Local Travelers from nearby countries are grossly underserved and represent a lucrative untapped group.
I’ve experienced this with my travel and repeatedly echoed on an African Tourism and Investment Summit panel I virtually attended.
A person from Kenya traveling to South Africa has entirely different needs, wants, and expectations than their UK originating counterparts. Yet you offer matching travel options to both.
Local travelers are low-hanging fruit for a myriad of reasons. They typically visit more often (it’s easier to get to S Africa from Kenya twice a year than from the UK) and are close by. They have similar Covid risk mindsets (aka: my country’s Covid related risks are probably on par with yours, so I’m no more or less worried than in my home country). Sadly ignored and overlooked by travel companies. The list goes on and on.
I suspect why local travelers are lucrative isn’t the problem. It’s the how. You’ll need to:
- Substantively change how you market and reach prospective local travelers. How you acquire local travelers is different from how you acquire (for example) UK or US inbound travelers.
- Substantively change what travel products and add-ons you offer.
- Substantively change attractions to incorporate (why would I visit a souq when I have a souq back at home?), F&B, and lodging options.
- Substantively change what you say when customer facing. For example, local travelers expect tour guide to share different content, be able to answer entirely different set of questions, and operate on a different tour schedule.
- Adjust to different travel dates (summer holidays and term break dates vary significantly) and booking window. For example, cater to US travelers in December and Africa originating during their springtime.
- Address very different expectations for why they are traveling, the memories they wish to build, and what they want to take away from their trip.
- Potentially expect different languages to support when selling online/by phone, marketing collateral, and social media content.
- Substantively change the trust points you highlight (why isn’t your agency a scam? why should I trust you? what guarantees do I have? what references? do you have happy customers? what recourse do I have?).
- Provide different ways to pay and corresponding refund policies.
- Adjust your price points and not necessarily lower. For example, Nigerians represent large and lucrative inbound to the UK segment.
I believe the local traveler market justifies the work you need to put in and has a positive ROI when properly executed.
Let me know how it goes in the comments.