You may see a memberships and season passes only being beneficial to larger facilities but in fact small to medium admission and attraction-based businesses can take advantage of the benefits these features offer. Depending on your point-of-sale and ticketing features, you may already have these options available to you built into your system.
What’s the difference between a Membership and Season Pass?
Memberships are for year-round access and Season Passes are seasonal.
Layout the Benefits
When creating your membership or season pass packages you will want to determine what perks to offer. This may include facility wide benefits like discounts on food, gift shops, free refills, discounts on additional tickets or discounts to other local businesses in the area. Take the opportunity to upsell additional add on items like discounted parking, additional tickets or concessions when your guest makes their purchase.
Determining Price
The price you set for your memberships and season passes can be tricky. Price it too low and you can cause overcrowding, long lines, overwhelmed staff and angry guest. Price it too high and no one will purchase. The general rule when determining pricing is to make your pass the price of about 3 visits and memberships about the price of 4-5 visits. You can even use this in your marketing, “For the price of 3 visits you can get access to our facility all season!”
Keep Your Guests Engaged
When guests purchase their memberships or season passes you will have collected their data and now have direct access to their inbox. If you choose direct mail marketing or email newsletters it’s important to keep your guests informed of any events, new attractions, facility information, and renewal discounts. Keeping your guests informed will increase the likelihood of them purchasing memberships and season passes again and again. Sending out mailers or emails about how a pass can make a great gift during the holidays will create revenue during your off/slow season.
Increased Value
Working with other local businesses within your community to provide special offers to season pass and membership holders increases the value of your pass. Not only am I getting access to your facility, but I can get a discount on playing mini golf at the near by facility or free drinks at a local restaurant.
Increase Revenue
Now that you have season pass or membership holders renewing their passes year over year, thanks to your marketing efforts and renewal discounts, you can ensure revenue coming in during the off/slow seasons of your business. During the busy season guest spending has increased due to the discounts offered to pass holders at your concessions stands and gift shops. Because you have sold your season passes and memberships months before your busy season guests can now budget for planned trips to your facility.
Create a Better Guest Experience
Guests love the exclusive experience offered through season passes and memberships. Pass holders have a better experience over single ticket guests because they don’t have to wait in long admissions lines, they receive discounts, they know where to find their favorite attraction quickly, and they can budget their visits months in advance. They start to feel like they are part of your business and guests take pride in that.
Contact us today to schedule a discovery call to see if season passes or memberships are right for your business!