Gift cards and Gift certificates are a Tourism attraction’s best holiday idea

gift card

 

I have written about gift cards and gift certificates before, but I wanted to revisit this method of bringing in last-minute revenue in the 4th quarter for your attraction.

Part of the reason I wanted to share this again was because of this article that is full of good information on Gift cards and statistics. Did you know that Gift cards are the most requested Holiday gift and 59% of Gift card recipients end up spending more than the value of the Gift Card?

How Tourism can benefit with Gift cards and Gift Certificates:

We are in full swing for the holiday season and it seems that every day my inbox is full of daily specials, the TV is telling us what toys are most popular and everyone is trying to find time to shop on their lunch hour. For the most part though, the majority of us are procrastinators. If you work at a tourism attraction, you can use that behavior to boost your fourth-quarter sales. A minimum amount of work on your staff’s part makes selling gift certificates even better!

I was listening to NPR on the way to work the other day and they were discussing shopping trends. The interviewee said the busiest shopping day of the year is Black Friday, followed by December 26th. But what caught my ear was the third busiest shopping day of the year- December 23rd. All the last-minute shoppers are out trying to find gifts from the slim pickings that are left. It’s too late to order online, so shoppers are looking to get anything they can! That’s where gift certificates from your attraction come in. You can help solve your customer’s problems by providing gift certificates.

Why Gift Certificates make sense for your tourism business

 

Giving gift certificates is on the rise, according to this article. And December 24th is the biggest day of the year for gift certificate purchases. Gift certificate purchases have increased 55% between 2007 and 2014, and Giftcards.com says that growth continues at about 29% a year.  More interesting statistics if you aren’t convinced yet:

  • 27% of gift cards are purchased at the retailer’s location
  • over 50% of gift certificate recipients spend MORE than the value of the gift certificate
  • 90% of cards are used within the first 60 days

What is the difference between a gift card and a gift certificate?

A gift card has money loaded on to it and if the total isn’t used during a purchase, a balance remains. A gift certificate is a paper certificate. If a balance remains after a purchase, most businesses just mark the new balance on the card. Gift certificates are easy for small attractions to use. Vistaprint has some great templates and you can customize them for your business. Gift cards are typically more expensive to create, but costs of production have dropped over the past few years.

Take some time to develop a strategy

It makes sense to develop a sales strategy around gift certificates. Can you incentivize your staff to see who can sell the most? Are there other holidays that would be good times to feature gift certificates? Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are great times for Gift certificate sales as well. Make sure your potential customers know that you sell them- either via social media or advertising.

Gift certificates are a smart way to increase your bottom line, bring more traffic through your doors or your website, and to find new customers. Let me know if you have any questions or if you have some tips to share with the other readers.

E-gift cards for Experiences? Yep, a new way to Gift

Just as I was finishing up this post, the daily Tourpreneur Brief arrived in my mailbox, with an article from Checkfront ( an online booking platform) detailing four reasons why we should be offering gift cards online for our tours and activities.

Looks like digital gift cards might be in your future!

Want some additional help?

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