Brighton i360 has seen guest numbers soar to 300,000 per annum by focusing on offering an ever broader range of experiences from its viewing tower on the picturesque Brighton Beach.
Veronika Mezhova, Sales Lead, shares with us what she’s learned about diversifying their offer.
Designed by the same architects who made the iconic London Eye, Brighton i360 offers a similarly striking bird’s-eye view, but in an entirely different shape: a viewing pod with a bar and capacity to seat 175 people.
From the pod’s highest point, 138 metres up in the air, “you can see Brighton, the coast, and up to the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs”.
The trip up and down is pretty gentle, so the team has come up with some more extreme experiences, enabling them to capture a broader range of customers.
As soon as the mums and daughters have finished their cream teas on high, couples ascend to enjoy gin and tonics with 360-degree views and the epic sunset. Soon, those in need of a thrill will be able to walk atop the tower throughout the day. Climbing, jumping and dropping from the pod are also popular options.
So how did the experience operator come to offer such a broad range of products?
Think outside the pod
First, Brighton i360 dipped a toe in the water, expanding beyond their timed entrance ticket to offer a more flexible option. When that proved popular they decided to jump off the deep end.
“Our more extreme products were a huge step,” says Veronika. But in less than two years, the death-defying walk atop the pod has become their most popular product.
“The climb and the drop are our other extreme products. They’re really popular as team building activities and for charities who want to draw attention to their work. It really looks fabulous when 30 people drop from the pod.”
At the complete other end of the scale, Brighton i360 offers a cream tea experience, tailored to the interests of guests seeking a more relaxing experience.
Veronika continues to iterate, tweaking the offer to suit customers as she comes to understand them better.
“At some point it was afternoon tea with more complicated products,” she explains. “But we saw that cream tea is easier, cheaper and takes less time, which is more suited to travellers who don’t have the time to dress up but still want to have a nice experience.”
Now, the more casual cream tea can capture visitors passing through in their walking shoes, who may not have brought a frock in their carry-on luggage.
Tip: Consider a couple of audiences you haven’t been able to reach yet. How could you tailor your product to suit their interests? OTAs like GetYourGuide offer plenty of visibility and a captive audience ready to give new experiences a go with relatively low cost, making them a great place to test out a new product.
Think like a visitor
As the walk on top of the viewing pod is now their most popular product, Veronika says the company is seeking ways to make the experience even more bookable. Listening to visitor feedback has proven useful.
“For this coming season, we’ll be ready to offer time slots during the day, which is much better because, up until now, it was only available in the early morning, which isn’t suitable for everyone,” says Veronika. “So we’re moving towards better offers for our customers.”
Tip: Pay attention to customer feedback. Read your reviews on GetYourGuide – constructive criticism from customers can be very useful for improving your experience.
Remember to serve your locals
Having reached 300,000 visitors per annum, Veronika says now “we are focusing more on yield revenue than increasing ticket numbers.” For this reason, the potential for return business from domestic visitors has become an important part of her sales strategy. Veronika says that the domestic UK market makes up between 60 and 70 percent of Brighton i360’s sales.
“Now we are doing festive cream teas for Easter, for Mother’s Day, and Christmas cream teas as well,” offering attractive experiences tied to important events to keep customers coming back.
Tip: Developing new experiences you can peg to festive seasons is a great way to bring in returning customers.
Work with complementary partners
Additionally, “we also offer combi tickets with the Royal Pavilion and the Upside Down House, which is doing very well on GetYourGuide.” This enables Brighton i360 to cross-pollinate with these partners, finding new customers along the way.
Tip: Find out which operators in your area are also attractive to your guests, and then offer to partner with them so you can both reap the benefits.
Test and adjust your offers
Veronika’s advice to suppliers considering new experiences? Don’t be afraid to keep adjusting the levers on your products.
Her hot tip? “Remember that there is always room to offer something slightly different for individuals than for B2B customers.”
Veronika suggests testing out different offers to find what suits each type of customer best. “For example, you may offer larger groups timed tickets and give individuals the option of flexi tickets. For our individual guests, we offer a fast-track into the Upside Down House and their ticket includes a small souvenir.” These small adjustments can help set you apart and offer something a little bit different from your competitors.
Tip: Use a connectivity partner to automatically push products to distribution partners like GetYourGuide can help you manage a large number of products and save hours of admin each week. Some partners also enable product bundles, making it easier to test and learn.
Keep an eye on your data
Veronika says she makes use of all the tools GetYourGuide has to offer, including editing her products herself on the GetYourGuide website. But what she loves the most is the recently-added analytics feature. “It’s just such an easy way to check on our results and indicators. It’s exactly what we need,” she says.
For example, being able to see the difference between the booking date and the activity date for each customer and product – and how the length of that window changes season-to-season – has helped Veronika plan her sales for more impact.
Tip: No need to hire an engineer to build your own backend! Make the most of GetYourGuide’s analytics to better understand your visitors.
Weirdest request from a customer?
As for the strangest customer request she’s ever received, “we once had a group of naked people who wanted to have a journey on the pod, completely naked singing songs and dancing.”
Brighton i360 made it happen. “It was quite a challenge because they couldn’t take off their clothes while they were at ground level.” The guests had to wait until they were up in the air, and then get dressed again before they returned to within the sights of the general public.
But Veronika and her team didn’t flinch. They know that going the extra mile in the name of customer satisfaction is what’s made their business such a success.
Key Takeaways
- Check out new audiences and tailor your products to suit their whims. What would your product look like for a grandmother? A teenage boy? A bachelor party?
- Pay attention to customer feedback and adapt your products to boost customer satisfaction
- Don’t forget your domestic travellers – they’re the ones most likely to make return trips and boost your sales
- Make smart partnerships with other operators to make travelling as simple as possible for your customers
- Connecting your products via API can help manage multiple products and enable you to bundle with complementary operators
- Engage with your analytics on GetYourGuide to understand customer trends across the seasons
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