What most resorts may be missing with their guest’s photos.
Gregg Blanchard /
I’ve talked a lot over the years about a simple, powerful idea. This idea represents a shift away from the guest experience of a couple decades ago into something that looks similar on the surface but is fundamentally different when you peel back even a single layer.
The idea is that taking photos are the reason some people do things.
It’s why they go to one concert rather than another, it’s why they do this hike instead of that hike, it’s why they buy a new outfit instead of wear an old one.
But I also think that doesn’t capture it fully and perhaps there’s a better way to say this that gets at the heart of what some resort marketers I’ve spoken with may be missing.
For a huge portion of your audience, photos aren’t a way to CAPTURE the experience, photos ARE A FUNDAMENTAL PART of the experience.
The desire to share photos is nothing new, the volume and frequency is. We no longer just experience things as they are, we experience them through the lens of how they could look to our peers and family and friends. It’s not something we save to show after the experience, we capture and share photos constantly during the experience. We’re writing captions and mentally framing shots at the same time we’re trying to take it all in for ourselves. Sometimes that balance skews further toward being present, sometimes that balance skews, as I mentioned above, toward the photo being the sole purpose of the experience.
But no matter an individual’s position on that spectrum, it means there are two parts of the experience we need to be optimizing for: the skiing experience and the photo taking and sharing experience. Think about all the ways you work to help guests have a great trip. Then, with that mental list in mind, ask yourself two questions:
- How many of those are about helping the guest with their skiing experience?
- How many of those are helping them have a great photo taking experience?
Let me give you a simple example of what I mean.
A few weeks ago my wife and I were able to hike the Grand Canyon and stay at Phantom Ranch at the bottom along with some of her family. We’d hiked 7 miles, dropped 4,500′ of elevation, and finally settled into our bunkhouse to rest our feet before dinner. While I took a quick shower, my wife and her sister decided to wander up the trail just a quarter mile further. When they got back they excitedly said, “yeah, you should go up there…it’s pretty amazing.”
Then they showed me the picture.
Listen, I am not a big photo taking guy these days, but that picture was enough to get me back on my tired legs to wander up past the employee quarters and along the stream until I saw this.
Five thousand feet of canyon rising above a beautiful meandering stream with the highest ridges catching soft evening light. A better photographer with something more than an old iPhone SE would have gotten a better picture, but even with my amateur skills this is the image that gets people to ask questions like, “So, wait, where is this place? There’s a lottery? How hard is it to get in?”
Yet the only reason I got it was because my wife and her sister randomly wandered to a random part of the trail at a random time.
It’s the same idea for the photo at the top of this post. We’d battled the wind to cook some dinner and decided to wander over for another look before we hurried to get camp set up before dark. The sun was just right and…man…for a guy that loves layers of ridges that fade into golden hour light? It was one of the most magical moments of the trip. One I would have missed if we hadn’t happened to get in that place at that time of day.
In other words, the two most meaningful, impactful photos of the trip were captured through pure chance.
I’d wager that, as it stands, the ability of your guests to capture your best views and most magical moments is still largely left to chance. The seed i want to plant today is that maybe, just maybe, it shouldn’t be. Your guests taking great photos is no longer just a matter of free marketing, it’s part of the experience. And, so being, it can be the difference between a guest having a great experience and just an okay one.
Maybe in the same way you suggest times to arrive and clothing to wear to optimize the skiing experience, you should suggest times to arrive and places to go to also optimize the photo taking experience.
Food for thought.