Last night we dropped our kiddos off at the grandparents for a little summer sleepover that’s becoming a bit of a tradition. As we left, I gave my parents one last bit of advice:

“Don’t wear yourselves out, Mom and Dad, they don’t need much. They’d be just as happy going to the park for the afternoon as they would be with anything.”

It’s an interesting contrast between what is typically designed for kids and what they actually need to have an awesome time. One of the most played with “toys” in our house is the collection of cardboard boxes their actual toys came in.

Not Just Toys

But the same is true for travel.

We just got back from a long weekend to our old stomping grounds in and around Vail. And what was the highlight of the trip? The hotel swimming pool and, yep, playgrounds.

At 10 and 7, our kids are just about aging out of this phase of their lives, but we’ve seen it play out so many times. Resorts bring in inflatables and jump trampolines and who knows what else and, yes, that can generate revenue, but you don’t need them for kids to have an awesome time.

Post + List + Email

If I were you, I’d do a few things before the week is over.

First, take a lap around town and get pictures of all of the playgrounds in your area. They don’t have to be fancy, a phone-camera version is enough. Maybe frame it so the mountains or scenery are visible so the parents realize they can enjoy the view too.

Second, write a blog post with the title “The Best Playgrounds in [City, State] and [Name of Resort]”. Add a paragraph about each one, the address, maybe a link to Google Maps and hit publish. Here’s a good example from a blogger for Vail’s parks.

Third, jump into your guest database / CRM and find all the families with young kids. Maybe toss in a drive radius to focus on families that could make a road trip of it and then get this post in front of them.

• Send it to them in an email to generate some immediate bookings and traffic.
• Sync this list to Facebook and boost it there to keep it on folks’ mind and plant seeds.
• Feature the post on your website in a way to give it a decent number of internal links to give it more weight in the eyes of Google for that crowd who are looking for it.
• Add a QR code to your in-room information that links to it for guests who book through other avenues..

It’s one of those simple, small things that won’t matter to everyone but absolutely will to a good percentage of your database, especially if you have a couple of unique parks like Vail. And it’s one of those evergreen stories that won’t change very often, if it does at all.

Get it done now, keep it in your back pocket, and use as necessary going forward. Tens of thousands of families like mine may just thank you with a visit.

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.