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Celebrate
a special event?
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Commemorate
a moment in history?
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Increase
public awareness of your facilities and/or area?
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Respond
to a previous commitment or promise made to a group?
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Focus
on the uniqueness of the region?
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Commemorate
a scenic, cultural or historic route?
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Share
the skills and talents of artisans in the area?
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Educate,
entertain, provide recreation experiences, or???
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Raise
dollars for your organization?
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Train
volunteers in tour development?
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Boost
the local economy?
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Be
a test/pilot tour for a larger tour planned in the future?
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A
special theme tour?
Tours, can have multiple objectives. It is important to define
these carefully and share them with potential participants, the
community, your organization members and others. Clarity of
objectives will aid in the development of your marketing plan.
Tours are planned with the idea of repeating the event if the first
one is successful. In that context, planning for the second
"annual" tour before the first one is completed is essential.
This helps to reinforce the idea of learning from everything associated
with the first tour to avoid future repetition of mistakes.
Diversity and uniqueness are key elements in planning a tour.
Focusing only on the main objective of the tour does not allow for
diversity of participant interest and free time. To much of a good
thing can be dangerous! It is essential that some variety be
planned in any tour that is different from the topic area or key
objective.
Matching the tour objectives with those of the potential participant is
the challenge. The participants objectives can range from learning
and education like an Elderhostel, to developing new experiences such as
discovering a new part of the country, to motional such as tracing
personal heritage or to recreational such as biking. The range of
personal objectives is wide and knowing how to find the participant with
the specific objectives that your package offers is like a dating game
in finding the correct match.