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Group Tourism:
Is Your Site Missing the Bus?
by Katherine KhalifeExcerpt from Group Tourism: Is Your Site Missing the Bus?
History News (American Association for State and Local History), Spring 2000
"Bus groups?? Yuck." If that's your gut reaction when motorcoach tours roll up to your door, you're not alone. There probably aren't many staff members at museums and historic sites who, if plied with truth serum, wouldn't admit to feeling the same way. And why not? Group travelers violate almost every definition of the ideal visitor. They:
- expect to get in at a reduced rate
- demand special treatment
- necessitate extra paperwork
- don't show up on time
- require guides that you either don't have or can't spare
- insist that you whiz them through in forty-five minutes
- swarm into your gift shop, then end up only buying postcards
- And to top it all off, they cancel all the time
That's the bad news. The good news is that group tourism increases visitation, provides greater visibility and brings in revenue that can go a long way toward easing budget woes. Is it any wonder, then, that many historical organizations have mixed feelings about motorcoach business?
Unfortunately, that ambivalence comes through loud and clear to those in the group tour industry. Ask any tour operator and you'll hear gripes about uppity docents, unrealistic reservation or pricing policies and condescending attitudes toward group travelers. For many tour planners, the truth serum equivalent of "Bus groups? Yuck." is "Museums? Who do they think they are, anyway? They act like they're doing you a favor to let you in the door."
As a former tour operator, I admit to having mumbled those same words under my breath hundreds of times. During almost twenty years of specializing in historic/heritage/cultural tours to cities and towns all across the country, I collected more than my share of visitor services bruises. Certainly not all trips to historical institutions were unpleasant; Many properties went out of their way to provide excellent service. Many others, though, left much to be desired.
From telephone encounters with reservationists who never said thank you, to confirmation letters ordering me to do everything but salute, I seldom got the feeling that my bookings were even appreciated. And things usually didn't improve any when groups actually arrived at the sites.
Withering glances were as common as warm welcomes. Unmarked passenger drop-off areas left drivers circling in confusion, wondering where to discharge passengers-only to be barked at later for stopping in the wrong place. Elderly women with canes were kept standing in lobbies for up to twenty minutes while front desk personnel meandered through the payment process-refusing to start the tour until it was absolutely clear that the escort wasn't trying to cheat them. Flexibility was unheard of. Guides made little attempt to relate in a personal way. Staff members passing by in the halls rarely cracked a smile or even gave a nod of acknowledgment. And all too often, tour members were followed around gift shops as if they were about to pocket the Hope diamond.
By the time tour participants boarded the bus after experiences like these, they were pretty deflated. About the only comment they could muster was, "Boy, they sure didn't like us, did they?" It was obvious that when they got home, it wouldn't be the collections they'd be talking about.
Like many tour operators, I often found museums and historic sites to be among the most difficult tour suppliers to deal with. My company was promoting them in tour brochures and by word of mouth, and we were bringing them thousands of dollars in business. In return, they made us jump through hoops, treated our clients rudely and balked when we requested industry-standard discounts. Something was wrong with this picture. Had it not been for a personal commitment to providing historically accurate tours, I would have been sorely tempted to take the easy way out and book with commercial establishments instead. They may have been guilty of Disney-fying history, but they'd be a lot nicer to our customers and they would appreciate our business!
It wasn't until I began clocking hours on the other side of the admissions desk-doing research for books and popular history articles I was writing-that I realized what the problem really was. Those museums and historic sites hadn't intentionally been trying to be difficult; they were simply applying museum-world standards to an industry that operates by different rules.
Historical institutions are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to group tourism. The fact that motorcoach groups visit their sites makes them automatically a part of the group tour industry. Yet few history professionals have ever been trained in tour industry practices. They're not familiar with industry jargon, pecking orders or protocol. And they don't understand why the business operates the way it does. As a result, they institute policies and procedures for dealing with groups that they think make sense, only to end up alientating the very people they're trying to serve.
For example, it's frustrating when groups book tours and then cancel them. To try to prevent that from happening, many institutions require reservation deposits. But deposits don't keep groups from cancelling. All deposits do is create extra paperwork and discourage tour planners from booking with you in the first place. Why? Cancellations (which can sometimes run as high as fifty percent) are a fact of life in the tour industry. When tour operators book tours that then don't sell and have to be cancelled, they get even more upset than you do. After all, tour sales are their entire livelihood.
The time problem is another industry quirk that gives historical organizations the wrong impression. It's difficult, when you know how much your site has to offer, to be told that you need to push tours through in forty-five minutes or an hour. It's not that operators and group leaders don't realize or respect how much there is to see and learn at your institution; they do. (If they didn't, why would they have chosen your site to visit instead of other attractions in your area?) It's merely that they're dealing with issues that sometimes make longer visits impossible.
For one thing, they have to pack so much into a tour itinerary to make it surpass competitors' offerings that they run on too tight a time schedule. For another, their groups have mixed interests. To try to accommodate everyone, they can't spend too much time at any one place. Finally, group tours have always been considered overview experiences. Unfortunately, that's all a lot of consumers want or expect them to be. Tour operators often wish it were otherwise.
Clearing up some of these negative perceptions that exist between historical institutions and the group tour industry is becoming more important than ever. According to National Tour Association member surveys, historic/heritage tours were the number one tour type for tour operators in 1999, surpassing fall foliage tours for the very first time. With eighty percent of operators now offering historic/heritage tours, there are more opportunities than ever for museums and historic sites to attract group visitors. That means, of course, that there are also more chances now to lose out to tourism-savvy commercial attractions who may or may not be interpreting history accurately.
Will your site be a winner or a loser? The answer may not depend as much on sophisticated marketing efforts as it does on something much more basic -- the willingness to look at your institution through group visitors' eyes.
Copyright © 2000 Katherine Khalife All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, please e-mail info@museummarketingtips.com
Katherine Khalife is a writer and consultant specializing in museum marketing, customer service and heritage cultural tourism. See the Services section for information about her workshops and other services.
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