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A customer needs to have a reason to book an experience or holiday with your company. Therefor as a tourism business you want to make it as easy as possible for travelers to understand why they should book with you and not one of your competitors. And preferable you want to position yourself in such a way, that what offer is not offered by anyone else.
When you are able to position your company and offers in such a way, you can avoid competing on price and start thinking about higher margins.
Unique Selling Points (USPs) is a marketing term to describe the reasons why a customers should do business with your tourism company. A well defined USP in tourism is important because it helps travelers who don't know your travel business to quickly understand why they should choose your business over your competitors.
Besides doing this for your organization you also want to do this for your experiences, though then we call it value propositions. Also think about the USPs of your destination, they should be aligned with yours where you can so you can piggy bag on their brand. The best USPs are those that have the biggest value or benefit for your target audience, can they bridge their biggest pain paints and fulfill their wildest desires ?.
A good USP matches the strengths of your company, what you stand for as a business (vision and values), the reason you are operating your business (purpose), the passion and energy of your team with the needs of your target audience.
Creating Unique Selling Points is about crafting a space for your company in which your are better then other tourism businesses, by creating a unique set of reasons why travelers should chose for you, - like in the image above ultra insider knowledge - you crafted your own niche, you stacked unique qualities that makes your company special.
Of course its important that this qualities are also important for your customers. If you created a niche targeted at well defined persona's with easy to understand unique selling points that make a difference for your persona's you made a solid basis for success.
How many USP's should i create ?
Most companies go for four unique selling points, because that is still easy to understand and communicate. If you have 3 reasons that is also good 2 would be difficult to give you a unique space against competitors and more then 4 is difficult to communicate and to remember.
Underneath example from SkySafari who uses many reason why to choose them, its difficult to quickly extract, a good example follows later in the article from Take Walks who uses 4 USP's on their website.
How to Create a Unique Selling Point ?
An good way to start crafting your USPs is by looking at the strengths of your company in combination with your vision and values.
What are clients saying in reviews about these tours or about your company, is that unique for your company, do they say different things about you then your competitor ?
Combine that with what is important for your target audience of your niche.
You can also look at the websites of competitors and try to figure out what their unique selling points are and then compare how you differ with those point. What do they offer ? Why do people do business with them, how does there pricing compares to you ?
To craft your Tourism Industry USPs ask questions like:
Why should costumers choose your travel business or destination ?
Answers could be: because your are an expert in your field, you have a lot of experience, you have invested in facilities that provide excellent comfort etc.
What makes your company special?
Answers could be we are the only birdwatching specialist in town, we are a sustainable operating company, we focus on families only, but it could also be your passion for something, etc
To learn more about Unique Selling Points for Sustainable Tour Operators check this video that was part of a Travel Life Training
Be wary to overpromise, you have to live up to your unique selling points, its important your tourism experiences meet your consumers’ needs and preferable exceed their expectations in order to recommend your company to others.
When you know know your strengths and unique points you will flip from what you are good in to what that means for travelers, what is in it for them ? What are the benefits ? Think from your target audience perspective, what does this mean for a nature lover, art lover etc.
Which needs or pain points of travelers are fulfilled by my unique strengths ?
Flip the feature strength with what that means for your persona's
For example:
Then try to reduce the strengths and benefits of your USP's in single words and make synonym's out them, and put them in just like you USPs in a tone of voice document to use in your marketing communication.
Unique Selling Points Example on Travel Website
Once you have crafted your unique selling points and translated them i a one or two sentence long statement, think if this statement is about you or the customer: for example excellent guides, is a feature of your company, but what does that mean for your customers ?
It might mean they learn a lot, are in safe hands or other things, always try to describe both parts of a unique selling point: the companies perspective and your customers perspective.
A good example of a tour operator who explain its unique selling points very well is Take Walks
Take Walk Presents 4 different unique selling points they believe are important for their clients : tours nobody else offers, access to places you just won't get by your own, personal attention because the group size is small and well trained guides.
And as an insurance they tell you: it doesn't matter which tour you book with us, you will always experience these 4 unique features.
Take Walks gives both perspective : we offer unique experiences - you get better learning, touching and tasting.
Unique Selling Point of Airbnb that if you go in a group, they are much more affordable then a hotel in underneath video.
Happy Crafting !
Validating and Keeping your Unique Selling Points Relevant
Now you have created your USPs you want to check how relevant they are for your personas. You can use your swot and ask AI if your USPs are aligned and or use your whole strategic document with your defined persona's and if your USPs are strong and will make a difference to your target market. You can cross check this by feeding the ai system relevant market information, example from the CBI website where you have reports on different niches and types of travelers.
Over time market trends can shift and your unique selling points might get outdated, you can use the input of a yearly swot and or latest market research documents to cross check this with AI. The outcomes could mean that you need to work on certain areas of your company to stay relevant and be the best choice for your customers.
When you start crafting further on your Unique Selling Points to make them even more sharpers and appealing. Talk with your customers what is important for them, why did they choose for you ? Is there something you can do to make their experience even better ?
Strengthen your USP by aligning them with the brand of your destination.
It can also be beneficial to align your unique selling proposition with those of your destination marketing organization. They spend probably more money that you on branding, so its a great idea to try to piggy bag on their top of the funnel work. Which means they will inspire travelers to come to your destination with a value proposition, how does that strengthen your USPs ?
