11.11: Singles’ Day for Tour Operators.

Note: 11-11 is Remembrance Day, which is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. If your country observes Remembrance Day, Single’s Day may not be the sales event for your business. Instead, you could instead use the tips below for Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

By now you may have heard of Single’s Day or 11.11 and that on this day, people are in a mood to spend. In fact, one man got drunk and woke up to a live pig, peacock and giant salamander that he had ordered while on a shopping spree. Needless to say, there are opportunities for businesses here. But first off:

What is Single’s Day?

Well, it’s an annual sales event, similar to Cyber Monday and Black Friday. The difference is, in 2018 while Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined generated $14.1 billion in consumer sales, Single’s Day generated $45 billion according to McKinsey. 

It started as a marketing strategy by Alibaba, an e-commerce giant in China. The logic was, businesses around the world are capitalizing on couples during Valentine’s Day, so why wasn’t anyone capitalizing on Singles? However, the quick success quickly turned this marketing strategy into a global sales event that countless businesses started taking part in. It spread quickly from China to nearby asian regions, then to the rest of the world. 

What we’re really trying to say is that:

Tour operators should be capitalizing on Singles’ Day

Many tour operators have been seeing success running sales and promotions during Black Friday. It’s not a stretch to suggest that tour operators may see similar success in running Singles’ Day promotions. This would especially help increase your businesses’s reach in Asian countries. 

Plenty of businesses avoid Singles’ Day because of the idea that it’s mainly for a chinese audience and that there would be a language barrier. However, many countries like Singapore and Malaysia use English as their primary means of communication. 

So once you’re ready to jump on this new global phenomenon, here are:

Six Singles’ Day Strategies For Tour Operators

1) Get creative with your tours & activities

Create or cater your tours and activities towards singles. This doesn’t only mean tours & activities for single individuals. The idea of Singles’ Day is to celebrate singles, meaning you could create group tours for singles. Pitch your tour as an activity a group of singles could do together, for example, a picnic for a group of women or a go-kart party for the men. Of course you could also consider the solo travellers and run group tours where a bunch of solo travellers could meet each other. You could even market your activities as a day where a couple can do different things on their own. The smallest adjustments could make huge differences! 

2) Build awareness ahead of time

If you’ve decided to run a Singles’ Day campaign this year, let your audience know ahead of time. Use your social networks and email lists to inform them that you’ll be running something special this year so that when you launch your campaign, they are already in the mindset for booking! It’s ideal to create a good timeline for this is 2 weeks prior. 

3) Ensure you’re mobile-optimised

We’ve always stressed how important having a mobile optimised website is, but it’s never been more important than on Singles’ Day. According to McKinsey, 90 percent of research and purchases on Singles’ Day happened on mobile. Here are some tips on becoming more mobile friendly.

4) Adjust your colours

This depends on where you’re advertising too but if you’re advertising to an Asian demography, you may want to consider adjusting the colours you use in your graphics and ads. This is because, colors are perceived differently in the East, compared to the West. Here’s a resource on color perception in the East.

5) Fill your excess capacity

There’s almost always those one or two odd unfilled spots on tours and activities. Consider running large promotions to fill those excess spots. You could also sell discounted gift cards to individuals that can be used at times when you usually have those extra spots. 

6) Value add instead of discount

Instead of discounting your tours and activities, offer a free upgrade or add-on. For example, a free bottle of wine or a free upgrade to the premium package. This allows you to maintain your margin while still putting out a compelling offer. The great thing about this is as businesses are competing with price, customers become much more price sensitive and are affected by almost every dollar amount. Upgrades make it difficult for customers to put a dollar value on your offer, making it difficult to compare you to your competitors. 

Wrap-Up

If there’s anything you should takeaway today, it’s the fact that people are in the mood to spend on Singles’ Day. Meaning it’s better to be there than not, even if it’s not a huge promotion. 

If you’re on Rezdy, you can easily set up your promo codes and schedule your emails to notify your customers about them.