Making it happen
This section of the toolkit is about getting your arts, culture or heritage experience ready to sell.
If you have worked through this toolkit, you are probably ready to go.
You are going to be very busy. Launching a tourism offer is a big task.
At this stage you need to pause and check that your business has a realistic chance of success.
If you are confident that your experience is both viable and sustainable, you need to prepare to be your business’s strongest advocate.
Building a success checklist
Exercise 5A
Use this list to check that you have achieved the key steps covered in this toolkit.
Have you...
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Pricing a viable experience
Exercise 5B
Take a final look at the economic viability of your business and its environmental and social impact before moving forward.
Your new venture must contribute to your finances. If you are a business owner, you need to make money. If you are an arts, culture or heritage organisation, you may need this tourism activity to subsidise your core work in your local community.
Pricing your experience properly is essential. The price that you charge needs to cover all your outgoings and give you a profit.
Identifying all your costs is vital. What are your costs?
- Set-up costs like equipment, signage, refurbishment or repurposing of spaces. Identify when you will recoup this investment.
- Indirect costs like running costs of building, vehicle and fuel costs, insurances, promotion, website etc.
- For expenditure related to each element of your experience, like refreshments, materials etc.
- Staff costs – include preparation and follow-up time as well as staff costs for the delivery of the experience.
- Promotion costs - including print, website, social media, staff time and attendance at promotional and networking events.
- Include your partners’ fees if you are working in a collaboration.
- Work this out as a price per customer. This is the bottom line. If your average price per customer is less than this, you will not make a profit.
Covering your costs is not enough. You need to make a profit.
What profit do you require?
Identify the profit you would like to make per year and divide by a reasonable estimate of customer numbers.
Add this figure to your price per customer.
Don’t forget to allow discounted rates for groups and tour operators.
Is your price competitive?
Compare your price with what comparable businesses around you are charging.
If your price is cheaper, and you are convinced the quality is comparable, consider putting the price up.
If your price is higher, look at whether you can cut costs to bring the price down without impacting on the quality of the core experience.
If you can’t do that, critically assess whether you offer added value for your higher price. If you do, identify and promote what makes you stand out.
If you don’t offer extra value and cannot cut the price, this is unlikely to be a commercially sustainable venture.
Why is your experience special?
Exercise 5C
Make sure that you can speak with passion, confidence and conviction about what you are offering.
Take a moment to set out your vision and what you have learned in terms that capture your enthusiasm and joy in what you are going to do.
Write yourself a one-page summary for when you have to sell your experience. Use your most enthusiastic language to capture your aspiration. Include answers to these questions.
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Preparing for market: Your elevator pitch
Exercise 5D
Imagine you have three minutes of a Very Influential Person’s time. This is your opportunity to impress.
Prepare yourself for this moment by focusing on three crucial elements of your arts, cultural or heritage experience. Make each of them as compelling, original and memorable as you can.
- Describe your location using vivid descriptions, highlighting all the senses.
- Describe your experience in evocative verbs to empasis activity and what people will do and feel
- Describe your story through the characters that bring it to life
Download the worksheet:
Looking at the big picture
With the initial burst of enthusiasm, it is all too easy to only focus on the strengths of an idea, but you can learn much more from considering your experience from all angles at an early stage by completing a SWOT analysis – look at all the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
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Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Opportunities
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Threats
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