Marketing / Communications
Articles
“From Byways to Buyers: Transforming Your Scenic Byway into a Comprehensive Travel Experience,”
by American Travel Center, Martinsburg, West Virginia
America’s Byways Resource Center; Vistas, January/February 2004
Authentic Experiences: Transforming Your Scenic Byway into a Comprehensive Travel Experience
America’s Byways®, which range from the San Juan Skyway in Colorado and the Historic National Road through several eastern States, to Woodward Avenue in Detroit and the Las Vegas Strip, offer an attractive combination of intrinsic qualities for today’s travelers. Most byways provide great scenery and meandering country drives, while all have authentic, interesting and unique characteristics.
Traveling the byways, roadways with stories to tell, is exactly what today’s educated and very busy travelers want to do when they get away for leisure. The ability to explore a new landscape and learn about its story lets travelers take their minds off work - the only way that busy people can have a true leisure experience. As a result, pleasure driving to explore America’s byways and back roads ranks very high on the preference list of modern travelers.
For many of these travelers, coordinating the elements of a successful trip to an unfamiliar location poses a challenge. They don’t have time to seek accurate driving directions, find activities along the way, make hotel reservations at exactly the right places or coordinate all of the disparate pieces into one seamless experience that fits into the available time away.
Enticing more travelers to take trips on America’s Byways will require that individual byways put together cohesive experiences that buyers can take “off the shelf” when they want to take a trip. Each of these experiences will include the same basic elements that make it easy for travelers to enjoy the byway.
Selecting Appropriate Themes
Travelers seek experiences that best match their interests. Some are keen on the Civil War, some are interested in Native American heritage, and others prefer Colonial American history. A good number of travelers want to explore byways to enjoy the best scenery, history, natural areas, culture, and other intrinsic qualities.
To most effectively present potential experiences to travelers, each byway should begin by selecting its best “themes.” Themes for byway trips can range from Amish heritage (Ohio’s Amish Country National Scenic Byway) and the ancients of southwestern America (San Juan Skyway), to historic or salient construction and design methods, as in the Historic National Road and the Arroyo Seco Parkway Scenic Byway. Some byways can have many themes, while others have only one or two. The most interesting themes are selected by compiling a list of like resources along the byway to determine the combination that best features the most important intrinsic qualities of the byway.
Each theme then becomes the basis of a “story/itinerary,” which, if developed correctly, will “unfold” as travelers take the trip.
After the themes have been determined, byways can select the strongest ones to serve as the basis of travel experiences and begin to define the actual driving routes that will reach each of the suggested stops. The byways also determine the sequence of the stops along the roadway. This basic tool, referred to as the traveler’s “itinerary,” forms the foundation of each driving trip that will be offered.
Developing Effective Itineraries
Effective itineraries include several elements that are important to travelers. First, the selected activities need to have a strong relationship to the theme, so that the travelers are learning the best story. Each of the selected activities and inclusions must have regular, published hours during which travelers can count on them being open. It’s also important to let travelers know about how long they will likely want to allow for visits.
Driving distances and the sequence of stops are also important factors. Visitors can feel overwhelmed when they attempt to visit more than four major attractions in any given day. If at all feasible, organize the stops so the story develops as the day progresses. This delivers the best story line. Remember, most travelers can bear about 100 miles during a “leisure” driving day. More than that, the driving becomes drudgery rather than enjoyable meandering. Itineraries for byways can often extend over a period of three or four days, or in the case of the Ohio River Scenic Route, over multiple destinations, each with distinct itineraries.
Telling Your Byway’s Story
Itineraries aren’t enough for the target travelers. They will also want to learn and understand the byway story, because that’s what engages the mind in a new experience.
The byway story is best told by introducing the overall theme and intrinsic qualities of the roadway first, complemented with information about each of the suggested stops, including the reason that a particular stop has been included.
Assembling Accurate Driving Directions
Unless each itinerary and story is supplemented with accurate driving directions, travelers must locate the stops or featured descriptions on their own, an activity that can be a frustrating process - especially in rural areas. None of the automated systems to obtain driving directions on the Internet is completely accurate; the farther off the beaten path one gets, the less likely that accurate directions can be obtained from Web sources.
Byways that want to treat their travelers right will take the time to create accurate driving directions, even if someone actually has to drive the roads to make certain that each stop and turn has been correctly articulated. Travelers who don’t get lost in a rural area will return home telling their friends about the great experience they had. Returning home after being lost, they will concentrate on telling the story of the lack of directions instead.
Complementing the Experience with Accommodations
The location and quality of accommodations that you recommend with each itinerary are critical to experience success. The scenery can be great, but if the hotel or inn is a mess, the traveler will remember the experience as a bad one. In fact, more than just a hotel, today’s travelers respond to “destination distinctive” historic accommodations, the quality of which, unless selected very carefully, can vary dramatically.
“Packaging ” the Whole Experience
Until now, most byways that have developed travel experiences stopped here, feeling that travelers had enough information to enjoy the byways. However, that still leaves travelers with a lot of work to do before they take the trip. After they’ve determined their dates of travel, they must call each of the suggested accommodations to find out if rooms are available and make hotel reservations. They must compare their planned arrivals with the operating times and days of suggested museums, attractions, historic sites, visitor centers, interpretation locations and activities. If too many important stops are not open on the days they have free to travel, travelers may lay the trip aside and plan to take it later. Or, they may find another completely different trip to take, leaving the locations, sites and businesses along the byway with fewer patrons.
Assembling a complete byway travel experience into a “package,” including an itinerary, story, pre-paid accommodations, tickets to museums, historic sites and attractions, and accurate directions, while complementing the information with suggestions, emergency information and other useful materials, is a task that the American Travel Center and similar companies have taken on to serve both byways and travelers. One-stop shopping lets travelers purchase all of the elements of their trip as a “package” - at one time.
Most of the customers of byway itineraries and packages are ages 35 to 64. They are “baby boomers” who are educated, interested and leave their children at home. Packages work, because they provide what travelers want to experience without the time-consuming planning.
The benefits of developing complete itineraries and even “packaging” byways are many. Travelers leave home with a complete trip laid out, accurate driving directions, and accommodations. All work to lower their stress when traveling in unfamiliar places, delivering a much more satisfying experience. The towns and villages along the way receive new guests staying at their inns, eating in restaurants and visiting area attractions. As visitors create economic impact with their dollars, they enjoy their hassle-free experience. For places located off the beaten path, these new guests may translate into jobs.
Byway Success Stories
Can itineraries work for your byway? Absolutely. You’ll interest more travelers in exploring the region than without. Can packaging work for your byway? Likely.
Take an example of the Blue Ridge Parkway All-American Road. Three seasons ago, on complete package covered the whole Parkway while several new shorter packages introduced smaller Parkway segments. Six room nights were sold then. The second season resulted in 40 room nights. This past season, a whopping 119 room nights greatly overshadowed the nominal fee that was paid to have the stories and packages created. Add the meals and attraction tickets that the travelers bought created a return on investment that was quite dramatic.
Distributing byway experiences through programs such as Travelocity and the Travel Industry of America’s See America website adds credibility. It creates a perception that byway experiences are on the same par as other well-known travel destinations.
Another success story, that of the Ohio River Scenic Route, is in the making. This byway recently enhanced its marketing with a complete collection of driving travel packages from beginning to end.
Bob O’Connor, CEO of the American Travel Center, believes “the key to the success of both itineraries and packages is byways working in partnership with destinations, their local convention and visitors bureau and distribution partners. Travelers who visit the Amish Country National Scenic Byway in Ohio will have a much more authentic experience thanks to their work on that project, than they would if we had not worked together. If the task of creating itineraries or packages appears too daunting, there are organizations that are ready to help.”