Yesterday during a dandy of a #mrktchat, Stephen Joyce (@stephenjoyce) shared the link to an article he had written, questioning the use of Groupon-like models for the travel and tourism industry. I’ve shared how a few ski resorts have been using Groupon in the past, but Stephen’s insights are spot on and drive home a great point.

The basic context was if Groupon wants you to discount 50%, then takes 50% off the rest, does 25% of your original revenue per visitor balance out with the crowds the coupon may draw?

Generally, the consensus was this model would never work as a consistent or long-term strategy, and I agree. However, I wonder if there may be a way to still leverage the reach that a company like Groupon offers through their enormous email lists. Perhaps days or events where skiing would be ridiculously discounted anyways would allow you to get skiers to your mountain without training them to be deal watchers. If you could get a huge crowd to come out and start their own ski season earlier than they are use to by offering a huge discount during the first midweek after you open, that may just get them onto the slopes a time or two more than they usually would.

Here’s the full article. A pretty quick read and well worth the time:
Does the Groupon model lead tourism businesses racing to the bottom? | Tnooz

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.