If you want go from gut feel to insight inspired, this is the Data Diaries with your hosts from Dexibit, Pierre Perez and Angie Judge. The best podcast for visitor attraction leaders passionate about data and AI. This episode is brought to you by Dexibit. We provide data analytics and AI software specifically for visitor attractions so you can reduce total time to insight and total cost of ownership while democratizing data and improving your team’s agility. Here comes the show!

Angie: Pierre. It’s been a massive week this week. The week started with a bang. We predicted Chat GPT were going to have their paws their MITs on the purchasing experience for consumers by the end of the year. And it happened October one, was it? No, even sooner than that. It was end of September,

Piere: September 30th, I think. September 30th, right on Monday. I believe they, they release that, Shopify and OpenAI will start a partnership that you’ll now be able to shop on chatGPT.

Angie: This is massive brain blasting, blasting wonder.

Jeff Bezos had a slightly nervous feel in his stomach. when chat GPT started picking up traction, I thought I’d never, never could have imagined a world where Google would become irrelevant. But we certainly never imagined a world where potentially Amazon is going to have its toes bitten, at least.

Piere: Yeah. You know, we’ve seen that in history, right? It’s, it’s not, it’s not whoever is best, it’s whoever move first, right? Whoever is moving first will sort of have, the, the biggest market share. And I think in, in such a big, breakthrough in such a big change of how you do something and how you change your habit, as in online shopping, that is definitely the case, is whoever’s gonna move first and chat GPT and Shopify, I think just surprise everyone.

And you know, you and I predicted that it will be in the near future. but I was thinking more, maybe early. To mid next year, not. Before Black Friday. 

Angie: I feel a bit ripped off that I, uh, overestimated something. yeah, it’s a amazing, um, amazingly fast-paced thing. I mean, we, in our own developments have got wishlists of features we’d like to see out of chat GBT to make it more open.

AI or some of its, counterparts that we use in various parts of the, our product and development. Literally we just have to wait for a few days or a few weeks and bang, there they are. It’s just that the pace of this change is incredible. And like you say, it’s a race to see who’s first and, and that race is going to become probably something that attractions have to pay attention to because.

One can only imagine that if there’s an attraction A that has, AI enabled ticketing, um, purchasing process and attraction B that does not, given chat GPT doesn’t operate in quite the same sort of transparency and ethics as like a Google search I presume that it’s going to prefer the one that it can clip the ticket on, literally.

Piere: Mm. Well, let’s, let’s that sink in for a second because it means that in maybe a few weeks, maybe a month top, what are we saying right now? Is that someone, right now a museum on art gallery, or, you know, a theme park, but I’m thinking probably Museum and IES right now could be selling their artwork on chat, GPT as of next month.

Angie: In store. Yeah. So Shopify have already, announced their partnership with OpenAI. Right? That was one of the press releases that came out this week. so yeah, in terms of merch, absolutely that’s the thing. and yeah, I think the challenge will be up for the ticketing vendor is next to see who’s gonna be first.

Literally Absolutely. To, to do this.

Piere: Absolutely. I think it’s just opening that door that, that we were, you and I were, were talking about a few episodes back where yes, we’re changing our behavior on how we plan things, but we still need to take that step of, you know, going on a website, interacting with that website, clicking away.

Picking if it’s two adults and one child, et cetera, uh, very much like, you know what you’ll do when, when you show up online. Now what we are seeing is that they’re removing that step, right? You don’t need to go on that website. You don’t need to do this extra clicks. And it’s starting with e-commerce, as you mentioned, is what’s next.

And, and you’re right, I feel what’s next is gonna be that experience based of to be able to book a plane ticket, to be able to book a ticket to a museum, to a special exhibition. Theme, park pass, you know, season pass, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and yeah, that, that’s, that’s just gonna change the way people interact with, with these products.

Angie: It’s been a crazy year actually with tariffs and recessions and inflation and all of these sorts of things happening in many different places in the world. And this is just one last sort of plot twist at the end of the year to, to carve that out. And, uh, one of the things I wanted to talk about today is that sort of, visitor spend, whether it’s retail, whether it’s food and beverage, whether it’s admission, Sort of what that consumer wallet looks like when that visitor comes on site and how to think about pricing and price increases and and so forth to maximize your value per visitor, your average revenue per caps, yields, um, but also your margins. and, you and I were sitting in a, a customer meeting with a, visitor attraction this week where.

We were looking at their compound annual growth rate, so the KAR of, per caps by their various lines of business. So admissions, we’re looking at retail, we’re looking at food and beverage. We’re looking at the total visitor spend over the course of like, maybe five years. And it was a fascinating sort of deep dive into how their, average, Revenue per visit and its breakdown was padding out over that timeframe and how that sort of translates into average price point, sort of basket size, that actual spend, that actual margin sitting behind it, given everything that’s happened behind the scenes. behind that story of that data point, and it it got me thinking about like how.

how to analyze for, determining whether you need to increase prices, whether you’re sort of keeping pace with that. what, what are your thoughts on when the sort of the moment comes up to, uh, know that this is a, an area that needs analysis and potentially change?

Piere: That’s such a good question, and I think you’ve mentioned line of business earlier, and I think, you know, it will depend on the line of business that you’re looking at.

and some of them may be more indirect line with price change down, you know, down the track essentially. I’m, I’m thinking FNB, right? FNB would be likely to be more, aligned with the inflation of. primary products, you know, your, your vegetables, your meat, et cetera, and it is likely maybe to be impacted by inflation a lot quicker or than than your retail and your admission prices, for example, right?

When you think about how often you restock your FM B’S item against your retail item, you can understand that. The price is likely to change a lot faster than, than in retail and and ticketing.

Angie: Yeah, that’s so true. We’ve seen the tariffs come in, which are obviously gonna hit the retail, merch business, harder than anywhere else, and their visitor attraction, although, you know, probably some of it will come into that food and beverage as well. Because a lot of that food is, imported, for some of the fresh products. in particular. But, you’re right, like retail stores maybe stock once, sometimes twice a year. It is not sort of a weekly thing. And so we’ve seen a lot of that sort of impact of an, of those tariffs yet to hit some of the merch, lines of business. And even where it has been, a lot of attractions have been shielding the, the visitor from some of that tariff. but if we look at the sort of consumer price index or CPI overall, like in the us. it’s sitting at about 29, uh, sorry, 29, 2 0.9%. Gosh, 29. We’d all be in trouble. 2.9% year on year. up until August.

That core inflation is sitting at sort of 3.1, so that’s exclusive of food and energy. but for food and beverage in particular, it’s sitting as high as three point. 12% year on year. So that sort of food, either, whether it’s at home, food like groceries or away from home food, like, you know, restaurants, cafes, et cetera, that, that away from home food inflation does lag a little bit.

It does behave a little bit more differently, um, the grocery inflation as well. and there’s a lot of sort of complexity. And agricultural factors and things that plays into that as well.

Piere: Yeah, 100%. I think, you know, you’re right. Like in term of the numbers from, from 2020 to 2024 CPI roles are right.

You know, 21%. Food. CPI was about 24%. so I’m gonna do a percent of a percent here, and all the data analysts are gonna scream at me. Uh oh. But to me, that’s an extra 10%, right? or 10% quicker. So, it is a big difference. I know we are talking about, you know, is, you know, single digits, um, defense, but, but it is a big difference.

And you’re right. Like we, we’ve seen in Europe especially. there’ve been a lot outcries, you know, in, in countries like France, for example, where I’m from, where, you know, farmers are hit with severe regulations that increase cost of, producing food or, or meat. and people are either absorbing this cost and offsetting this cost to the buyers, or people start to buy.

In other regions of the EU, to get cheaper products, but that also involves transport. so overall it’s, I feel like the, there’s more of an impact. There is a compounding in impact around, how can I say that? Because there’s more intermediaries, I think like the food cost will be compounded in term of how many times someone needs to offset the extra cost to the end consumer.

And versus retail, maybe there’s less of that, right? Because you’d be, going factory supplier, supplier, attraction for example. And that’s a gross explanation. But I think that could be potentially explaining, why these prices are increasing a little bit more as well.

Angie: Yeah, there’s kind of three different rhythms in there.

you know, that food and beverage price increase, which typically goes up quite quickly, that retail price increase, which typically sort of is still increasing at a relative rate, but a bit slower than food and beverage. And then when we think about admission price points, a lot of visitor attractions don’t review those for years at a time.

And so we’ve sort of got three different, paces at which we review pricing. And I think when sometimes when you take a food and beverage outlet and you tuck it under an attraction, you can sort of naturally slow down. What would otherwise be the normal rate of pace of change, of that price increase for food and beverage, because it’s now part of an organization where the base sort of revenue coming from admission is typically, reviewed less frequently, , than a, than a traditional food and beverage outlet.

And so I think sort of just being really aware of, of those changes. I know like every time I go to buy a cup of coffee, it feels like it’s another 50 cents. I love a good flat white, here in New Zealand, which, is making its way through America. I notice every time I go to New York or DC or even LA these days, I can buy a flat white.

So, uh, we are slowly taking over the world with our milk coffee. You know, like once upon a time it was $4 and then four 50 and five and, and now like, you know, you, you go in at $7 or even eight, or eight 50 and you sort of take a big breath in. but you know, this is the sort of rate at which. You know, food and beverage pricing is, has been increasing over the past few years that it’s effectively doubled now.

The same isn’t true for an emission product. and so, you know, one, it’s increasing the slower rate. Two, it’s increasing at a lesser rate. And so I think sort of being really hyper aware of the different, pace and, and, pressure that you’re putting on your different pricing for those three different lines of business and parking and accommodation and things if you’re dealing with those as well, a whole different kettle of fish. Just being aware of, of those is really important.

Piere: So interesting. So I’m gonna put you on the hot seat here.

If you were to reconsider your pricing for admission as an attraction, how often will you do it? How often will you look into it at least?

Angie: Well, I think, I think it should be a litmus test at least once a quarter across all elements. And for me, some of this would come down to mission, you know, is this an issue of accessibility or are we here to make profit?

and I think then some of it would come into, uh. The tolerance level, like one of the first places I like to go is into voice of the visitor. have a look at the amount of, say, food and beverage complaints that you get that are related to pricing if you’ve got the volume to support that. And compare that to industry benchmark because people are always gonna complain about things being expensive.

So it’s like the degree to which they complain and how tolerable that level of complaint is. If I was here to make margin, then you know, I would say I would sort of push that, you know, as a little bit further than I’m comfortable with. if I’m here. On accessibility, then that’s going to be more driven by my commercial sustainability needs.

But I think sort of, what we pay a lot of attention to things like, you know, average revenue pivot, the per caps and how much shows are increasing, but paying the same level of attention to margin is equally as important. And so one of the core, key performance indicators or KPIs that I like to look at is the net value per visit.

So. Total revenue that we’ve made, from the visitor admissions, retail, food and beverage, whatever. And then the total costs, and we can consider the costs either as like a gross margin. So it’s just sort of the cost of supporting those functions or we can consider it in totality. So all of the sort of overheads and things like that, of our operation as well.

And just keeping an eye on that net value per visit, which may be negative for, hopefully not many commercial attractions, but certainly for some cultural institutions if we are thinking about sort of other forms of, uh, of income that they receive in terms of grants and so forth. But preferably for most it will be positive.

And just keeping an eye on that and seeing how that is changing. Because if I come back to this example that you and I were looking at earlier this week, when we are seeing like, you know, for example, that food and beverage, Figure that was increasing at a lesser rate than retail by quite, quite some way, over the course of those years, the, the biggest story that was sitting underneath that is the fact that, as you say, those, those prices of the goods that are going, or the products that are going into producing that food and beverage have been increasing at a much higher rate. And so, presumably that’s pressuring and pressuring and pressuring that margin.

So, so that’s, that’s what I would use as that net value per visitor, sort of that sense check. And then sort of break that down into some of my margins for each of those lines. Test that against my consumer tolerance. I think sort of working out, we always think that people are more sensitive to pricing than they actually are.

And of course, if you ever ask anybody knows, it’s too expensive, the answer is always going to be yes. So it’s that really delicate art of sort of pushing the envelope as far as you can get away with it. if that’s what you’re after or if that’s what you need.

Piere: Yeah, 100%. I like what you’re saying, and it there is sort of ties to what you were saying about the price of the coffee.

I guess the, the reason why you’re still buying coffee, even if it’s pushing that $8 mark, is that it didn’t go from four to eight in a month’s time. It gradually increased. Right. So I wonder if, like, the analogy that you take into reviewing your pricing every six months is also the same, right? Like you want to.

Potentially increase that gradually. So if your price of admission is 15 and you haven’t touched it for four years or five years, making it 25, all of a sudden maybe almost like a, you know, a tag shock to people that are gonna buy a ticket. So, reviewing it, often increasing by, you know, a couple of dollars, $3 at the time, it is less of a shock and it creates that habit, right?

It would also be different for heavily you, you know, international market, visitor attractions, right? You know, when you’re on holiday, maybe you pay a little bit less attention to the price of a specific attraction and doesn’t, I mean, I’m not gonna say it doesn’t matter because it does matter if it’s 10 or 15 instead of 15 euro.

Maybe it will matter less if you are an international choice, for example, than if you’re local and all of a sudden your local, you know, cultural institutions brought their prices by 10 or 15%.

Angie: And to bring that back to your first point, the locals are probably going to notice the heavier jumps. even if they are more infrequent, where the tourists obviously won’t ’cause they’ve got no precedence to compare them back to.

I sound like a hypocrite saying this because we’ve only put our prices up at Dexabit once, in our history. But, uh, definitely I’ve met, you know, dozens and dozens of visitor attractions who will quite commonly say, oh, we haven’t reviewed our pricing in X number of years. and then when they do, they do do those big, leaps from like 19 to 24 or 24 to 29, or they’ve gotta get up over 30 and it’s suddenly 34 50 or something like that, rather than those more incremental things.

And, and like you say, even sort of between admission retail and food and beverage, even between admission of like. You know, your local versus your, your domestic or international tourist pricing. like you say, you can sort of consider different, pricing, different, different elements or different paces of increase, on those, if you’ve got the ability to, to split and, and probably another kind of strategy is to look at more variable pricing.

So quite often a lot of people leap to dynamic pricing where. They’re doing it based on demand without sort of the intermediary step of going from fixed into variable pricing where, you know, maybe you do cheaper Tuesday or mornings or you know, maybe Mondays are always quiet. So you give those a different rate or

School holidays might be more expensive than not, and, and all of these sorts of things, that gives you some more data to be able to analyze, your price sensitivity and elasticity. But it also, you know, gives you that ability to control things a little bit tighter and to push the, the envelope a little bit more where you need to without sacrificing some of the visitor volume or accessibility. Where that’s important.

Piere: I was just, before you mentioned dynamic pricing. That’s something that I’ve. I’ve seen before, right? You, you see people going from zero to a hundred like that, right? As in like someone or an institution that haven’t reviewed their pricing in several years and then all of a sudden they realize, oh my God, we haven’t touched these prices in X amount of years.

And then they’re like, okay, cool. We’re gonna go to dynamic pricing straight away. Yeah, let’s get a blow torch, right? And, and there is there that step in between, right? Like the, because dynamic pricing we’ve had, I think we’ve had that conversation before right It’s a very, very, very sensitive topic in my opinion, right?

No one likes to go on a flight booking website in the evening and getting the right flight, and it’s, you know, 350 bucks and you’re like, you know what, before a book, I’m just gonna have, I’m just gonna think about about it overnight. I’m gonna have a sleep, and then I book you tomorrow morning and you go tomorrow morning the next day, and guess what happens?

Exactly right. How frustrating is that? So imagine that before attractions right now you don’t have a, you know, you don’t have a choice. It is D-Day and you’re about to go out with your kids and the price of the attractions went up 15, 20 bucks overnight and you didn’t book it last night because you were tired.

So overall it is, it is a sensitive topic and , I don’t know how I feel about, about dynamic pricing for visitor attractions, but nonetheless. People are taking that step, right? They’re going from, we haven’t touched prices to, we are gonna implement dynamic pricing. and there is, there is a step in between that.

There’s a step of, well, actually, how long ago did we review our price? Then second question is, if we have institutions around us, what are the prices? How long are people spending in these attractions and how long are they spending at our attractions? They spending the whole day, half a day, a few hours.

so you can sort of understand, you know, the, the, your price compared to other attractions around you. and then you can make that decision, right? Yes, we are a lot cheaper to other attractions based on the experience that they offer or. We are on par or we are more expensive. and then you can, you know, it’s almost like if you’re more expensive then you can think of dynamic pricing.

‘Cause you’d be like, I wanna compete with these other attractions. and I want to boost my, my slow times, right? My, my days that are very slow. My hours are very slow. and I want to increase capacity on these days. but The good news I feel, is that admission pricing is fully controllable versus retail and FNB, you’re depending on that supplier not raising their cost.

You are depending on that, you know the price of eggplant not going up, if you’re serving eggplant. That is, You know what I mean? Like I, I feel like admission is a lot more comfortable there. There’s like that one aspect of the business where you have full control, until something like the, a minimum wage, you know, increase in a specific country and then boom, you hit with an extra expense and then need to think of.

You know, putting up your prices or the cost of maintenance or specific ride is going up, or it needs to be maintained more often than one originated planned, et cetera, et cetera. But I feel there’s a little bit more control there. What’s, what’s your take on that?

Angie: Yeah, I think it, emission revenues, uh, it typically got like very high incremental margin.

So especially on days when most of your fixed costs are already covered, you know, different, different If you are, say. Warner Brothers, uh, studio tours in Hollywood where every 10 visitors you’ve gotta put on a new tram with a driver and everything else. But you know, if you are LACMA down the road, you know, once you’re building and security and utilities and all of that sort of thing are budgeted, allowing more visitors.

Through the doors or getting more visitors through the doors, or getting a higher ticket price for those visitors through the doors. That tends to have a, a very low marginal cost. other than maybe some incremental staffing and wear and tear and things like that. And so, I think because of that, like,

the admission is the highest, margin lever to help you raise revenue and profitability at the same time. so I think there’s this idea of sort of preferring to push on admission versus some of the other, lines of business, because that sort of gives us that, that better sustainability. But you know, like once the capacity is there each, each incremental visit, uh, visitor is almost like.

Pure profit, minus those variable costs. so I think, I think that that’s sort of something you often talk about the visitor having like a fixed wallet when they turn up. And sometimes that can also include like the cost of getting there or parking or buses or whatever they’re doing, or bringing their lunch even if they’re not eating on site.

And so I think sort of thinking about that when you were thinking about how your different lines of business might cannibalize each other and then be very strategic about where you push those price increases, to make that work, in a way that’s going to deliver the highest margin. particularly if you are dealing with like a third party operator maybe handling food and beverage and therefore even of the margin, you’re only getting a share of it.

Right. So, sort of thinking about how that’s going to best. Benefit your organization versus some of those consumer behaviors.

Piere: That’s so Right. And I think, you know, the, the benchmark analysis that will be launching very soon around destinations and around how destinations perform on generative AI platform, but also, you know, how much people should plan to spend, whether they’re going to X or Y locations, which sort of help.

Institutions make these decisions, right? How, how much are people planning to spend when they come? they have that fixed wallet, they have that budget. They may be flexible on that budget, depending on, again, if they are local and international visitor and so on. but how do I fit my products and my different offerings within that fixed wallet?

That’s gonna be the question.

Angie: Yeah. And then sort of how does that margin break down? So if we can imagine that that, you know, typical gross margin or incremental margin is like exceptionally high for the admission. After your fixed costs are coverage, and then maybe your typical net margins potential is somewhere around the like 20%, across your full operations.

Maybe it’s sort of that mid to high, single digits depending on what your cost structure is. But then if we can pair that to like retail. And food and beverage retail, we’re probably talking about an average of like moderate to high, like 40 to 60% on your gross, and then it’s gonna end up somewhere around maybe five to 12.

on your, net and then food and beverage will probably end up somewhere like 60, 70% on gross, but then again, like somewhere around that five to 10% on your net. So, and, and then like if we’re halving that or whatever, how it’s being split up with revenue share on the, on either of those business lines, like it just makes more sense to focus that, that spend into the admission just for the margin benefit.

Piere: Yeah, for sure. No, I agree with that. I agree with that. Look at your prices every six months. make a small increment if necessary, and people won’t be scared of the price. Right. I guess.

Angie: And if you are going to go dynamic, I think there’s some. There’s the obvious ways to do that. You know, the, the airlines have done it, the hotels have done, as you mentioned, and attractions.

We do tend to see it more in the capacity limited, attractions. So things like, for example, if I go, if I go up a tower in New York to look at the view. Chances are that’s going to be a dynamically priced visit versus, and sometimes with like zoos and aquariums because of the popularity, you know, those can be, ones to go for.

But like if it’s in my local art gallery where I’m wandering around and there’s quite a bit of space for everybody else to wander around, like the, the business model doesn’t make entirely good sense there, and there are some players that are doing it in food and beverage or starting to or thinking about it, and the same as some of the retail as well.

There’s some more subtle ways to go after it. It’s like you could do like this sort of happy hour type thing because that’s more like explainable to a visitor versus like, you know, suddenly seeing prices jump and things like that. Particularly in that food and beverage setting. So there’s some ways to sort of very subtly brand what might be sort of considered at least an element of dynamic or variable pricing, but just sort of make it come across different as well.

All about sort of how that message is delivered.

Piere: Yeah, for sure. Did you mention something about, like potential packages when people buy an admission, as in you buy an admission and you buy, you know, or you pre-buy food at the cafeteria or the cafe, et cetera. have you seen that very often?

Angie: Yeah, I know it’s popular with, um, FECs and, some of the lbe, uh, so the Family Entertainment Center and uh, location-based experiences.

I know you’ve, you’ve had a few of these with the kids’ birthday parties and things like that, right?

Piere: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ve, I’ve seen it very often and I think. it is a great way for the business to forecast how much money they’re gonna make on that specific day because they already know how many muffins they need to buy, uh, when there’s a birthday party, et cetera.

But I wonder if there is a way to, or if there are businesses out there that are expanding that to general visitation of all, and that would, you know, that increase that amount of control, and cost reduction because you are controlling your waste. Your potential waste a lot more than, you know, just waiting for people to turn up and see what they get at, at the cafe or what they get at the retail store.

Angie: Yeah, that’s really important. If you have got a decent amount of advanced pass reservation, and particularly if those are from larger groups like children’s birthday parties or corporate events or anything like that, like getting as much of that advance notice and, and preferably cash commitment, is a fabulous thing to do if, if they’re not already doing it.

and yeah, absolutely. I can totally see that bleeding into the consumer experience. And I think it’d be, it’d pose a really interesting thing for the consumer, sort of psychology, the consumer wallet, when they’re thinking about their visit. I know for a lot of visitors, for example, you know, to your point of.

That you, you often talk about of, you know, the visitor having that set budget in their mind, they come to the attraction, they buy the ticket, they, you know, think about I’m gonna spend my $8 on my, coffee. and therefore there’s no, there’s not sort of money in the kitty for, the plush toy as we are going out.

versus like, for example, some of our attractions have got sort of collectible souvenirs that might be even like. Over $10,000. So they’ve got these, beautiful like five figure, sum products sitting in the retail store. And for some visitors it’ll be that trigger that it comes out of a separate psychological wallet.

so I think maybe sort of breaking up that visitor spend that some of it’s committed earlier and then some of it’s. sort of more on the day, you know, potentially we are drawing on two different, um, but like the dessert stomach, um, two different sort of spending, um, thought processes, in the consumer’s mind.

Piere: No, you’re totally right. And I can see how, for example, people. Um, some folks are already doing it, for exhibitions, right? Like you, you have some folks, out there that, have special exhibitions on. You can buy a special exhibition ticket if you want, but you can also buy a special exhibition ticket, and the catalog for that exhibition at the same time on the website, for example.

And that’s like an easy maybe upsell. And then as you mentioned, you know, it’ll be harder to push something that, impacts you on an emotional level after you’ve seen the exhibition such as, you know, an item that really resonated with you. when you got that exhibition and you saw that piece of artwork and then like it resonated and you want to buy an item that, that reminds you of that piece of at work. 

But yeah, I think, I think you’re totally right. It’s, uh, Popular in, in some institutions and some type of institutions, maybe less in some others. but I think overall a great way to pre-book your revenue, a great way to plan, and, and pre-book that revenue and secure that revenue early

Angie: and for food and beverage.

Also, a great way to reduce some of your wastage as well. If you know what people are after, particularly on some of that, perishable inventory.

Piere: Absolutely. I think it’s, is

Angie: it dessert? Stomach a real thing, Pierre? Is it scientifically proven? I feel like it is?

Piere: I’m not sure. I think that’s just Angie thing. I don’t know. Uh, no. I feel like, yeah, I think, we can say it’s, um, it’s scientifically proven.

Angie: Pierre, what’s the one thing we haven’t talked about yet when it comes to pricing on different lines of business and the attraction?

Piere: Well, I think earlier you mentioned a voice of the visitor and the data that we have. One of the topic that. I usually look at is as you mentioned, price, but then price related to, to quality, right?

And if we take the F&B sector for an example, and if you are lucky enough that if you can afford to offer more than one type of dining experience At your institution, uh, you may have that tech wake out outside and you may have that sit down restaurant. I think like if there’s a, a huge change in experience and in expectation when people are sitting down and they’re gonna pay a higher price, and then I think you will agree that the quality also needs to be higher and also needs to be leveled up.

And I feel like this is where we get a lot of these potential complaints, right? Is that when people. Choose to go that level above on the f and b, right? For example, at an institution, but don’t actually necessarily feel like the quality or the service was adequate to that level above, what do you think?

Angie: It was expensive for what it was? Yeah. And how often do you hear that? Right? Yeah. And I can clearly see when I look at some analysis, on, food and beverage and pricing and value and, and cost and things like this, there is that clear. Emergence of, of both quality and service or like experience. so there’s the sort of difference of paying a lot for a hot dog.

Is this what they’re called? Corn dog, whatever they’re called. Uh, paying for one of those at the cafeteria, versus like if you’re seated in front of something on, on a plate. So like, if you are going to push that envelope of pricing, think about how you’re doing it in relation to both the quality of, of the food and also the quality of the experience of the food.

And potentially doing those in two separate locations if you have that. Available to you and your attraction to be able to differentiate them is a great way to sort of, play with that perceived, quality, of food or experience, you know, the plated versus the, the paper or, The, the white cloth versus the cafeteria bench.

All of those sorts of things is the table surface versus the, countertop. they all make a difference. and you can do almost the opposite, in retail. Like pulling out some of your more expensive items into a popup, can be a more effective way of doing a popup than pulling out some of your cheaper items.

So I think sort of playing with that place and, and that style of experience as it comes into retail and food and beverage is great. some tips here on, on analyzing this data. I would, take a look at your average, price for your, products that you’re moving in, both retail and food and beverage, and then sort of look at how that’s interrelated with your average basket size.

So the number of items and that, average, spend per visitor, again, as it relates to retail and as it relates to food and beverage. And look at the range as well and sort of look at That bell curve or lack thereof that you might be experiencing on your range? I know for a lot of visitor attractions, they end up selling a very high volume of postcards at like, you know, 95 cents each or whatever they might be pulling for them.

And sometimes that can be a distraction and, and a very low margin saying it’s a nice. I guess for a visitor to have a take home of their visit, but if you’re selling things less than a buck each these days, it’s hard to sort of see the, the, value to your attraction in doing that.

Piere: The tote bags, the postcards, the magnets, right?

Angie: Yeah.

Piere: These are the ones that are, yeah, that’s, that’s so interesting. That’s so true.

Angie: Unless there’s sort of a brand benefit for yourselves in doing that, then you might wanna question some of that. I mean, some of the tote bags as a prac, practicality I guess as well. but yeah, we do see that often those, those bell curves aren’t quite belled.

And there’s just too many, um, are too higher volume of, of cheaper items in the store that are discouraging some of that heavier spend.

Piere: Absolutely. Absolutely. So true. Thanks for that.

Angie: Well, I’m about to go out and get myself an $8 coffee. So, uh, until next time, Pierre.

Piere: Thanks, Angie. Until next time, enjoy your coffee.

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