As Costs Rise, So Should Prices (but Are They?)

Tour, activity and attraction operators report rising costs across a range of areas in businesses, and a majority are increasing prices. 

Arival’s latest survey of visitor attractions across North America and Europe, conducted in partnership with Tiqets, found that a significant majority report rising costs across several key areas of operations: 

More than three in four attractions cite staffing and wages, technology and equipment as the top drivers of increasing costs.

Staffing & Retention Are Top Concerns

Higher labor costs appear to be particularly acute: one in five attractions report that labor costs have increased by more than 10%.  It’s no surprise then that the top business priority over the next year, say visitor attractions, will be staffing and retention. 

Fewer attractions, but still a majority at 55% and 54%, respectively, report increasing marketing and insurance costs.

Costs are Up, so What about Prices?

A majority of visitor attractions have raised ticket prices in 2022. Just over half, or 54%, say they have increased pricing, but most say they have made only moderate increases of less than 10%. 

Given how widespread and pronounced Inflationary pressures have been in 2022, we would have expected more operators and attractions to have increased prices. However, many visitor attractions are not-for-profit or public institutions and may have governing rules which restrict their ability to change prices. 

Ticket price increases are far more pronounced for for-profit attractions: 74% have increased prices this year, while just 34% of non-profit attractions have raised prices. However, that still leaves one in four for-profit attractions that have not raised their prices but probably could – and should – in 2022. 

Nine Key Visitor Attraction Trends in 2022:

Get the Full Report (It’s Free) and Download the Arival and Tiqets Webinar

This new research report from Arival and Tiqets, based on a survey of more than 100 visitor attractions, delves into key trends shaping the visitor attractions sector of travel and tourism. This free report measures the state of the recovery, the adoption and digital readiness among visitor attractions across Europe and North America, and provides key benchmarks and guidance on technology, distribution, marketing and more. 

If you missed the July, 2022 Tiqets and Arival webinar where we walked through the key findings from the study and discussed the learnings and what it means for visitor attractions and resellers with industry leaders from the San Diego Zoo, M56 Group and Tiqets, click here to download it now from Tiqets.

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