Many of us working within the tourism industry will have spent a considerable amount of time in recent months trying to establish what the newest version of normal means when it comes to occupancy, footfall and demand to visit our amazing part of the country.

Working with a wide range of tourism providers, as well as some of the leading destinations in the South West, puts us in a unique position to understand and have analytical access to what’s happening at a regional level.

So what exactly have we spotted so far this year?

Website traffic down vs last year

We’ve seen website traffic across a wide range of tourism and hospitality businesses significantly down on last year, usually by an average of between 15 – 30%. Although this may sound alarming, it is eminently understandable given that 2021 created something of a perfect storm; a lack of international travel combined with people wanting to venture on their first post-lockdown break saw the Westcountry awash with visitors, and websites inundated with new traffic.

Now that international travel is back on the agenda, and with many people also feeling the pinch of a cost of living crisis, demand has returned to lower levels than were felt this time last year.

That slowing in demand has however not been met with a relative drop in supply, which is now reportedly at its highest. A drop in demand and not supply will mean that we can expect occupancy to fall for some and that competition for bookings will increase for all.

Where do we stand against 2019?

Although traffic has dampened since last year, we’re seeing figures broadly in line with those from pre-pandemic 2019. This is an important piece of context, and we encourage anyone using analytics to not only compare with last year, but also 2019 to give themselves a better understanding of where they stand vs the ‘old normal’.

Make sure that your analytics account is up to date

All of the statistics we’re quoting and using within our insight are taken from a vast array of Google Analytics accounts. If you currently use Google Analytics (and if you don’t then you should), please be aware that they are updating their system to Google Analytics 4 in July of next year.

To ensure you’ve got access to historical data from this year so that you can go on to compare next year’s performance within the new Google Analytics, you need to set up your new property and ideally have done this as soon as possible. The good news is that this is something your website provider will be able to easily do for you, but the later you do it, the bigger the gap in your GA4 comparitive data will be.

The trend of later bookings

One of the largest trends we’ve seen to date has been that bookings are generally coming later and later; where the summer months were once filled in January (or in some cases even earlier), for many this process is taking longer and going past the Easter break.

There was one specific week (arrival on 15^th July) that was particularly stuborn to book for many, when in past years it would have been snapped up in the early months of the year by Scottish families or those attending private schools.

Only time will tell if booking closer to the arrival date is here to stay, but it does highlight the importance of sustaining and increasing repeat-bookings for any tourism business.

Repeat visitors tend to book earlier, spread the word and usually come with a lower marketing acquisition cost; three things that you definitely want when it comes to fighting off future competition!

Developing relationships with your guests

There are of course a number of different ways that you can attempt to get people to return to your property or attraction. One thing that they all have in common is creating touch points and a positive ongoing relationship.

Having regular contact, whether that’s through email marketing on a monthly basis or encouraging former-guests and visitors to join your Facebook group and like your page (two examples that should appear on your marketing homework!), is at the heart of getting people to return.

Sometimes people just need a nudge, so consider what you can do to reward their loyalty; percentage discounts based on the number of times they’ve stayed or visited, delays in deposit payments or referral rewards are all ways you can say ‘thank you’ that will undoubtedly lead to early bookings for next year.

Our conclusion

Although we’ve seen a slow down in traffic since the buoyant height of last summer, we are still in line with where we were pre-pandemic, so all is certainly not lost, nor is it all doom and gloom. We do receommend that now is the time to start getting ahead for 2023, and the earlier you set your sights on this, the more robust you will be against any further fluctutaions between now and then. Get out there, get those bookings and encourage people to return.