A Better Way to Build Adventures

17 May 2016
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VSL_venueListInHandIn an article about the Adventure Travel Trade Association’s AdventureWeek Brazil, ATTA President Shannon Stowell floated the idea of “waking” a destination to the realization that “what they imagine outsiders will enjoy and want to experience might be very different from what they are currently offering.”

Our thoughts exactly.

As more travelers look for exciting and authentic experiences, the opportunity for destinations, tour operators and attractions to offer unique, curated packages to a myriad of travelers looms large. The potential for creating mind-blowing activity packages is there; realizing it, though, is tricky.

That’s the problem Bandwango’s founder Mo Parikh is aiming to solve. Inspired by his own adventures, Mr. Parikh teamed up with Visit Salt Lake, the company's first client-partner, to engineer a platform that allows the creation of endlessly customizable activity passports. These passports empower adventure destinations to appeal to every kind of traveler via simple, streamlined, and fully branded web applications, delivered straight to mobile devices (no native apps to download).

Tour operators and tourism boards have been creating custom packages for decades, but Bandwango’s simplicity allows the creation of these packages at volume, which has never been possible. Now, there’s no manually rifling through multitudes of potential local partners to find those with the widest appeal, and no more building passes that only satisfy guests interested in the most well-known activities.

As importantly, visitors won't have to spend time and energy combing through enormous "Things To Do" lists; Bandwango allows real curation, not just compilation. It also lets visitors buy passes directly on destination and merchant websites instead of making purchases further down the line.

Imagine a destination that serves a lot of families with young children; it might be easy to assemble a package that includes a family-friendly hotel, children’s museum, casual restaurant and bike rental. Creating dynamic adventure and travel packages for every convention, visitor type, or special event, however, is nearly impossible. The headache of re-negotiating with every attraction that wants to participate, assembling the package, and deciding how to implement it multiple times over is often too large a mountain to climb.

With Bandwango, not only can a destination or outfitter change or add new attractions to existing passes, but they can easily customize and re-skin passes for individual groups as well. This means the implications for targeting conference, meetings and event attendees are huge and unprecedented. The variations are endless, and the ability to change packages as new opportunities arise or as demand shifts exemplifies the flexibility of Bandwango’s technology platform.

VSL_VoucherTo be sure, destinations can use Bandwango to create standard packages of activities—popular adventures, cultural activities, dining opportunities, and the like—but they can also design and execute highly targeted one-off campaigns in minutes; Bandwango’s seamless user interface means that building a custom passport for a family, tour group, business convention or even individual is as easy as thinking of it. Visitors get easy, discounted access to exactly what they want, and don’t have to waste time scouring the internet or making tough decisions about which package they’ll purchase and, correspondingly, what they’ll miss out on.

The benefit for visitors is obvious, but the appeal to local merchants and activity providers quickly becomes just as apparent. Creating a fixed large-scale destination package requires lots of overhead and excludes smaller operations who appeal to niche markets and limited numbers of tourists. Bandwango’s customizable nature makes it easy to include small-scale adventure operators, tour operators, stores, attractions, and restaurants, so destinations can drive revenue to every community member and create packages that combine previously unrelated activities and offerings.

This system helps turn browsing into measurable visitation and economic impact in a way that traditional “Things-To-Do” lists simply can’t. Once the client is on a destination’s website, they’re encouraged to buy the pass directly, an improvement to simply providing them with information and hoping they make the purchase on their own.

Solving the problem of fulfilment and redemption, Bandwango’s platform delivers a fully branded mobile pass directly to the visitor’s phone, so they can scan it at their chosen activity or destination without picking up printed passes. There’s no complicated POS installation required, either; Bandwango sits smoothly on top of any existing system, so merchants don’t have to update equipment or buy expensive new software to enjoy the benefits.

Tour operators, tourism boards, outfitters, and merchants already know what their clients want; they just need a better way to deliver it to them. Systems like Bandwango make it possible for every operator to deliver unforgettable curated experiences to travelers’ most intimate device.

Meet Bandwango’s founder Mo Parikh at AdventureELEVATE 2016 in Saguenay, Quebec. He’ll be on the panel for the concurrent session “Mobile Technologies Offer New Customer Touch Points.” You can also find out more about how Bandwango can help you by visiting Bandwango.com.

Want to learn more about Bandwango’s services? Fill out the information below and we’ll put you in touch.

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