What if the “quiet season” wasn’t your biggest booking struggle, but your greatest business opportunity?
In this eye-opening episode, Sarah Riley is joined by Ged Brown from Low Season Traveller to explore a powerful shift happening in tourism that few are talking about, but that savvy glamping business owners, retreat leaders, and unique holiday rental hosts need to hear.
Together, they unpack:
-
Why rising global travel is creating chaos during peak seasons, and what that means for boutique hosts
-
How low season travel benefits everyone… your guests, your profits, and the planet
-
Proven strategies to increase bookings, impact, and guest satisfaction during slower months
-
Ged’s journey creating the world’s first platform for off-peak travel, and why it’s changing the game
If you’re ready to stop chasing high-season chaos and start designing a glamping or short-stay business that thrives all year round, this conversation will shift your perspective and ignite new ideas.
Plus, you’ll learn how to build a brand that values connection over crowds, and sustainability over saturation, so your unique hospitality experience stays in demand no matter the season.
What if the “quiet season” wasn’t your biggest booking struggle, but your greatest business opportunity?
Today’s episode is brought to you by Sarah Riley, a Glamping, retreats, events, and guest attraction designed to help you unlock the hidden profit and purpose in travelling.
Listen to this and previous episodes here:
____________________
Get in touch with Sarah Riley
Glamping, retreats, events, and guest attraction – Courses. Guided Growth. Done-for-You Marketing.
Glamping Academy & Owners Club https://inspiredcourses.com
Boutique marketing studio https://inspiredcollectiveltd.com/
All show notes: https://www.inspiredcamping.com/category/podcast/
The Glamping Business Podcast Shownotes
Additional Resources And Links Mentioned
- Contact Sarah Riley through Inspired Courses
- The Ultimate Glamping Business Guide
- Guest Booking Success Marketing Masterclass
- The Glamping Business Facebook Group (+ Unique Holiday Rentals)
- Tools and resources in the Inspired Courses VIP Lounge
- How To Start A Glamping Business
Listen to the The Glamping Business podcast here:
- iTunes (Apple)
- Stitcher (Android)
- Libsyn (App for smartphones)
- Spotify (Smart Player)
- Soundcloud (Smart Player)
Want To Feature On The Business Of Glamping And Unique Holiday Rentals Podcast?
If you have something inspiring to offer the world of Glamping and Unique Holiday Rentals, then get in touch with Sarah Riley and share it on the Podcast. For more information contact Sarah here.
TRANSCRIPTION
Jed, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s, it’s a privilege to have you on the show. I’d like to get your point of view about low season travel and how important it is to every single tourism industry and the hosts and everyone out there doing , the most amazing job.
But you’ve got so much information. On what people can do to try to. Take advantage use some of that low season tourism opportunity. So let’s start from you and low season traveler and what is that all about? Explain that a little bit and how it started.
Well, thank you very much for, for having me on the podcast, Sarah. It’s the privilege is mine, by the way. I should point out. Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s. I, I started, I’ve, I’ve been in the industry, you know, all, all my life. I suppose it was in recent years when I started to see more cases of overt tourism and I started to dig around the, the macroeconomics, you know, what’s going on in the world that’s causing the overt tourism?
Because clearly it’s, it’s a dreadful situation when you have the lives of local people being impacted negatively. And what my research led me to, and it’s not hidden away, this is publicly available information, but. Global tourism is set to double in the next 20 years, and it’s coming online now. A lot of it is the fact that it’s easier for us to travel than, than it ever has been before.
You know, as we, as we record this, I can fly to Rome from Manchester for about the same price as going out for an Italian meal in Manchester, which is, you know, clearly there’s a disconnect. There’s something wrong When we we’re cheapening travel to that degree. But also you have a, a rapidly rising middle class in in Asia, in India in particular, but also in China.
There’s another 1.5 billion about to enter the global middle class in the next 10 years. And they’re all gonna wanna travel because once you attain middle class status, and what we mean by that is not the British sense of middle class, but it means that we have a house, we have food, we have income. And the key one is we have disposable income possibly for the first time in our lives.
And what people want to do with that, quite rightly, is, is travel and experience the world.
Mm-hmm.
So we’ve got a lot more travelers coming online. When you look at global tourism in, you know, in 2019, we always go back to pre pandemic. I think it was five or six years ago now already. Maybe we should move on, but even last year we saw 1.4 billion international arrivals.
And it, I always say it, it took us over a hundred years of tourism, gradually building up to get to 1.4 billion. And we know that with 1.4 billion we’re seeing over tourism, we’re seeing destinations that are, that are struggling to cope with that. If you add another 1.5 billion on top of that, in the next 10 to 15 years, we’re, we’re looking at a really, a really big problem.
But it’s also an opportunity because, you know, this is where I came from with low season traveler is it was about 2018 and I was thinking, okay, we, we have to do something about this. There has to be a solution. And the solutions that were being profited up until that point, were just put taxes on it. You know, just, just charge people more to come and, and that was relatively unsuccessful.
So I was thinking, well, look, I’ve always traveled during the low season months and you know, you and I were in SPS recently and that was actually the low season in sps. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. You know, there was nowhere near as many tourists there at all. You could engage with the local population that much easier ’cause they have time for you.
It’s less expensive. But I think that that’s a minor one. We’ll come onto that a bit later for any accommodation providers out there, but it’s a better experience. So I started to to sort of research, well, okay. Who in the global travel industry focuses just on these wonderful times of the year when it’s the low season?
And, uh, nobody had ever done it. Nobody had ever, in the history of our industry come up with something, which was just about the low seasons. And I figured, well, that’s probably the biggest unserved niche that I could have ever stumbled across. And that’s when I decided, okay, what I’m gonna create is a, is a, is a portal, you know, a website where we provide guides to the low seasons in each destination as a positive and and proactive thing, and a more responsible form of travel.
It went from there. You know, we had the, the, the, the, the guides online. It developed then to being a, a magazine, a consumer magazine, which goes out four times a year. Podcast. We’ve been doing the podcast since the very beginning. We’ve got over 200 episodes there, and the podcasts are great and it’s a great medium.
This medium is a great medium because I would record with. With tour guides, with local people all over the world. And I’d ask them about their, the low season experience. What’s it like? And it was so funny because when you do these on a, on a video, as you will well know, you can watch people’s reactions.
And when I’d say to them, I’d say, oh, you know, so you know, what’s it like in your destination? We’d talk a bit generally, and then I’d say, so is the low season, is it an awful time to be in your destination? And genu, you would see the body language change about. Oh no. It’s the most wonderful. You know, they get really animated and you’re just like, yeah.
That’s the gold, that’s what we need to, as an industry, what we need to get across to the public and to the, to the travelers out there. The, the magic of the low seasons, because I think that the low seasons, historically, people have been a bit fearful. They feel like maybe it’s a rubbish time to be there.
And, and we as an industry have done a bad job in, in, in convincing them that it’s actually a good time for a variety of reasons. So that in a nutshell is, is the background too. To, to, to low season traveler and how we came about and, and what we’re doing and it, and it’s just grown quite a lot in recent years because as there were more experiences of, of, of overt tourism, I think that the need for it becomes even clearer.
So essentially what you are doing is you are helping to educate the consumer, the tourist, that actually there are wonderful times to be traveling in a certain area, and I can really relate to that because I live in a part of Devon in the uk, which is Oh wow. Usually over tourist.
Yeah.
In in, you know, you can hardly drive down the street.
You can, it is difficult to get a bike down the street at certain times of the year, but the rest of the time it’s amazing. It’s just the most amazing place and I know that from my own experience and seeing others and obviously being involved in this industry. That during the low season times, that’s when businesses really struggle.
They’re struggling to get the bookings, they’re struggling to get customers in the door. Both the hospitality and the cafes, the restaurants, all of the things that are connected to tourism. So it’s in our best. Interest to try to generate an uptick in the amount of visitors that are coming along so we can understand why people need to be aware of it and what they can maybe do about it.
But what would your suggestion be for a local area, for local businesses? What could they do to try to encourage more low season travel?
I think one of the first. Points is they, they need to understand, you know, really clearly and, and with honesty, why is it the low season? You know? So if we’re, if we’re talking about, just as the example for Devon, I would say, or I would imagine that it’s the low season because the weather isn’t seen as being the, the most ideal weather.
So I think then what you have to key into, and that’s, by the way, that weather is a huge part of it. School holidays is, is a part of it as well. But weather is a huge part of it. So therefore, on the low season stuff, you have to focus on the purpose for travel, you know, so, so if my purpose for travel, if my main purpose for travel is the most perfect weather, then I would say go to Tene for Dubai at anytime of the year, you know, you, you’ll get great weather.
What if that’s not the main purpose for the travel? Because my, my main purpose for travel, and I think it is the same for a huge amount of people. Is to, to discover the beauty of the place, to discover the culture, the heritage, the natural beauty, and it, and it’s, for me, it’s all stuff that’s not related to weather.
But I think then if you, if you take Devon, it’s about focusing on what are the reasons that people would visit Devon beyond the weather. What else does Devon have? And you know, if you, if you, if you’re talking about that region of the world, it’s got immense cultural heritage as indeed most places do.
And it’s the cultural heritage, by the way, which, which differentiates places from each other. And again, I think a lot of, a lot of the time in our, in, in the wider tourism industry, I, I think we’ve, we’ve done ourselves a bit of a disservice. We don’t focus enough. On the cultural heritage as one example, because that is what differentiates us.
You know, there are beaches all over the uk and so, so having a lovely beach doesn’t necessarily differentiate you. The, you know, the warmth of the local people. The, the, like I say, the, the, the culture, the history around the region, that’s all stuff which is, is more likely to be unique. So it’s about focusing on the uniqueness of your destination, whatever that uniqueness may be.
And then to, to basically target a market that’s interested in the uniqueness of your destination. And that might not be the same market that come during the, during the summer months for the weather.
Mm-hmm. So
I think that’s at a, at a, at a base level, I would say. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it’s really interesting ’cause immediately coming to mind are, you know, we, so.
Embedded in magic and mysticism and standing stones and, and all that kind of good stuff in this area, which people probably, probably don’t really think about. And they’re thinking about the beaches, they’re thinking about activities and the water sports, which are all great, but there are also these hidden, magical, mystical things that are going on that that people don’t realize when they’re visiting the area.
So that would be something maybe.
And I think on, on the cultural heritage side. So I, I’ve also got a position with an organization called the World Tourism Association for Culture and Heritage. And we’ve done a lot of, of studies, uh, at TAC as it’s known and cultural heritage travelers. They are more considerate and considered travelers and they, they, they tend to be more responsible travelers because.
They’re interested in protecting and preserving the cultural heritage that they experience. So therefore, that, that’s the kind of tourism that most destinations want. You know, when I speak to different tourism authorities around the world, they’re all saying, you know, we want a better tourist. You know, we want a considerate tourist, and we want a sustainable tourist, and we want people that care about our destination rather than just purely wanting to use our destination for their pleasure.
And I think cultural heritage travelers, they, they tend to be that way a little bit more. So I think it’s a. I think the cultural heritage market is a, is a great market to go at. But then there are, there are other markets as well. You know, we’ve had destinations that have come to us and have said, you know, we’ve got nothing.
We’ve got nothing in the low season shed. And I’m like, I, I don’t believe it. Yeah. Every destination has the magic. The challenge is, you know, can, can you find the magic in the low season? And that’s, that’s our role at Low Season Traveler. You know, it’s, it’s almost like a challenge. It’s, it’s, can we find the magic in the low season in, I don’t know, you know, northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland where they’re not quite in the Lapland, you know, farther Christmas side of things for winter, but they have these incredibly short days and very long nights.
And then you learn about dark skies tourism, and you’re like, whoa, what? Hold on. They, they have some of the clearest skies that you could imagine and, and where, where I am in Manchester, I dunno what it’s like down in Devon, the night sky, you know, on a clear night, we, we can see some stuff, but you can’t see the Milky Way, you can’t see a huge amount of stuff.
If you go to a a, a dark sky area, you can really see your place in the universe like you wouldn’t believe. That kind of tourism dark skies. Tourism is getting very popular because light pollution is growing all the time. As we, as we’re getting more urbanized, then it’s in incre, it’s getting incredibly rare to have really perfect dark skies and what, what they do in parts of, of Northern Europe, and they’re doing it now in places like Ireland as well, where they have some great dark skies park, but they combine it then with local storytelling.
So they’ll have tours in Ireland. They have, they have bog walk tours. So you’re out in the middle of the peak box on wooden walkways at nighttime, and you have a guide who tells you all about the stars and what you’re seeing in the Milky Way and bringing it to life, but then also interspersing that with some of the, of the history of the destination, some of the stories and the folklore that, that were always around in, in Ireland over hundreds, if not thousands of years.
So they’re bringing that destination to life in another way. Now, 30 years ago, someone would’ve just said, well, there’s just a peak bog there. There’s nothing, there’s, there’s always some magic there. And it’s just about trying to find that magic and then marketing that, that magic of that destination to an audience who are interested in it.
And there will be an audience interested in it, I can assure you.
So how do you think people should try to find that audience? So you are talking about the cultural heritage audience. Is there a specific. Way of contacting them, of reaching out to them or where they’re hanging out and how to do the marketing around that.
Is there anything you can suggest there?
So, well now quite obviously, I am gonna say the low season travel audience. I mean, but generally, I mean, quite, quite honestly, that’s what we’re trying to curate. And what we have curated is an audience that are only interested in traveling in the low seasons.
They’re saying, you know, the, the, the, the, the mainstream, the main seasons is not for us. And, you know, again, and, and I think this is the for, for all of the listeners out there, this is the mentality to, to sort of key into really is you’re looking for people who don’t want to follow the crowd. And none of us like to think that we’re just the ones who follow the crowd.
That’s the irony on this. Most of us do follow the crowd.
Mm.
But we all like to think that we’re a little bit different, that we’re, we’re not, I’m not just a tourist, I’m a traveler. You know, I, I really under get under the skin of a destination. We all like to think that we’re that person, even though we’re not always all of the time.
But it’s about trying to key into that. And the, the spirit of it is if, you know, if I go to Paris. I know I can go to Notre Dame and I can, you know, experience all of that, but I’m the sort of person who, who would want to go down a back streete and discover a, a smaller church that maybe I’ve never heard of that by the way, might be equally absolutely stunning because I want the sense of discovery.
An adventure, and I used to say years ago, look, the, the days of Marco Polo are gone. If there’s anywhere in the world that’s undiscovered, please God let it stay that way. But we can’t discover everywhere’s being discovered already, but you can discover new and different things within existing destinations, and at different times of the year, you’ll have a different experience.
If you travel to Devon in the low season, you are defacto having an experience that most people don’t have. And, and that keys into another thing within the travel industry, which has always existed. There’s a, a little element of snobbery, some kind of snobbery whereby, you know, you like to have been to somewhere that somebody else hasn’t been to, because then it’s more interesting, you know, and people are like, oh gosh, I’ve, I’ve never heard of that place.
Tell me more about it. So there’s always been that element in, in tourism. And I think that, you know, during the low seasons you can, you can kind of key into that. It’s like, look, you know. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been to Dubrovnik loads of times, but then somebody else says, well, yeah, well, I, I was there in Dubrovnik, but I went in February.
It was amazing. It was absolutely quiet. There was no queues. And actually the weather was really pleasant. You know, they, they’ve ca it’s a bit of one upmanship almost, but they’ve had a be, they’ve had a better experience. So it’s about, it’s about keying into the psyche of the people and, and then finding out where those kind of people hang out.
So, again, you know, it, it’s about doing studies on. For me, it’s about trying to find out what, what are the habits? You almost create a persona of the type of tourist that you’re looking for, and then try and understand what are the habits of each of those personas that you are trying to target. And it could be, you know, it seems like, you know, where do they shop?
What do they watch you try and really break it down. Then you might sort of find, so if you, if you’re zeroing in on cultural heritage, there might be local Facebook groups that are focused on cultural heritage. That would be a great place to go and find people and to put your message out there. So it’s not necessarily all of the mainstream ways.
It’s more going where those niches go. And I think it can be quite a cost effective way of doing it too.
Mm. And what about schools? You mentioned schools and there’s no doubt that that has an impact. I’ve got two children, thankfully. They’re just about to come outta this. School system, but I’ve had many, many years have been completely controlled about when I can actually take my family holiday.
And it’s horrible because I don’t want to be controlled like that. I don’t want to have to go during the months that they’re telling me to go. And it’s almost as if, as much as I completely agree that if a child isn’t in school then. A teacher is being paid for an education that isn’t being received.
The the child. The child is obviously not going to have the education and so on and so forth. So I do understand that side of it, but there’s also this real need to understand the mental health needs of the parent and the family together. How important it’s for them to have family time. But it could almost be that.
It could be, say for example, I was thinking only this morning, how would I do it if I was in charge? I would probably do a thing where some, a family could take a week’s holiday just a week where they could go any time of the year. Outside of the school holiday times, but the child had to still do some work online.
So they’re still learning, they’re still educated, being educated, they’re still benefiting. But also it means that the teachers, you know, are still being employed in the way that they should do. And people have to kind of to know number of children. Say, let’s say it has to be a maximum of three children per classroom or something is allowed to go at any time, so it’s still monitored.
They still have to get agreement, but they can go. I mean, that’s just something that I pulled off the top of my head as a possible solution, but I can’t see the government doing something like that, and yet it has such a profound impact on so many places. Because people can only take their holiday at certain times of the year.
And what are your thoughts around that, and do you hear anything from government about considering parents and holidays in the industry?
It’s, it’s a really, it’s a really tricky, it’s a really tricky one. And, and it is like, like everything that’s tricky in this world, it’s deeply nuanced. I, I’ve, I’ve also given it a lot of thought, you know, because.
Travel. It is the cliche, travel is the best education. It really, really is. And I think it would benefit children, you know, a a lot to, you know, to experience the world around them in different cultures and everything else. The school holiday side of this, it, it’s, where is so hard, Sarah, is that if, if you take two or three kids out of a class, you know, if we’re talking, let’s say, let’s say for the sake of argument, at the moment we’re talking primary school, let alone secondary school.
If you take the kids out of the class two or three at a time and they’re allowed to, you know, go on holiday, your idea behind, you know, making sure that those, those kids, you know, they can do some work while they’re away is a good one. That’s making an assumption that the parents are gonna encourage that.
Mm-hmm.
And, and they don’t all, so what happens is, and, and the reason I know this, by the way, is my wife’s a teacher, so she’s a primary school teacher. So she, she deals with this on a regular basis because a lot of people do take their kids out. They’ll pay the fine happily because they’ll save a few thousand.
And, and, and I understand that it’s, it’s logical. But then as my wife would say, well, you know, then they come back and they haven’t done any work. They’re behind. The onus is on me as the teacher to make sure that all of the class, so the, the existing class that we’re still in, they have to still keep moving on because you’ve got this set agenda over the weeks leading up to the end of term.
But now somebody has to catch up these kids. And as a teacher, I, I don’t have enough time to be able to catch ’em up because they’re in a different place now and they’re behind. So where’s the owners? The owners typically would be on the parents. But what if the parents don’t care? Mm. What if they don’t get involved?
So you, you’ve got a real challenge there. I, I mean, the best solution I’ve seen n near us, some of the schools now take one week at Easter and they extend the, the wit holiday in May by an extra week to allow people to do that. It’s not ideal, but I, I think there’s, I, I don’t know what the solution is, Sarah.
It’s a real nightmare when we talk about low season tourism. You know, early on when I set up low season traveler, people were saying to me, right, so you don’t care about families because they can only travel in, in the peak seasons, you know, in the summer, for example.
Hmm.
And my initial response to that was, you know.
Okay, I, I’ll take the under thirties who haven’t got kids, and the over 40 fives, 40 sixes, um, who’ve kids have left the nest. And that’s a colossal market globally. And I thought, you know what, I, I’m okay with that. We’re not for everybody. You know, we can’t, we can’t please everybody. But then as I started to research more destinations around the world.
What I realized is that every single month in the year, it’s low season somewhere. So, so again, that led me then to creating a tool on the website whereby we have a map of the world and you’ve got months along the top and you click the month when you want to travel and we’ll show you where it’s low season, where the prices are gonna be keener, where you’re gonna have a, a really good and different experience.
And then we’ll show you, you know, what our destinations are like in the low season and why they should be gone. So in the summer season. Barbados, absolutely wonderful. People say it’s in, it’s in the hurricane belt. It’s not in the hurricane belt. Well, outside of the hurricane belt, are you gonna see rain?
Absolutely. Are you gonna see sunshine Way more than you will rain? 100%. I’ve been there. It’s a wonderful experience. You’re just thinking, why is nobody here? It’s insane because what you’ll have in Barbados, and it’s the same in a lot of the tropics. Is, it will be sunny during the day and then about four or five in the evening it will rain like you have never seen in your life before.
But, but what happens is, it’s, for me, it’s, I’ll, forgive me on this, indulge me, I, I just, I love the low seasons in the tropics because what happens in places like Barbados, and it happens in Thailand as well and other places, is you’re on the beach and it’s been sunny all day and you’ve had a lovely day.
Then you see in the distance instead of a blue sky over the sea, you see a darkness coming and it, and it’s jet black and it’s, it looks really imposing. And for me, actually as an aside, far more interesting than just a clear blue sky. And you know, it’s coming.
And
then you’ll get the odd little drop and you’re like, oh, oh, it, it is coming.
And you’re on the beach still. And then the drops get heavier and then it starts to belt down. And you, what do you do? You, you run into the nearest beach bar. Where everybody else is also run in by the way. And all of a sudden with the people that are in that beach bar, you’ve got this shared bond. ’cause you are all looking at each other as if to say, we’re not leaving here till that finishes and therefore you’re having a few drinks.
And it’s a, it’s a wonderful bonding because it’s a shared experience, a common shared experience. So for me, and then it stops later on and you know, the air is fresher and everything else. So again, it’s a great experience, but do we, do we talk about that side of the experience in the wet seasons? No, we don’t.
We just tell them it’s the wet season, but if you wanna come in the dry season, it’s, it’s this sell that, it’s, that’s an advantage. It’s, it’s a far more interesting time of the year to be there. So, yeah, the, my point on that is there are low season destinations in the summer months, and like I say, one example would be Bartos, the Middle East is another one.
It is, it’s low season for a reason. It is hot as anything. But it’s geared up for it in the Middle East. You know, if, if anybody listening has been to Dubai in July or August, yeah, it is hot as hell. However, all the pools are climate controlled. There’s an awful lot of indoor activities. If you’re going out, you know, till maybe 10, 11 o’clock in the morning, and then if you’re only going out in the evening, it’s wonderful.
The prices are way lower than they are the rest of the year, so it’s another good time to be there. A lot of parts of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Maldives, low season, summer months, there, there are plenty of destinations, but it’s about trying to find out which destinations are low season and to understand why are they low season and you know, what’s the downside, but what’s the upside?
And that’s what, that’s what we try to provide the low season traveler for the most part.
So essentially what you’re saying is for anyone who’s thinking about maybe attracting an ecotourist or a cultural heritage tourist, is to find out or to think about very cleverly and very creatively, and maybe even talk to people in the local area or visitors and say, what is it about here that is amazing to visit in the low season?
What is it that attracts you during that time? And then to. Make that into something. So either a video content or written content, podcast content, and then to promote that. So you are actually promoting the experience
good
of visiting that area in low season. And then of course, in doing so, you are also maybe as a.
Promoting the fact that you just so happen to have accommodation that’s available during that time that will be empty and cheaper, et cetera, et cetera.
So, correct. But, but it’s that, it’s that thing of, look, you know, I think any, anybody who’s in the tourism industry who owns a property, if they think that they’re selling beds.
They’re, they’re way off the mark. You know, you’re not selling beds, you’re selling experiences and, and if you don’t understand that, you really, you need to figure that out really quickly. You are selling an experience whether you realize it or not. And that’s the, that’s the, the, the collateral that, that you’re, that you’re dealing in.
You’re, you’re not dealing in beds and bed nights. And, and I think that’s a measurement. That’s not what they’re buying. They’re not buying a bed night, they’re buying the experience. And once you truly understand that and you start to extrapolate that out to the experience in the wider area, the local community and everything else, then things start to fall into place really quickly.
Because then if, if I’m an accommodation provider. I have a podcast, which by the way, I think is, would, is a great medium for this. I’d be interviewing some of the local people in, in the town or the area and I’d be getting their take on, on what they do. If there’s a local artisan that does local stuff and you can come and meet them when you come to see us, obviously it’s better in the low season because we’ve got more time.
You know, you can really kind of key into that. So I think that’s the. That for me is the way to go. Like you say, you know, focus on the experience and what’s that low season experience like? And again, nine times out of 10, even here in the UK when the weather is not the most pleasant, you know, parts of the UK are just absolutely wonderful in the low season, but we have to find the magic.
That would really entice people to want to come.
Mm, absolutely. And also the different ingredients of a certain area that might add up to a magic experience if there isn’t perceived to be a lot of magic, you know, in terms of one specific experience that they could do. It’s like, what are those little extras?
Yeah. They’re almost like a recipe, isn’t it? Almost like a, an itinerary. I really like what you said there about, it’s not about. How many heads are in a bed? That’s the reason why I’ve not really liked talking about Heads in Bed as a measure of how successful a business is. It’s absolutely not. I know occupancy is important because that brings revenue, but it’s also about what they, they’re saying about a place, what they’re saying about the host and the accommodation, and it is the experience, especially in this industry that I’m in, which is all.
About experiential, it’s all about the experience of the accommodation and the local area and the host and the local people all together. So I can’t let you go without asking you about AI and particularly about VR glasses and how you maybe in your professional opinion. As somebody who’s so ingrained in, you know, the low season market, where do you think that the development of really good, which apparently is happening, VR glasses will bring about a change in tourism and maybe when people decide to go to an area or not, because people are going to be able to put their VR glasses on and they’re gonna be able to visit Machu Picchu, Venice.
All of these places where it’s gonna be filmed during low season, it’s going to be quite empty or it’s gonna be AI generated so that it’s not even gonna be filmed. It’s just gonna, you know, people are gonna be able to experience going there without going there. And what do you think about that approach to trying to reduce tourism in an area and all, you know, what impact it might have on the tourist industry as a whole?
Is there, have you got any thoughts around that?
My, my overall take on that is that will increase tourism. So for me, if I was wanting to go to at Machu Picchu, I’ve never been, uh, I’d love to go, love to go. If I could put on a Vja headset and walk around it and experience it, that would make me then more likely to actually want to go in reality.
And experience it. So for me, as a, as a tool for selling your destination, I think the VR glasses would be amazing. I think it’d be great to be able to showcase for, especially when we talk about the low seasons and the low seasons, a lot of the reason they’re low seasons is there’s, there’s a fear that there’s something not, there’s a reason that they’re the low season, the weather’s not good or whatever.
So if you can allay that fear. Through tools like AI glasses by showing people, Hey, this is the reality. This is, this is what it’s like in the low season. They’re gonna be more likely to want to come. So I think the, the VR glasses would be great as a tool to, to, to get people to the destinations. Will it replace the one to travel?
I, I think the, the X factor on that is I, I, I don’t know because younger generations are brought up on this technology and maybe they will deem that as a more. Sanitized version of travel that’s safe and that’s risk free and everything else because the, the, the younger generation have a different approach to risk that we do.
Everything seems to be fraught with risk right now, and we’re all about protecting and, and, and cotting our children from having any risk at all. Which I don’t particularly think is good, but then I wouldn’t, I’m an older generation, so maybe the end result of that will be that they don’t wanna take the risk and they’d rather just, you know, have a VR headset and, and do that.
For me, personally, no. I, I, I, I want boots on the ground because a lot of it for me is I want to interact with the local people. Local knowledge is, is everything. And for me, the, the, the local people is, is. It’s a key part of the experience. You know, when, when I go to a destination, if I could go to a destination and not meet any local people, I, I don’t believe I would have a particularly good experience because what’s the point?
You have to have a look at it holistically. I want to understand about the culture of the destination and what makes this society tick or. I use the example of Japan all the time ’cause I, I love, have you been to Japan, Sarah?
No, I’d love to go. Oh,
I use the example of Japan all the time. I, I love, I love the Japan, the Japanese.
I love the way they have their society structured. You learn so much from it. And for any of our listeners out there who’ve been there, hopefully you’ll, you’ll back me up on this. But just little things like, you know when you go to Japan you do notice that it’s, you know, it’s spic and span that there’s no garbage anywhere.
And you’re sort of thinking, wow, but I haven’t seen any bins anywhere. There’s no bins anywhere really hard to find a bin in Japan. And yes, there’s no garbage anywhere. So I’m speaking to a local guy and I said, I’m amazed at this, but, but I said, where, where are the bins? Like what do I do with my garbage?
Everybody carries around a little bag with them and they put it in their own bag. They dispose of it when they get home because why should they do something to affect others? They have to be responsible for themselves. So everything in Japan is about consideration towards others, which is why they wear face masks all the time in airports and everything else.
It’s because they’ve more likely got a cold and they don’t want to spread that cold. So consideration for others, kids in kindergarten schools in Japan. They have to clean up after themselves to the degree that they don’t have cleaning staff in the schools because each kid should clean up after themselves.
They’re brought from a very young age to look after themselves and look after their space and be considerate and mindful others. So when you travel to a place like Japan and you are speaking to the local people, you, you are learning all of that stuff. If you were visiting it and not speaking to anybody, you wouldn’t learn any of that stuff.
So for me, yeah, with the VR headset, I’ll, I’ll see that it’s lovely and it’s clean and it’s tidy, but I’m not understanding the psyche as to what’s behind that. How did that come to pass? And there’s a, a number of destinations like that. So. Will it, will it take over from travel? I don’t know. I think a lot of that depends on the next generations and, and how they view it.
But they’ve been brought up with this technology. We haven’t, so I don’t know. What do you think, Sarah?
Well. I think that it will definitely appeal to some people who may be, for example, my mother-in-law, she’s afraid to get on a plane, doesn’t want to get on a plane, would love to see all these places, but has accepted that she can’t because she won’t get on a plane.
So for people who are a bit like that, I think a bit wary of going out, especially the older generation. Maybe if they’re not quite so mobile, it will open up some amazing opportunities for them and for maybe. Children when they are learning about the history of a place, they can actually visit it before, you know they are able to visit it because of means of money or school holidays, et cetera, et cetera.
So for them it’s gonna be really helpful for learning. So I definitely think it has its place. I don’t think it’s going to completely stop tourism. I think it will impact it. I’m really interested that you think it might actually make it more, you know.
Increase it. Interesting to
people increase it, especially if maybe the VR stuff is outta season and people can see the outta season and the in season.
Differences. And then they’ll think, oh, why wouldn’t I go outta season? I mean, that’s so much better. Why would I go in season when it’s just full of people and we’re in a queue to go up the mountain towards match fit you? I mean, why
would you? Why would you come on? Why would you,
why would you? So, yeah, I think that that could be quite interesting.
It could really help to educate people on the benefits of low season travel. Maybe it’s something that you could provide on your website. Absolutely. Some kind of VR experiences. Yeah, I think all of this, it’s. Just really the only limit is our imagination and how we’re gonna use AI and how we’re gonna use all of these tools that are gonna become available to us.
It’s mind boggling. It’s slightly scary, but as somebody who I think. I try to adapt to change in a more optimistic way. I think I’m looking forward to what’s coming, but I am kind of wary as well, so we’ll, we’ll have to see.
I think that’s, I think it’s healthy to be, to be wary, but I think if you can, again, with a VR headsets, again, if you’re in accommodation provider out there, you know how, how amazing that someone can really, especially if you’ve got a really nice property where you pay attention to everything, to all of the details.
You’re gonna wanna showcase off every bit of that, so, so again, it alleviates the risk for the person who’s booking is, you know, we have these tools like, you know, TripAdvisor and reviews and all of that kind of stuff. But if they could actually walk around your property and see it for themselves, you know, I suppose it’s one for the property owners.
Is that more likely or less likely to get them to want a book? And if you are doing a really great job with everything, then I would imagine it’s more likely to make them want a book. So I think it’s gonna be a great tool for accommodation providers actually.
Mm, absolutely. Well, I was speaking to someone who’s developing their property the other day, and they’re doing it a little bit like Alice in the Looking Glass, or Alice, you know, at the Rabbit’s Tea Party.
And as you walk up the stairs, there’s all of these intricate. Things that they’re going to have on display that people can just sit and look at, and it’s just gonna be incredible, but it’s very difficult to describe it.
Mm-hmm. So
having some kind of way of demonstrating that before people will come without showing everything, but just enough to generate curiosity, is going to get people really excited about wanting to visit this place.
So I think there’s definitely going to be technologies and new ways of us experiencing things that does light a curiosity that may not have been there otherwise. So I am really quite interested in that, and particularly around heritage as well and our history and things that. There’s places in Devon.
I’ve lived here for so long and there’s places in Devon I’ve never visited before and I’ve only just found out ’cause I’ve spoken to somebody who’s told me something that they’ve seen and you know, in standing Stones or a very interesting kind of angel seat, which is overlooking the coast and I didn’t even know about it.
Wow. And so I walked on to fi to find it the other day. And this is beautiful wooden carved angel, which is in the shape of a seat that you can sit. See the sea and the Yeah. Caves and all sorts. But I would not have known that if I hadn’t have spoken to the locals who told me that there was this special seat.
So I think, yeah, all of those reasons are reasons to kind of embrace it and embrace new technology and, and everything else, and as well, low season travel. But I am slightly wary. And one of the things that would you agree that we’ve had a peak of travel after? Pandemic. So we had a peak of travel and then we’ve had a bit of a drop off since then.
And I think people are starting to kind of question, is this going to continue as a drop off? Because maybe the cost of living crisis is having an impact in people booking the number of holidays they might book. And then, does that mean the threat of AI is also going to have an impact? So what are your thoughts about your optimism of the future of the industry?
When you say there’s been a dropoff globally, there hasn’t globally, it’s still, it’s still increasing at a, at a rapid rate actually. So I actually see it increasing. I, I see it increasing quite considerably, and I, I can’t see, I can’t see any potential drop off, unless it’s another pandemic. God help us. If there is, there’s God, I can’t, I can’t see.
Yeah, I can’t see a drop off. I think for me, I’m more, I’m more concerned about how we manage. All of the tourists, which are gonna be coming online. You know, for me it’s, it’s really clear, but I think it’s sometimes, and again, your listeners, I’m sure are located all over the world and it’ll be different in each different location.
But sometimes we do get caught up in talking about our, and I’ve done it all the time. I talk about the travel industry sometimes, and I’m meaning the UK outbound travel industry. And, and if we, you know, and that’s where you, you kind of need to remember, it’s, it’s a fully joined up global thing. So one of the things that will actually, I think have the biggest effect on tourism in the next, at least 10 years, is the availability of aircraft.
There’s a, there’s big challenges at the moment that Boeing have got with the production of aircraft. That is one of the things which is, which is slowing down aviation because the airlines can’t get the, the aircraft from, from Boeing quick enough, and Boeing are way behind on, on the manufacturing, so that’s slowing things down quite considerably.
But, but other than that, I, I just think it’s just gonna get more and more, but it’s different markets and I think, you know, you’ve, you’ve got mature markets in North America and Europe, and then you’ve got these brand new. Markets in, you know, India, China, Indonesia, that are all traveling more than they’ve ever traveled before.
And what what’s interesting is, you know, when we talk about that rapidly growing middle class is when, when we in the west or northern hemisphere, when we were first starting out on tourism in the early 19 hundreds, you know, with the advent of Thomas Cook. We started to travel, first of all on train over to Blackpool, and then it was like over to France.
So we sort of just eed our way out partly because we didn’t have the aviation, the technology and everything else. So we started slowly. That’s not gonna happen in India and China the right now. What they want to do is as soon as they’ve achieved that, that income, disposable income of middle class. If they wanna go to the places they’ve seen and heard about for the past 50 years, like Venice and Dubrovnik and all the Barcelona, these places that have been suffering massively, they’re gonna want to go there.
So, so we have to, we have to manage the tourism in our destinations a lot more carefully moving forward because. The, the next, the next wave of tourists. They are on their way, literally now. And, and that’s what sprang as we record this, it was yesterday that there was all over Europe. There was mass protests against over tourism in, in Spain, in Greece all over.
And I think we’re gonna start seeing more of that until we, we managed to find a way to balance tourism throughout the year and also balance it against the needs of the local environment and, and the local populations.
So what’s your perception of staycations being selfish in the uk? What are your perception of where that’s going in terms of a trend?
For me, I th I think, I mean, obviously I, I think I’m right in saying that the staycations hit the peak in, in, in the pandemic for, for obvious reasons. And what a great opportunity that was as well to, to really showcase what your destination has. I, I visited a few places in the uk. That I didn’t know existed up in Northumberland and and place like phenomenal.
I was like, wow. I had no idea. There was such incredible beauty on our doorstep.
Mm-hmm.
I think, I think that keys more into the sustainability side of things. You know? I think. You know, we, we probably should do more to, well, first of all, support our own local economy, but also it’s far more environmentally friendly.
Mm. When you take flights out of the equation and you, you stay locally in, in properties that are, you know, vaguely eco-friendly than I think you, you are doing a good thing. And I think that that whole movement towards being more sustainable, regenerative, however we want to call it, that’s only going to be more accentuated.
So. I, I could see, I, I, I could see that growing quite considerably and for good reason because again, there’s a part of me that sort of thinks, you know, I’ve never been to Venice. My understanding now is even in the low seasons in Venice, it’s pretty rammed a lot of, a lot of, a lot of different markets from all around the world going, part of me thinks I, maybe I’ve missed the trick for Venice, you know, to, to, to enjoy Venice as I would like to enjoy it.
Maybe I’m too late for that, so you know, instead, you know, yeah, maybe go to Scotland or Wales or, or Devon. I’ve never been to Devon, never been to that part of the world. I’d love to go. Oh, you should definitely
come. Definitely North Coast as well is the most for me because the South Coast unfortunately has.
It does suffer from a bit of over tourism as well. But yeah, north Coast is great up here.
I’d love to do it. Um,
yeah. Yeah, really, really great. So it is been, Jed, it has been a privilege to chat to you about this. Oh, thank you. And if somebody wants to find out more, and particularly if they wanted to play around with that.
Tool that you mentioned on your website? Yeah. Where should they go?
So you can go to Low Season Traveler, that’s two Ls, not the american way.com. And for the tool, if you click on, there’s a top navigation. If you just click on Destinations and it’ll, it’ll come up with a map of the world and you can have a play with it and see where’s low season in the world.
And we’re adding more destinations on there all the time.
Brilliant, so I’ll include all the links in the show notes so people just can just click through from whatever platform they’re listening to this on. It’s been really great to chat with you, and please do share any information that you can about low season travelers and also, you know how people can maybe use this new trend of.
Visiting areas in the low season to enhance their own business and to get more bookings. Please do share away and I will continue to share with my audience.
I will indeed, and listen, thank you so much for the opportunity, Sarah. Really appreciate it and thanks for the lovely conversation. Really enjoyed it.
Great. Thank you.
