Today, we're diving into one of the most important questions facing the industry right now: How can attractions improve their websites in 2026, and what does the latest data tell us about where the real opportunities lie? We’re unpacking the key findings from the fourth edition of the Visitor Attractions Website Survey, exploring what guests actually want from their online experience and what you can do to improve performance, conversion and visibility in a fast-changing digital world. To help make sense of the trends and turn insight into action, Andy Povey is joined by two brilliant guests who were contributors to the report, Simon Jones, Managing Director of Navigate and Steve Mills, Director at Decision House.
In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey explores how visitor attractions can improve website performance in 2026 using insight from the 4th Visitor Attractions Website Survey.
Andy is joined by two contributors to the report:
They break down what visitors expect from attraction websites, how digital behaviour is changing, and where operators should focus to improve conversion, visibility and trust.
Show References:
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
Simon Jones - Managing Director of Navigate
Steve Mills, Director at Decision House
Mentioned:
Olly Reed of Navigate Agency: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olly-reed/
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Merac. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, we're here to rehumanise commerce. Your host is Andy Povey.
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Andy Povey: Welcome to Skip the Queue. I'm joined today by a couple of. Is it long served or well known friends from the industry that have been around for a little bit of a while?
Simon Jones: Old.
Andy Povey: Well, I was trying to avoid that, but. Simon.
Steve Mills: Experience. Experience. Andy.
Andy Povey: Experience. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. So we've joined today with or by Simon Jones from Navigate and Steve Mills from Decision House. For those of you who don't know, Navigate are a strategic digital marketing agency, probably one of the best digital agencies in the attractions world at the moment. I don't know. How many customers do you work with? Silent. Is it every attraction in the UK?
Simon Jones: I wouldn't say every, no, we've got good 50 that we work with on an ongoing basis and yeah, I've been involved in the sector for a long time, so I think it gives us a really good understanding of the, you know, the visitor journeys and visitor patterns and yeah, we work with an awful lot of attractions across the board.
Andy Povey: So if you haven't come across Navigate so far and you like what Simon's got to tell you in the next 30 minutes, then find him. We'll put the details in the. In the show notes. Steve, it seems like you and I have met more times online and webinars than we have in real life.
Steve Mills: Yeah, it all started during the pandemic when we did an awful lot of work with ALVA on public sentiment and how people were feeling about going back to attractions. And it's kind of carried on since then, really.
Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah. So, listeners, for those of you who don't know Decision House, when you see all the stats that are quoted everywhere about what customers and people feel about the attractions world, there's a high certainty that Steve's been the bloke that's actually done the research. Or John that works with Steve.
Steve Mills: That's right, yeah. John's been working with us for about a year now, so he's been an invaluable addition.
Andy Povey: So we're here today to talk about the results from the Annual Attractions Website Survey. We were out in the field getting loads of data back from loads of you, loads of attractions. So thank you to everybody who took the time to complete the survey. I hope you're going to find the results useful, but we're going to augment those results by some quality experience from experienced professionals in the industry in Simon and Steve. I suppose we just dive straight into it. Looking forward to 2026 now. What's the biggest digital trend that we're going to see? What can attractions not afford to Ignore. That's for you, Simon. I suppose.
Simon Jones: Yeah. I think the first thing there's several jump out but the one that really stands out is the integration of AI and how organisations really need to think about how that's impacting their marketing, their approach to what goes out and how people are going to be searching and looking for them. So for me that's one of the things that's really going to be key for the agenda moving forward.
Andy Povey: Yeah, absolutely. I mean we, when I was writing the report, the data was actually gathered during the summer of 2025 and looking at it now, I think that's six months on, possibly from when the data was gathered and AI has moved on massively in that six month period. Steve, what about you? What, what do we need to be looking out for?
Steve Mills: Similar, to be honest, I mean it's very much an AI theme at the risk of being dull on this, but I think for me it's the movement from people intentionally using AI through things like ChatGPT to almost unintentionally using AI through Google. So it's almost, you can't avoid it now. So people planning their attractions visits are just going to be using kind of AI. AI queries in Google are just automatically going to come up and then they're going to press the AI mode button and delve into it that way. So there's just going to be a bunch of people who don't even think they're using AI, who are using AI, who will make it through to an attractions website because of that reason.
Simon Jones: Like actually Steve, you made a really good point about people using it and not realising where it impacts. And Google's the AI search model, it reads all the data and information out there. So ironically it's picking up. Reddit's had a huge amount of growth over the last year or so because AI tools of Read or Google in particular reading through Reddit, it's picking up a lot of information on it and Reddit's now become the fourth most used social media channel in the uk and that's purely because of the way that it's being integrated and being used, real content being used and then AI taking that. So people are using AI and real content together in that string. But that's had that knock on effect for Reddit coming back into it really.
Andy Povey: Interesting. I was talking to a couple of customers up in the Cotswolds who have very similar names just before Christmas. One allows dogs in, the other one doesn't. And they're continually getting Complaints from customers both sides, where AI is returning results from the other venue and returning the wrong result. So people turning up at the entrance with their dog, being very disappointed that they can't come in. Steve, on this, then, I suppose your bag really is what customers are doing, isn't it? Looking at this from the customer side of the equation, rather than, Simon, you being on the traction side of the equation. What are you seeing customers talking about in terms of digital?
Steve Mills: I think it's just what we've just been talking about, really, is people, they are becoming a lot more savvy in terms of their searching. They're almost training themselves to use AI, to be honest, they're becoming more savvy in terms of the questions that they're asking. So it's now, plan me a day out in Greenwich or tell me what the best things are to do in the National Maritime Museum, rather than just going straight to the website, first of all. So I think that's the biggest thing.
Andy Povey: And you've got the next wave of sentiment analysis research that you're doing right now, I believe?
Steve Mills: Yeah, that's right. So, for ALVA, we do the public sentiment work about once a year now. It started in Covid, where were doing it almost on a sort of fortnightly basis, kind of just really taking a rain check on how the public are feeling about visiting attractions at the moment. So that will be coming out sort of towards the end of February again, so that will be presented at the ALVA Council meeting. And then there'll be snippets that are available to the public, which just really, as I said, take a rain check on how the public are feeling about visiting attractions at the moment, and in particular, what is making a great visitor experience.
Andy Povey: I mean, we obviously did some consumer research as part of this survey and we've got some of those results. So we'll talk about them as we come up. Simon, what are you anticipating marketeers having to throw away from their marketing toolbox in '26? What is that that we can stop doing? What Marketing tools are becoming outdated?
Simon Jones: For me, it's anything that means that you can't really track it properly. There's so many opportunities out there and so many different places you could invest and try and look at generating results from. But if you're doing it without understanding what you're getting back and the results that it's generating for you're just throwing sort of money and effort blindly out. So for me, it's making sure that anything that you do, you've got a way of monitoring, a way of tracking it and seeing what those real results are. I mean, if you think about some of the more traditional sort of methods, if you like, of advertising, look at TV for example, even that's taking the approach now of being very digitally focused and it's using the same level of targeting.
Simon Jones: If you're looking at something like a Sky Adsmart where you can really make sure that you're honing in the right content to the right people and then you can able to track those results back now. Whereas in the it might be we're just going to put it on this channel and hope it reaches the right audiences there. So I think for me that it's really much about, very much about making sure that the effort you're putting in, you can see the results that are coming back.
Andy Povey: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. There's a reason there's that whole management line, isn't it? If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. I've got a whole host of other quite naff references that I can use. I'll see how many more we can pull out of the bag. Steve, what are you seeing about where patrons are or potential visitors are? Have we done any research into sentiment analysis on that?
Steve Mills: Just to sort of build on what's being outdated now as well is what I'm seeing from visitors as well is they're increasingly wanting more certainty against the kind of cost of living backdrop, we're gradually seeing less risk taking going on. And I think the implications, marketing wise, is that's why we're seeing things like programming and special events doing extremely well at the moment and perhaps the general visit is diminishing a little bit. So people are increasingly seeing a visit to an attraction as a real special occasion. It's a kind of why should I go right now to this specific event or program or whatever's on? And I think that's all to do with that kind of increasing level of certainty needed with that cost of living backdrop.
Andy Povey: Yeah, it's interesting. I am noticing an awful lot more of those sort of special events and programs and running for much shorter periods of time. So there's a theme park, I can't remember which one does over the summer does a different theme or where's the different events every week during the summer holidays. Yeah. And I'm assuming that's creating repeat visitation from the same people.
Steve Mills: Well, certainly one thing we are seeing in the kind of visitor work that we do is a reducing proportion of visitors who are first time visitors, an increasing proportion who are repeat visitors, in particular regular repeat visitors. Because I think the market is falling back more towards attractions that people know and trust. And again, it's all to do with that kind of limiting risk, if you like. Because yeah, just going back to the same places that they know, they trust, they know they're going to great, going to get a great experience. Because people's value for money, value for time is more important now than it was maybe five or six years ago.
Andy Povey: Yeah, I suppose if you're feeling nervous or uncertain about certain things, about life in general, your job, your money, your mortgage, whatever, then you do want that certainty, don't you?
Steve Mills: Yeah. And it's also why just to make a final point on that is no doubt we'll come and talk about the weather at some point during this. But again, I think one thing we are seeing is that people are placing more emphasis on the weather in their visit decision making now than they used to as well. And I think that comes back to exactly the same thing, is people are less willing to take a risk with the weather now, their precious value for money, value for time than they were in the past. So more people are flagging up the weather as a barrier to visiting or as an important decision making factor. And that's one of the things we're looking to measure in this latest public sentiment wave.
Andy Povey: Perfect. We'll never stop talking about the weather, will we? We do have some stuff on that later on in the report, so let's start looking into the detail in the report itself. So the visitor attraction website survey is the only digital performance benchmark created specifically for the attraction sector. We're talking now about the 4th edition and it's bringing data from loads of operators across the UK and Ireland. And with Steve's help, we've rolled in some consumer insight from over a thousand attraction visitors. Steve, when we say 1000 attraction visitors, can you just give us some information on how you segment it, how you make that statistically relevant?
Steve Mills: Well, if you look at, I always kind of take political opinion polling as the kind of benchmark, really, because that's what most people are familiar with. They always tend to be a thousand people. So we just go out to one of these large online panels now that have large representative samples of the UK population and we ask the questions of that group.
Andy Povey: Perfect, thank you. And thank you for all the effort that you put into that element of the survey. I found it very interesting. So we're going to be looking at website speed, mobile optimisation, booking behaviour, trust and transparency. And we've got what I hope is quite a clear picture of what's working and what's not working and really what areas that you as an attraction operator can be looking at to improve things. I can't bang on about conversion rates too much, I don't think, but I don't think there's anything that anybody in any attraction can do that is going to have as much impact as improving your conversion rate by 5%. That turns to big numbers very quickly without you having to do an awful lot. So mobile is clearly dominating website traffic.
Andy Povey: It's over 80% of visitors to an attraction website are using a mobile device. But the performance of attraction websites on mobile devices is dire. Simon, why do you think people or attractions are struggling to optimise for mobile so much?
Simon Jones: I think it's probably a historical thing and I think that websites for years have been built, you know, they're desktop focused and then you might optimise them for mobile. But you know, it has to be really, it's everything needs to be a mobile first build. You know, you need to be building something and everything fully optimised for that mobile journey and making sure that, that flows all the way through. You know, the number of times that you still see that a website that looks really good on desktop doesn't work particularly well on a mobile device and everything is geared up on mobile to getting that journey, making that journey all the way through and purchase is so easy on mobile, whether it be, you know, Google Pay, you know, Apple Pay, whatever.
Simon Jones: Now it's that you're making it really simple in that process to make people buy. But I don't think the performance of the sites is actually geared as a genuinely mobile first platform. I think still being optimised for mobile, but it's a desktop built in many cases.
Andy Povey: Yeah. And we're still, I think we're all guilty of it, aren't we? We look at websites when we're at our desk, whereas when we're a consumer we're looking at a website on a phone.
Simon Jones: Yeah. So that's it. That thinking has to shift and everybody you need to be looking at that is when you're building your site, it needs to be built on a mobile first so that everything is optimised and you use journeys going through. And I think that would make a huge difference for people in conversion rates.
Andy Povey: Yeah. We pulled out some stats from the Behmart Institute over in Germany and it's shocking. They say 40% of website visitors will leave if it takes more than three seconds for the page to load. Steve, you asked the general public what they thought about slow websites.
Steve Mills: They don't like it, is the answer. Funnily enough. Yeah. I mean you ask people what's important and it's just all about usability, to be honest. Use a bit of making it as easy as possible to book, making it as functional as possible. To be perfectly honest. I think the other point about why attractions in particular maybe struggle for mobile is, I think taking a step back. We need to understand what the priorities for some visitor attractions are. They're not all designed to be money making machines where selling through the website is the be all and end all. Like many other sites, there's many other competing interests there. You know, the curatorial team is education, visit, experience, et cetera. So some of it is just about resourcing, I think.
Andy Povey: No, I agree completely. I mean I remember looking at a large museum in London and being astounded by their conversion rate being exceptionally low. But then you look to the visitors and 50% we found it from the US for research purposes. So the website's obviously there to serve multiple audiences.
Simon Jones: Yeah, I think you're right. And actually Steve, just to pick up on that, there are multiple uses on there but you know, a lot of the work that we do and as you know, is up front and we look at the digital advertising and we're making sure we're getting the right audience through and you know, ads are optimised, often using face the platforms, you know, Meta, Google, et cetera and they're all absolutely perfect in terms of that digital delivery. And then what? Quite often, you know, you want to get people into a journey or into a flow somewhere and they've gone from a very good, you know, website on their mobile journey and then they click onto a website from the, you know, the attractions operator and it doesn't perform as well.
Simon Jones: So it's a completely sort of almost disjointed journey from when you've gone to a mobile optimised route which gets somebody into that funnel or into that process. But then what they've landed on doesn't live up to the same level. And particularly like you talk about speed, you know, if it's slow then you're going to lose them almost straight away.
Andy Povey: Yeah. And it's easy for me in particular to become obsessed about ticketing because that's what I do and have done for a very long time. But actually your conversion rate isn't just about ticketing. I keep saying as we look at AEO, every web page needs to have a purpose and then it needs to be as easy as it possibly can be for that customer, that visitor, to do what it is you want them to do on that page. And that's not just buy a ticket, it is download this white paper, subscribe to this mailing list, make a donation, look at your school booking journey, whatever. So what else do we need to be looking at for AEO or Answer Engine Optimisation?
Simon Jones: The simplicity element of it goes all the way through. You need to make it really clear and really obvious for not only consumers are picking up data, but as you say, for the answer engines as well as search engines. So there's too much noise and too much clutter that it's not going to be picking up the information that you really want them to be able to see. You want to make sure your site's technically capable for them to be able to access it. So is your site ready? Are they going to be able to pick up all the right tags, all the right information? And there's even really simple things, you know, like the Google Business profile. If when you're looking at searches you know, coming through from the Google AI platform, it's taking a lot of information from the Google Business profile.
Simon Jones: So is your site, is all of your information on there? You know, is there good images on there that can be pulled through? Because you know on that search, when Google AI gives you that summary at the top, it's going to be pulling it in from that business profile. So you need to just make sure that's there. Other things, you know, say really clear information on your website, frequently asked questions, you know, if you know people are asking you the same things, make sure that you've got those on your site and there's really clear answers what to do, because the engines will pick that up and it will bring that up into the search as well. So I think there's a lot of simple things that can be done that which will make a big difference straight away.
Andy Povey: Interesting. So, Steve, pricing came up in the survey, not as much as it has done in previous years. But what are you hearing from the general public about their feelings on price?
Steve Mills: Essentially it's just about transparency. And I think that the big picture here is a visitor to a website wants to feel like they are being helped in terms of pricing to get the best deal rather than being tricked into Buying something that they perhaps didn't want to buy. So it's a tricky one really because when obviously you do want to upsell on websites, but it's making them feel like you are helping them. So it's flagging discounts and offers, it's making the pricing structure balance well in terms of the number of different options. So it's giving people just enough so that they don't disappear off the website because there's too many, but giving them enough choice to make an, kind of an informed decision. So there is a sweet spot in there somewhere, but I think it's mainly about being transparent upfront.
Steve Mills: And in particular, one thing that came out very strongly in the survey is don't give me any hidden fees anywhere. So don't give me any nasty surprises at the end when I'm checking out or even when I'm then at the visit itself and you're asking me for extra to do other bits and pieces once I'm on site. So it's trying to convey that you're helping them to get the best deal, I think is what comes out most strongly.
Andy Povey: Yeah, that's interesting as I think that it's the best deal, the best value, I suppose. And everyone's value or understanding of value is completely different, isn't it?
Simon Jones: Yeah, agree. And also I think Steve, one of the things you said about that upsell process, you know, I think, you know, there are things that, you know, as attractions that we want to upsell and we want to, you know, obviously get more value from people but ultimately you want them to visit. And we've seen many cases where the upsell process has been too long and we've seen significant drop offs from people going through that. All right, we can see that there's definitely been an upsell value of X, but actually you've lost 17 times as much of that people dropping out through the process. So do the upsells afterwards once you've secured the visit, you know, if you know, is finding that balance. But actually the most important thing is to get them to book and to visit.
Simon Jones: That's the key thing on that.
Steve Mills: Yeah. And one of the other things that came out related to that in terms of speed is that people are expecting a range of different payment methods now in particular, obviously things like Apple and Google Pay is now just an expectation and it's an irritation if it's not there.
Andy Povey: I will do an online rant about this, but I upgraded to an electric car about six months ago. So I have about 10 different charging apps on my phone now and not one of them accepts Apple pay. It drives me absolutely crazy. I think it is just a lesson in or an exercise to make Andy swear on the side of the road or at motorway services. So if you've been a witness to that, I apologise. Pro tip for me, I suppose on that upsell piece is you're completely right, Simon. Get the attraction, get the visit booked in first and then do it later. Take me out for dinner before you ask me to marry you. Let's try and let's not do this all in one go. We're not at McDonald's.
Andy Povey: I don't need to buy my dessert at the same time as my drink and my main course. We have to make it much simpler. So Steve, looking at the research and not just the stuff you've done for this survey, but your vast experience, that consumer research area, what's the biggest gap between what operators are thinking and what visitors actually care about?
Steve Mills: Yeah, well, I mean I can certainly tell you about what visitors care about. And again, this will be updated in the public sentiment work that will be coming out in February. But based on what we've been doing over the last year, including last year's public sentiment, I think the key things really, I mean none of this will be a surprise, I guess, but I think absolutely the most important thing that people care about is making memories. And it's becoming even more the case now that people want to make memories. They want to remember when they went to X Place and that means being, conveying through your website or digital whatever about what is absolutely unique and special about your individual attraction. And as we've talked about all the way through, I think increasingly people are wanting good value.
Steve Mills: People have always wanted good value, clearly, but even more now than it has been in the past. And I think one of the keys to that is conveying the range of different things to see and do during a visit to make people feel like they have got their value for time or value for money in particular, what's a night, what's a great immersive experience at your attraction and just generally make them glad that they made the effort to go in person rather than just experience it online. So that's where the, that the value is. I think other things are, I think one, this first came out during the pandemic really. But people go to attractions because they want to feel good about themselves in a nice atmosphere, to be perfect, bluntly.
Steve Mills: So they want to feel relaxed, they want to not feel like they're in a busy, crowded environment. That came out firstly in the pandemic, but it's continued to be honest. And I think it's more now to do with, instead of feeling like they're going to catch something from somebody, they're just feeling like, I don't want to be crushed in, I want to feel relaxed and easy. And they want some nice, positive staff interactions to make them feel at ease as well. So they want a nice welcome, et cetera, as well. And we mustn't. I'm always astounded by the number of people who spontaneously say, well, it's the catering, it's the food and drink. Key part of the visit experience is how you cater for me when you're there.
Steve Mills: So we're doing some sentiment work at the moment with one attraction where the key question is, how would you improve your visit? And by far the biggest thing is around catering.
Andy Povey: That's really interesting. What element around catering? Is it the price? Is it the quality? Is it the diversity?
Steve Mills: Well, it's value, again, in the broadest sense of the word, but it does vary depending on where we're looking at, clearly. But it's everything, what we have found in the past that it's to do with speed of service as well. So I think the big difference between a food and drink establishment at an attraction and going to a restaurant is it's much more of a functional experience at an attraction because the main reason you are there is not the food and drink, it's to experience the attraction. So the most important driver of whether somebody thinks a great experience, catering, experience and attraction, is all around speed of service and getting you through as quickly as possible. There are people that talk about quality and range, et cetera as well, but it's primarily about speed of service.
Andy Povey: So I think the key things that.
Steve Mills: You should, I guess, try and convey through your website or have questions about, for the answer engine optimisation, for example.
Andy Povey: Yeah. So you talk about, or you should be talking about the speed at which you can get your food, not how delicious the burger is and how beautiful the vista is as you look out over the rolling fields.
Steve Mills: Yeah, I mean, maybe you shouldn't. That's all about delivery, I think. It's maybe not something to talk about on the website, particularly your speed of service and catering, but it's something in terms of delivery that's, that's of critical importance.
Andy Povey: Very interesting. So, Simon, back to you. Guest feedback is really important. It's always been really important. For the rise of AI search means it's even more important now. What do you need to do as an attraction? How can attractions use that feedback more effectively?
Simon Jones: I think just taking, it's taking what Steve said there, isn't it? And when people come in, other people want to see that people having good experiences and they're having great times when they go there. We all get really good visitor attractions will get really good positive feedback. It's making sure that's used in as many places. Firstly that you're answering and responding to reviews because if you drive that engagement on there, that gets seen as a positive from the search engine so you, that will be picked up and that will be fed into when people are then searching for things but actually going even you know, more than that social proofing when people are making a decision. Steve, it goes back a little bit to that confidence that you were talking about earlier.
Simon Jones: People want that confidence that they know they're going to go and have a good time. So you know, use the good reviews, the good user generated content, things that you get from people, use them front and center in your Advils as well. Make sure that you know, you're putting quotes, you're using things that people are giving you to support the experience they've had on your site in a lot of the activity you're doing. So it's not just you know, making sure that TripAdvisor reviews or done all this thing if you go back and that it's about how you then use that content in your outbound marketing as well. You know, we still a lot of people don't use that information as well or as strongly as they can do.
Steve Mills: This is one area as well where AI has really taken analysis forward in the last year or two as well. So there is an awful lot of software out there now which if you just plug Your Google reviews, TripAdvisor reviews into and you do it properly with the right software and the right people driving it, they can pull out the genuine key themes which are the positive and the negative drivers of a visit experience like that really quickly. So I think that's worth investing in. And it's not expensive to be perfectly honest.
Andy Povey: No, it's time to talk about weather. We can't avoid it and we're just coming on the back of a big snowstorm apparently. Who'd have guessed that the weather forecast would have been different to my lived experience in reality? Steve, we asked the customers or we asked the consumers some questions about weather, what can you tell us?
Steve Mills: Yeah, well, I think the first thing to point out is what I was saying earlier in terms of we are seeing more and more people saying that weather is important in the visit process because they are less willing to take risks than they were two or three years ago. So the weather is becoming more important. Therefore we are seeing a huge proportion of visitors who use weather apps. So 70% in the survey, 70% of people said they use weather apps at least most of the time when they're planning their attraction visit. And 30, I think it was 39% said they use them all of the time for every single attraction visit. So it's a kind of a go to now particularly there is quite a steep drop off by age as well.
Steve Mills: So it's very much among the younger elements and the family sectors of the market that are using weather apps religiously before all of their visits.
Andy Povey: Interesting. So we have a customer that actually puts the weather on the top of their homepage. Simon, this is your area, really. What can you tell us about using weather to your advantage?
Simon Jones: Oh, well, weather apps. And let's not start on with the weather apps because we know that they're quite often the root of all evil for many attractions and the lack of transparency that the information that it really gives. As an example, I was looking at one, I'm standing in Cornwall for a couple of days over the new year period and I looked at my weather. Apparently we all do the same. It said one of the days it said 45% chance of rain. And then when I looked at the detail within the app, it was that There was a 45% chance of rain between midnight and 1 o' clock in the morning and the rest of the day was absolutely fine. Yet that if people are really making that as a decision making process, that really has that impact on us.
Simon Jones: And I think what we need to do is think about, and I know from a colleague, Olly Reed, it's one of his big things that he keeps on about as well as Bernard. You know, they're constantly trying to badger and look at how we can get the weather apps to change, but we've got to work within the structure that we have. And going back to that, the weather is a big decision factor in that. And we know people are booking later and they're waiting for that to see what the weather's going to be like. So for me it's about how can you give that either the flexibility or the confidence for them that you want them to book. We know we want people to book as far out as bounce as possible. So let's, you know, can we give them that flexibility?
Simon Jones: You know, what about that? All right, like take the hotel and the, the airline models where you go pay a slightly higher premium and you can move your ticket. So you know, you get that, capturing that information, capturing that booking from them weeks in advance. But they've got that confidence to know that actually if the day before I look at it and it's going to be awful weather, I can move my booking. And I think to make people, to make that decision. The other thing is on advertising, you know, from our point of view, you know, and not just advertising, but on social, have the responses there.
Simon Jones: If it's going to be a miserable day, show what people can do in your site, you know, tomorrow when it is going to be miserable or what they can do when it's going to be good. Because many attractions have things that you can do, whatever the weather. So it's about making sure you've got responses to what's coming up from, you know, going to happen in the following day. But I do think that flexibility and giving people the option to move that can have a huge impact or positive impact for people getting bookings earlier and earlier.
Steve Mills: We did ask about what would encourage online booking in the survey and one of the things that came out very strongly was that flexible ticketing. And I think that is all related to weather.
Andy Povey: That's really interesting, isn't it? I see that as possibly one of the biggest potential changes in the industry in the next 12 to 18 months. I mean, the norm as far as I'm aware is still that tickets are non transferable, non refundable. It'd be interesting to see what happens to your conversion rates if you remove that and you give people that flexibility.
Simon Jones: Yeah, and people do it in different ways. And we know it's difficult, you know, if you've got times at high capacity and it's, you know, if suddenly everyone wants to move from one day to the next, it's not possible. So we get that. But it's, there has to be boundaries. But I think giving people that confidence and we know at the moment the way some people do offer a free return visit if you get a certain amount of bad weather over a day. So people are trying to deal with it in that sense. But yeah, just from that point of view of capturing that booking, when we know people are researching weeks in advance, if you could give them that incentive to go. If you book now, you'll get a really good deal.
Simon Jones: And secondly, you can move it if it's not so good when you get that time, when you get closer to time as well. So, yeah, I think it would be a huge benefit.
Andy Povey: Watch this space, listeners. And of course, as tech providers, we also need to get much better at allowing people the ability to change their tickets. It's got to be available for you to do this online. So, Simon, looking at your experience from your attractions, the attractions you work with, what are you picking up as the big shift in behaviour for visitor planning and booking? I think you've already covered part of it.
Simon Jones: Yeah, I mean, look, there's lots of things going on, Andy, but I think one of it comes back to about, you know, it's that social proofing and people buying from people that they trust and they like. And more and more what we're doing is we're integrating those strategies into the paid media side of it. So, you know, it's say, making sure that all content that you're seeing is going out is relevant and being seen to be relevant from the audiences so that they're thinking, oh, that is going to be relevant for me as well. So you have those little mini ad strategies for each audience that you want to try and target.
Simon Jones: And the other thing then is, you know, there's influencers have been around for a long time, you know, in terms of social media influencers and you know, that's not going away and that's growing and more what we're doing is using, you know, really good, genuine content from influencer being gathered, doing collaborations with them and not only influencer, but with other brands as well and, you know, making sure that we're using their content within those ad streams. So it feels a really authentic, really genuine rather than perhaps certain audiences don't like responding to glossy ads. So great, let's use that really genuine content that might have been generated by an influencer. Let's use that within an ad. So it gives you that really good authentic feel when we're seeing that going out there.
Simon Jones: So that's one of the things I think will actually come even more in play. People wanting to buy highly relevant to them experiences.
Andy Povey: Yeah, that sort of leads onto the. There's a supplementary question, I suppose. And for those smaller or people with tighter budgets than some of the larger attractions of venues that you work with, Simon, what would be your tips and what do you recommend? Authenticity being top of the list, I suppose.
Simon Jones: Yeah, I think a little bit does depend on what your goals from that. If you've got a smaller budget, what is your goal from that? If it's a ticket conversion, if you want that purchase, then at the moment, you know, Google is a really strong place to go because people are searching there for intent, they're looking for things to do and actually that's where you're always going to get the highest return in terms of that. That spend. Yeah. So people are looking for that. So if you only got a small budget, that's one of the areas that I would think looking at. If you're looking at awareness, it's about that authenticity. It's about looking at social channels, but where, which ones are most relevant for your audience, you know, because it isn't. They just all Meta. It could be.
Simon Jones: TikTok's a very important part of it. As we said earlier, Reddit's having a bigger play in the market space. So I think it's about really honing in on the channel that's going to have the biggest impact for you and then having that authentic content that you can use from a paid side, integrating that within your strategy.
Andy Povey: Interesting. We're getting close to the pips. I've got one more question. I'll start with you first on this, Steve. What would you like to see operators doing differently in '26?
Steve Mills: I think it builds on what we've been saying all the way through this, really. It's thinking about every visit as a special occasion rather than just, I think, the days of what should we do on a Sunday afternoon? Let's go to this museum. Because the general core offer through to. It's changing now to. Right, why should I go right now? What's the special thing that's on at this particular place that's. That's driving me to go there? So it's understanding that they've made an investment, sometimes quite a risky investment in their minds, an increasingly risky investment to spend money or time going to a place. So tell me why I should go to your attraction right now and what's special about why I should go right now. So I think. And it kind of leads into the people booking later, etc. as well.
Steve Mills: So I think it's making visitors feel like they should visit right now is the key thing. I'd like to kind of leave it on, really.
Andy Povey: That's a great note to finish on, Simon. Follow that one if you can.
Simon Jones: I've got two. Sorry, I couldn't get to one.
Andy Povey: I was trying to thank.
Simon Jones: There you go.
Andy Povey: Right.
Simon Jones: One of the biggest things. And, you know, I'm thinking about the upfront bits that we do, Andy, and how getting your messages in front of the right audiences, attractions. Most attractions do not use their own data as effectively as they can. You know, data from people that have booked, people that come through. It really helps shape understanding their audiences. So, you know, you can use all email addresses, you can actually start profiling, you can really understand the audiences are coming through, but you can also use postcode data to know where they're coming from. You know, we can look at the booking lead times that all the audiences have, and it really helps to influence that advertising strategy, being really intelligent.
Simon Jones: And it's just people have got a huge amount of rich data from all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of millions of visitors that have come through their attractions over the years, and they're just not using that data as effectively as they can to be able to allow people like us to target the right audiences and make sure they're getting really good results from that. So that's really, I think, really help people be a lot more effective by using their own data. Well, and the last thing is just to be ready earlier. And I don't mean opening the doors earlier, but I mean ready if you've got a new exhibition, you've got a new campaign and I've run attractions.
Simon Jones: I know it's not always possible, but the earlier you can get your market activity ready to go out, ready to be distributed on your website, to be pushed out through your channels, the more effective it becomes.
Andy Povey: Yeah, wise words. Thank you. We're going to call it a wrap at that point. The link to download the current survey results will be in the notes of the podcast. I just need to say thank you to Simon and Steve. This hasn't felt like we're doing anything. It's just been the chat. We're just missing a pint of beer in each hand, I suppose. Thank you, gentlemen. And I look forward to seeing you face to face at an event very shortly. And all the very best for 2026.
Simon Jones: Same to you. Cheers, Andy.
Steve Mills: Thanks, Andy.
Andy Povey: Big thanks to Steve and Simon for joining me on today's episode. Look out for the next wave of consumer sentiment analysis that comes from Decision House in partnership with ALVA. The results will be dropping soon and if you're keen to hear more, drop Steve a line. We'll put a link to his website in the show notes. Also, look out for some more insights and interesting quick wins coming from Simon and the rest of the team at Navigate. They regularly publish insights gathered from across the attractions world, which they then share on their website and via Olly's profile on LinkedIn. We'll put some details for them in the show notes as well.
Today's Episode was written by Sami Entwistle, edited by Steve Folland and produced by Emily Burrows and Sammy Entwistle from Plaster, as well as Wenalyn from Skip the Queue HQ.
Andy Povey: If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, share and even comment on the episode in your podcast app. It all helps to spread the word about the amazing attractions that we work with. Once again, thank you for listening. I've been your host, Andy Povey. See you next time.