main visitor groups.
People don't want to see squalor, graffiti, drug addicts, crime, get sick
from bad food, be robbed or hassled by officials. They can get that at home.
As you've seen, any kind of visa, permit etc that requires spending money,
filling out forms and trying to figure out arcane rules [especially with the
possibility of being fined for being in the wrong place at the wrong time]
is a *big* impediment to anyone contemplating a visit. The bottom line is
that there are endless place in the world people can travel to without these
headaches, and as long as they exist, these restriction will put people off
from visiting. I realise that these things are hard to change - nevertheless
you should press for this at every opportunity. Many other countries
function perfectly well without requiring people to notify the government of
their movements, and any such requirement is taking money out of your
pocket. In the meantime, while such restrictions exist, consider ways to
help people out with this, by providing information, or maybe a service to
help people with the documentation etc.
Feedback:
Listen to your visitors - there will of course be some for whom nothing is
good enough, but if people keep telling you something, that's often a
business opportunity - a way to make the visitors happy and for a local to
make some money. If people want somewhere to go at night, open a pub, if
they want guided walks, provide guides, if they want to kayak the river,
hire out kayaks.
The Future:
By targetting the backpacker market, you can bring tourists to a region
without having to spend vast amounts of money. Do not be concerned that
these visitors will not have enough money - there are vastly more "budget"
tourists in the world than there are rich people who only stay in five-star
hotels. Experience in my country has shown that backpackers stay longer, and
actually spend more per visit than more upmarket visitors.
Also, where the backpackers go, others [and investment] will follow.
Dec 7th 2003, 4:51 pm
#47
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Why don't people travel
Geoff McCaughan <[email protected]> wrote:
> From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do
> not need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is some
> basic infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a
> positive experience.
If you want backpackers, all you have to do is set up a few open-air
thatch-roof bars, make sure all the hotel rooms include banana pancakes for
breakfast, offer hand-hennaing services, and sell pirated movies from tables
in the streets. They'll come in droves.
miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/
> From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do
> not need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is some
> basic infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a
> positive experience.
If you want backpackers, all you have to do is set up a few open-air
thatch-roof bars, make sure all the hotel rooms include banana pancakes for
breakfast, offer hand-hennaing services, and sell pirated movies from tables
in the streets. They'll come in droves.
miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/
Dec 7th 2003, 4:57 pm
#48
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Why don't people travel
"Miguel Cruz" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
news:[email protected]...
> Geoff McCaughan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do
> > not need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is
some
> > basic infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a
> > positive experience.
> If you want backpackers, all you have to do is set up a few open-air
> thatch-roof bars, make sure all the hotel rooms include banana pancakes
for
> breakfast, offer hand-hennaing services, and sell pirated movies from
tables
> in the streets. They'll come in droves.
Not if it is in Siberia.
Sjoerd
news:[email protected]...
> Geoff McCaughan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > From this you can develop a backpacker tourist industry. For this you do
> > not need multi-million dollar hotels and nightclubs, all you need is
some
> > basic infrastructure, and the wherewithal to provide the visitors with a
> > positive experience.
> If you want backpackers, all you have to do is set up a few open-air
> thatch-roof bars, make sure all the hotel rooms include banana pancakes
for
> breakfast, offer hand-hennaing services, and sell pirated movies from
tables
> in the streets. They'll come in droves.
Not if it is in Siberia.
Sjoerd
