Hi,
I’m wondering if VoiceMap does any marketing for tour operators or destinations themselves? For example, cruise lines, which have ships that sail from port to port, and where there are usually VoiceMap tours in several locations, produced by several different tour designers/publishers. It seems better to me if this can be done by VoiceMap on behalf of all relevant publishers, rather than each one marketing their own tour.
Hi @lahelgen this is a good question. Are you asking about destination focused instead of tour focused marketing targeted at users? Or marketing efforts promoting VoiceMap tours in specific destinations through distribution and partnerships?
Hi Helene,
I am thinking about marketing the VoiceMap product to those who operate in an area/destination where there are several tours from different publishers involved.
If we use the coast of Norway as an example, then you may be familiar with “Hurtigruten”? There are 11 cruise liners that run between Bergen in the south and Kirkenes in the north, and they visit more than 30 ports/cities along the way. All places have daily departures both to the north and south, and most of the travelers are foreign tourists.
In many of these cities there are VoiceMap tours, which are produced by different publishers. Instead of each of us trying to sell our tours to the two shipping companies that operate the route, I think VoiceMap could try to market the product as a whole. Hopefully, both VoiceMap and we who have produced the tours will benefit from this.
We have tried to engage with cruise companies a number of times @lahelgen and with one of them our discussions were quite advanced before they eventually stalled.
The problem here is that they sell shore excursions and they don’t want a low cost self-guided tour to affect the sales of their traditional tours. If they offer a tour for $150 and their profit on that is $50, it’s hard to persuade them that a $15 tour will do anything but hurt their revenue. Believe me, I’ve tried! At some companies there are open minded people who see an opportunity, but their optimism normally gets overruled by more conservative leadership.
The price of the tours affects our marketing and distribution in a number of places – with cruise companies, online travel agencies (OTAs) like Viator, and even our own ads because the cost of acquiring a user from advertising is typically higher than the return from that user’s purchases in the app.
But we do run Google, Instagram and Facebook ads targeting popular cruise destinations. I also know that OTAs are popular with cruise passengers and many of your sales in popular ports probably come through them, especially Viator.
There might be opportunities with affiliates focused on cruises. @alicia is looking into this.
Thanks, Iain. I see the challenges in this. 