How Tour Operators Build Marketing That Works for Decades

Grand Canyon Expeditions has been guiding trips through the canyon since 1964. Over the years, their marketing has evolved from print ads and travel shows to SEO, social media, and digital campaigns.

In this episode of the Tour Operator Growth Podcast, we sit down with Allison Carlin, Marketing Director at Grand Canyon Expeditions, to talk about how tour operators can build marketing that works not just for a season, but for decades.

We discuss how their team combines referrals, SEO, social media, paid ads, and even print to stay visible and inspire travelers long before they book. Allison also shares lessons from nearly 20 years in tour marketing and what operators should focus on if they want to win in the dreaming phase.

In this episode:

• How tour marketing has evolved over the last 20 years
• Why SEO requires long-term commitment
• How social media helps inspire future guests
• Why the best strategies combine multiple marketing channels

Learn more about Grand Canyon Expeditions: https://www.gcex.com/

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00:27 Meet Allison from Grand Canyon Expeditions
01:53 Growing Up in a 60-Year Tour Company
03:56 How Tour Marketing Worked Before the Internet
06:15 Why Print Marketing Is Making a Comeback
10:08 Why SEO Is Critical for Tour Operators
14:11 Direct Bookings vs OTAs
19:20 Social Media Strategy for Tour Operators
27:14 How AI Is Changing Tour Marketing
35:11 How Tour Operators Win in the Dreaming Phase

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Tour Operator Growth Podcast. Today we are joined with somebody who has played a huge part of the marketing success of a company with an incredible legacy. Allison from Grand Canyon Expeditions is here with us today. The company has been around since 1964, which is, I hope I got that right, Allison. You can confirm that. Okay, good. Which is pretty amazing. Um, Allison, you do incredible work over there, um, and you play a big part in the company's success. So um, companies with this kind of history, it's usually they have some incredible stories behind it. So I want to start there. What does it mean for you to be a part of a company with such a long history and legacy?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Um, I grew up in this company, Nikki. So my father, this was really his, he spent his entire life um in Grand Canyon expeditions. He um did his first trip in the 70s. Um, and he, as he liked to say, the canyon got inside of him. And we grew up in it. So um his he took over. Well, there's a whole ownership story with the canyon that we won't get into right now with Grand Canyon expeditions, but it for me it's personal. So it, I, it was part of my life. I think it's interesting. Um, growing up, it just seemed normal to me to have piles of river gear, river stories, maps of the canyon. And um, now as an adult, I realized how how special that was. How um it's that's not normal. That's not a normal way to grow up. And for me, it's it's it's family. It's it's a part of our legacy.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

So at what point did you step into the marketing role for the company? I believe that's what's your actual position title. Can you say that?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah, I'm the marketing manager, marketing director. It's a small company, so we we interchange those marketing manager director thing. Um, I crazy, I decided when I was younger that I wasn't a river guide. And at that time, I think that was all I thought that if you wanted to be involved with a family company that you had to actually be the guide, that's not me. Um, I can't really read water. I don't care to be in charge of that many people. I like to talk. Um, I've always liked to talk. So I went to college for communications and marketing, and um, I went down a different path, much to my parents' like dismay. And they're like, I can't believe you're doing this. And I came back to it. So I actually started our social media accounts because I am a millennial and I grew up in the Facebook era. And I remember talking to my dad, like, you need to get online. And he's like, Oh, this website, this internet, it's gonna pass, it's gonna go away, it's gonna be a phase. And um, here we are. It's not a phase, it didn't go away. But he he was a river guide through and through, and he that's he he said that forever. Like, I so I got back into this um goodness, 2008-ish, when I started our our Facebook account. Um, and then everything else sort of followed suit. So we had our website cracks me up um at the beginning, and we've changed, I've gone through three or four iterations of it. Um, they're fluid, right? They're not supposed to be stagnant, they're not supposed to be stale. Um, and again, much to my my dad didn't ever really understand it, but he trusted me enough to to take it and run. So 2008-ish, right? The beginning of like I think that that's yeah, that's really early adoption.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Get back then, Facebook was barely coming out of like the college phase.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

It was really bad. It was not good. It was like everything we did, but I don't think anyone had a great like social media strategy at that point that didn't really exist.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

Um, so it was it was fun, like again, going back and looking at what we've done and where we've come, it's been so much has changed since 2000 is continuing to grow and adapt, and especially with AI and which I'm sure we'll get into some of those things that that you're working on.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, and I'm a I'm a designer by trade. So when you look back at old work, even six months ago, if you don't think it's bad, then you're not getting better. So everything we did 12 years ago, 13, 15 years ago is probably just we think it's horrible, even though some of the things were probably actually done really well.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Good, right? So bad. But it's funny to me, like how cyclical marketing is too. Like you think I'm never gonna come back to this, but it's sort of like fashion, right? Like stuff I wore in the early 2000s is coming back, and I feel like I I'm now feeling actually older.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So before you join the team, how was Grand Canyon Expeditions just like getting customers? What were they doing on the marketing side to really, you know, get people to find them?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Um, a lot of print and a lot of travel shows. Um, my dad went all over the United States. Uh, he drove, we have giant S-rigs, and he drove a couple of them cross-country. Um, Florida, New York. He drove his giant uh crew cab pickup truck through New York City. Uh, that's one of his like best stories, but a lot of a lot of trade shows and a lot of word of mouth. And that's something that hasn't gone away. Word of mouth is still our number one driver. It's again, it's the Grand Canyon. It gets under your skin, and people like to talk about it. It's like the trip that keeps on getting. So and then a lot of print. So they did um, I think he had a couple ads in like Sunset Magazine and newspapers and that type of thing before the internet came to the world.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

And I know you guys have adapted very well with you know the website and and market digital marketing efforts. Are you guys doing any print marketing right now or traditional marketing? And is it working for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yep, we've actually come back to print. Um, and uh I mean, we'll see. We'll see how well it's gonna work for us. We're still testing it, but um, I think it we went away from it and we're getting back into it, being more strategic now. So um in areas that it makes sense for people to book. So we have um some ads running in areas that should be getting more snow than they are right now or have during the winter, but um I think it's gonna it's gonna work out. We haven't that doesn't mean we've dropped our digital marketing. If anything, we've amped that up more, but we brought print back into the mix.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah, like you said before about things being cyclical, that's something I see and keep hearing about is how print is kind of making a return, especially for these, you know, larger value, longer kind of tours. People want to feel special, and print is a lot more tangible and makes you remember and and really feel special, I think, a lot more than a social media ad. Those obviously help as well and are a huge key to the marketing plan. But it's interesting that more and more people are bringing print back.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Print feels stickier, doesn't it? It's like tangible, you can touch it. So yeah, and I I love print. Um, personally, I I think it just it has stinging power.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Can you think about it? If if you're doing all these awesome marketing efforts, you have a good social media channel, but so does your competitor, you have a great website, so does your competitor, but your competitor doesn't have print and you do, you're going to speak it out. Let's say uh today somebody books a Grand Canyon rafting trip uh but for months in advance. Do you think that um people they're entering the picture after they've decided uh that they're going to the canyon, or are they already thinking of the company and then choosing?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I think it's both. Um I think some people are fully committed. Again, they've had the neighbor or the friend, or maybe they've done the trip already, and this is their third or fourth or fifth trip. Like that is very common for our company. Um, and then some people maybe they're going with a partner or a neighbor, or they have no idea what they're getting themselves into. So I think you're somewhere in like, I'm committed, I know what this is, and this trip's like three months away. We'll see what happens. And then as it gets closer, people get again. Some people get on our bus and get on our boat and still don't know what they're in for. And other people start kind of nutting up, like a you know, like flying in, meeting people, getting on the bus, driving to the ferry.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, and just I don't want to spend too much time on print, but I'm just interested. Is your print that you're doing, is it mostly before the trip or are you doing things after or not before the trip, sorry, before the booking, or also are you doing print after the booking to keep them engaged while they're waiting?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Um, right now it's pre. It's mostly before the booking.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Okay, so it's more of a sales tool, not a nurturing tool. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Um nurturing is pretty digital still. Um we it used to be fully print, but it got expensive. We couldn't really measure the return, and digital is just easier for us to track.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, absolutely. Um, the Grand Canyon, I mean, I've rafted the Grand Canyon, it was an awesome experience. It's extremely competitive. You only get so many, I think they're called user days, right? Yeah. Um, for people to go into the Grand Canyon rafting for all the companies in general, and then you get a portion of that in every company, whatever. So it makes it very competitive. Only it selects few get a go each year. So, how important has like in your marketing strategy, how important has SEO been for you in in capturing those customers and bringing them into the booking flow?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

And I think it's vital. I think SEO is uh it's so important. Um and it it has changed too, right? And an SEO strategy just doesn't happen overnight. Like you just it's different from like a print ad or even social media, like once you do it, it's not done. Like you have to continue to grow, it continues to take time. Um, it's not just like a you know, you don't hit send and it's done and it's doing everything it's supposed to do. So SEO is um it's something that we have to continue to nurture and grow and change and pay attention to and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

How long do you think, knowing that you came in and were probably the one that built the SEO, because it sounds like you were the one thinking that way, how long do you feel like it took really focusing on SEO before you felt like you were in a better place that you could maybe take the gas off a little bit on it and focus some energy on other things?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Honestly, I don't know if we're there yet. I think um I and and maybe this is just me, I don't know if we'll ever be there. Um but where I felt like I could maybe I don't know. I I don't I don't think we're there yet.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, I I purposely phrase it that way because I the biggest misconception I think out there with SEO is that it's almost this one and done thing. You kind of you build your foundational SEO, you get it going, maybe it takes a year, you build it up, and now it's just gonna kind of go, right? But having worked on in this industry and other industries for a long time now, like the minute you stop focusing on your SEO is the minute your competitor who is focusing on it passes you. And once they pass you, it's that much harder to regain that ranking from them. And so it isn't like this thing that you just set and forget. You really have to, especially these days, it's changing so much. You have to really always be focusing on it and trying to get better. So that's awesome that you feel like you're not there yet because no one really ever is. And even if you are ranked number one for everything, you're still gonna drop out at some point if you if you stop focusing on it.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I think that's the most frustrating part with SEO too, is um it takes so long to get to the top and so quick to drop. It's it's it takes working out, right? Like it takes you forever to like get to a point where you think you're okay, and then you take like a day off or a weekend off, or you have a trip away and you're like, I just lost it all. So SEO's that's feels that way to me. For me, it's this like almost unattainable, but I keep working towards it. So I think it's something that we'll be doing for forever.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

As long as the internet and AI, because as long as you're having a good foundation and hopefully ranking in Google, that's going to help you rank in AI, and it's going to help all your other marketing efforts. But you're right, as soon as you lay the foot off the gas, that's when the other the competitors continue to do what they're doing, and you just lost. You just lost what you you've been working hard on. So it's a slow burn. It's a it's a really slow turn. So you have um referrals are your number one, of course, um lead source, and then you're doing print and you're doing SEO and you're doing all these other things. I don't know the answer to this. Um, do OTAs play in part of um your marketing strategy at all? Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

But not as not as not as much as um kind of everything else.

SPEAKER_04 14:13

Okay. But you still are listed trip advisor, viator, and you're measuring um how many bookings are coming direct versus indirect, and you're seeing maybe a really small percentage coming from indirect.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, and um a lot of that too is we're seeing that's more after the trip, um, more when people are leaving their reviews on those places. So we're not seeing as much pre there. That's more mostly after. And that's kind of been an ebb and flow too. Like, really, honestly, the last couple years we haven't seen as much there um as we have in past years.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

Which is a good thing. I mean, you know, that you're getting more direct bookings. Are you guys uh are you directing people to leave reviews on TripAdvisor? Are you bringing people to Google Business Profile? Where are you directing?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

We're we um we're really pushing to Google.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah. All of our our post-trip stuff um all to Google, and that's really increased significantly. Really like the past 18 months.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, the trend I'm seeing with OTAs seems to be the higher price your your tours are, the longer your tours are, the more invested the person is in really making sure you're good fit, the less they rely on OTAs, and the less the companies are relying on OTAs as well, because you just can't really nurture as well as you can through your own website with an OTA, and so it makes it a little bit different and easier for like a single, you know, single day, two-hour tour, whatever, to be on an OTA and like drive a ton of business through there because there's less decision need needing to be made, right? It's like I want to do a segue tour, cool, which one? Versus I want to do rafting, like when should I go and how do I do this and what do I need? Like, there's so much planning that goes into it that it really I think almost forces people to your website more to get that information, which is good for you as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Thinking back on really when that sort of fell off, really it was like 2020. So when COVID hit, um, people shifted, and I think for a slew of reasons, and people they had more time to research, right? They were we were all sequestered to our houses, so people really took up research, people were really watching their pocketbooks, and that hasn't really changed. So the past six years, people are still practicing kind of what they learned during that COVID time.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's move on to the next kind of piece of marketing, which is paid ads. So pay ad paid ads are different than SEO in the sense of you can almost get immediate results. So, how have you used paid ads to really reach the these guests that are in the dreaming phase? And how have they been successful? Are you doing them kind of seasonally? Are you capturing them to build awareness or to really drive bookings? Those types of how are you using it, I guess that way?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

We um we we do them kind of in phases. So we have seasonally where um people tend to book more, but we also have our evergreen to keep brand awareness up and is a good reminder too for people to come back. Um I believe in a multifaceted marketing campaign. So I think that you just can't start one thing and then every six months pick it up. I think you have to have that continuous you have to continuously be doing it. So um we've we've dropped our paid ads a little bit. We haven't completely ever stopped them, but we've slowed down and then we're ramping, we're ramping back up.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

And because you're doing all those other channels, you can drop them. You're filling, you're you're you're getting closer to your goals or whatever by those other channels so that you have a smaller gap to fill with paid ads. So that makes a lot of sense. What uh paid ads platforms have worked really well for you? I'm going to assume Google. And then are you still doing meta-ads?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Um, we are still doing meta ads. Meta ads would be the one that we do more seasonal or Google that we we keep um Google running year-round. Meta is more seasonal. Um yeah.

unknown 18:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

All right. I'm gonna talk about my favorite, which is social media, because you guys have a really incredible social media strategy. And to me, social media is such a good place where maybe your ideal customer is on their phone, laying in bed at night, scrolling, scrolling, have no idea. Maybe they're envisioning a nice trip on the Grand Canyon. They don't know, but they see your company pop up. So talk to me a little bit about your social media strategy. Is it a huge part of your marketing strategy or is it an afterthought? Are you intentional? How often are you posting? What does social media look like for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

We're posting five to six times a week, and there's multiple people managing it. So we've um it started with me, and I am actually not not as active in posting as I have been in the past. We have two people in our office that posting in their different age groups. So um, people that are taking on different trends because sometimes we get the really trendy, this has gone viral. Let's see how this works in our um our industry. And sometimes they flop and sometimes they're really good and they're kind of surprising that they're so good. And then we have um someone else in our office that doesn't do the as trendy stuff. So, and then when I get involved, I'm a little bit more um, I don't know, serendipitous. I like the magic, I like the quotes, I like so there we resonate with different people. Um, and I think we've decided to have like a lot of fun with it. Keep social media what it is, like kind of goofy, inspirational. Um, we don't have a lot of serious messages on there. I don't think it's the correct platform for that. Um, and it is for the people that kind of want to get away, right? Like it is so heavy out there right now, and there's a lot of noise that's pretty negative. So let us let us bring be the break in your social media, let us be the like weird meme on top of, you know, a canyon float. Like, let us do that. And we found a lot of success with it, and really it makes me feel good too. Every time I look forward to it because I don't really know what they're gonna do week to week. So it's a it's a good surprise.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

For me too. I enjoy following you guys as well. What what all platforms are you on? So I know Instagram and Facebook, obviously. Are you doing anything on YouTube, TikTok? Um X.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Nope. We haven't. Um I don't think we don't have the bandwidth to keep up with X. Um, and we're not quite there with YouTube yet. It's like on the back of our mind, we tried, we flirted with Pinterest for a little bit, but really you have to have you have to have a whole team for this. And we don't, we're a small business. So instead of spreading ourselves super thin on the social media front and doing everything like kind of okay, we're we committed to Facebook and Instagram. And that's where I

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Have you ever one more question about social media? You get excited about uh prank Greg. I get excited about social media. So is there anything that the social media team is measuring? Is it obviously are they measuring if anybody from social media converted? Are they measuring brand awareness? Are they measuring anything on social media?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Um, mostly brand awareness. We're not really measuring people that are converting right now. Um, we should, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

And I think social media is the place though where you can, I mean, it's to get in front of people to create that brand awareness. And as a marketing manager, both you and I know the importance of measuring. It is really hard to measure brand awareness. It is really hard because they may have seen your social media post and that maybe got them really excited and out of the dreaming phase. But instead of going on your Link Tree or your link in your bio, you're now clicking on a Google ad. And so now you're gonna attribute it to the Google ad. You're not gonna go look, oh, did they follow me on social media? I mean, you can, you know, and there's told you can do it, but yeah, I I I get what you're saying completely.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah, social media is for that mind share, right? We just want a little bit of that. One more thing.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

There's been so many situations where I've been scrolling on social media and I saw the tour or I saw something that I wanted to do or a place I wanted to go. Spawbard was one of them. I saw polar bears uh climbing on these icebergs, and I was like, I really want to go there. Am I ever going to be able to go there? Yeah. And then I saw it was a place that wasn't too far off from Norway, you know. So I'm a couple months later booking a trip there because they came on my social media in in Svalbard. You have to do everything through tours. So it was, yeah, social media is the place that you're inspiring people.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

You are, right? It's yeah, that brings it back to its core, right? To entertain, to inspire, to keep people, make people happy.

unknown 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah. And the nice thing about social media, we touched on this in our episode about social media, is the way the algorithm has changed. It doesn't really matter if they follow you. Like I see the same people all the time, and I rarely follow anyone.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And like I still see the same people, and so it almost benefits you as a business because now if you're just making good content that people are watching, they don't actually have to make any action for you to still get the value of being shown to more and more people. So it's really nice that way. Um as we think about everything we've kind of talked about to this point, what in your marketing strategy has really created the most consistent visibility? Is it SEO? Is it that repeat guests, referrals, partnerships, social or something else, print?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

I think like all of the above. I think um, like our return guests, our social media, our SEO strategy, bringing print back into the mix. I think it's just this beautiful mix of staying in front of people and catching them where they're at in their cycle. If they're in that dreaming phase, if they just got off the trip, if they're trying to spend some money, if they're want something to look forward to in 2026, 2027, and beyond. Like we're, you know, they're in that we're in their saved folder of social media. That's what I do is I like all or in messages I send to my husband, because I send send my husband messages via social media all the time. And I can't be the only one that does that. Um, but just kind of staying there. Like when they go back through seeing, like, oh, I I think I want to do this. I remember I want to do this.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

That really touches on that omnipresence that we've touched on a lot in this podcast and our webinars, as well as being everywhere that you can be. And I really like what you mentioned in the social media section of like not doing everything because you want to do a good job at certain parts. And so in omnipresence marketing, it's not about do everything.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

It's do everything that you can that you can do well. Because if you don't do it well, then it's just gonna fail. So I love everything that you've been saying about how you're strategically doing these pieces and and putting them together to get those guests to book at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

When we are talking about these foundational principles, you know, you you have a good SEO strategy in place, you have a good referral place. Um, a lot of that since 2008, you jumped into this, into the marketing role. Um, it's been changing, but not as rapidly. And correct me if I'm wrong as it is right now with AI. Yeah. Have you realized anything, any marketing strategies uh for you changing in how you're adapting with AI?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Um, AI has been super beneficial. Like if we're working on content, like it's a great jumping off place, a great place to brainstorm. Of course, like you have to make sure it's written for humans. I guess the most interesting thing that we're doing with AI now is we have a chat on our website and it's we're testing out AI bots for it, but we currently don't have any. And the amount of people that comment as if they're talking to a bot is fascinating. Fascinating. Google will log on, like, I want to know everything about this as if they're typing it into Chat GPT or Claude or Copilot. And you're like, you're you're talking to a human, and people don't believe you. So people don't believe that they're actually talking to a human. So that has been the most entertaining thing to me. I just a couple days ago, I was messaging somebody back and forth, and they're like, Okay, I'd like to talk to a human now. I'm like, You are all right, I am a human. This is I think that's incredible. It's so silly. And then on the flip side, we've had a couple people that maybe are lonely, so they'll like start messaging in chat. And I've like had full-on conversations with people on like what the weather's like, where they're at, and like what we think the weather's gonna be like, and it's it's it's fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

That is really interesting.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

What is um cool about that is what I want the listeners to hear is, and Alison, correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys get a lot of chats into your website, and you are the human responding back. And because you're getting a lot, we want to make that more efficient. So that's why you're installing the AI chat bot so that you guys can be more efficient, and there's still a place for a human. So we actually discussed this yesterday with Concha, but she um uh we were testing if somebody selects like human or anything, it will bounce right over to a human. So it's not like the consumer is or the the visitor on the website is stuck talking to a chat if they don't want to. We could bounce it over into humans, but at least now like you're not no longer having to respond. And not saying that you don't want to, because you might want to, you know, ask people about the weather and that sort of thing, but it allows you to do other things if you if you want to. So it's utilizing AI to be really efficient.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

And that after hours, right? Like we are accessible 24-7, but we don't necessarily want to be or should be. And that's I think where the AI bots like really come in handy is that like 9:30 on a Monday night message that's gonna come through, or on the flip side, like 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Like we we need, and a lot of the times we get asked the same questions, and they're all it's all stuff that you can find on our FAQs, but um humans don't like to dig all the time. They sometimes want an easy answer, and I think that's what AI is doing too, is it's giving us that instant gratification again. Like Amazon started with, you know, you should be able to order something that should be delivered in two hours. So now people are typing in to, you know, on their phone or computer and they want an answer like right away. Um I I like that. Like as a consumer, I like that. As a marketer, I like that. But taking a step back, like that human part, I don't like that. Like we we shouldn't be able to, like, we shouldn't be able to get everything we want like this.

unknown 30:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

And we shouldn't have to be, you know, like managing our chats 24-7.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, it's a given poll with AI, and you can almost do anything with AI now, and that's the way people think. That was a really interesting insight that people are actually asking you questions as if you're a bot.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Because usually I'm like, can I just get a human because you're not answering my question right? And those are poorly set up AI bots when they're doing that. Like if you set it up right, you can ask just about anything and get decent answers or the right answer back. Pretty, pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

So we've been testing about two for a couple months, too. I think we've been a little bit nervous that on how it's gonna answer. Um, just because it's new, you know, it's new to me. Again, I've been on the like side of using a bot, implementing a bot to different stories. So we've done a lot of testing. Um, and I think it'll be good. I think it'll be really good. I think it'll be helpful, and especially for those people want to keep talking to an AI bot, not a real human.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah, I'm I'm excited to see how it works for you. And I'm hoping that it doesn't fall into what I'm just about to ask you, which is in marketing, there we we try a lot of things, right? And some of them just absolutely fail. Some of them are amazing and win. What would you say are some of the hard lessons that you've learned in the last almost 20 years? No, yeah, 20 years now of doing this with a company.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Great. We touched on it a little bit ago, is uh trying to do everything and actually not doing anything well. We um we did something five years ago. So right after COVID, um a lot of stuff happened. I mean, the Grand Canyon closed for a few months because that and that's like unheard of. But we to, and people were scared, people weren't booking, so we really tried to figure out how to get people to book. And um, we did something that I have had success for in other parts of my marketing life, and it did not work here. It did not work for Great Canyon Expeditions, and we spent a chunk of money and it didn't deliver like I thought it would. And it was a humbling experience for me because I've I've done it before. I asked to, like, you know, trust me, I think this is gonna work, and it didn't. And humans, I think the thing that we know is humans are unpredictable. And just because it worked before doesn't mean it's necessarily gonna work again. So I think that's the hardest part about marketing for me personally, is just because it was once successful doesn't mean it's going to be again. And it's not necessarily anything that you did. So it's sort of like, you know, falling on the sword at that point, like I messed up. I thought this was gonna be good and it wasn't. And it's not to say that it won't be again in the future, but you don't know until you try. We all fell. Yeah, and things that you think aren't gonna be successful. Like when we implemented a bot on our website three years ago, I was like, there's no way that people are gonna get this active with uh, you know, a river operation, like a river tour operation. There's no way that people are gonna want to chat us up. Oh boy, was I wrong. Like we're our website's very active. You just don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:26

All right, Allison. I have one last question for you. If a tour operator wants to win in the dreaming phase today, so getting in front of people, what should they absolutely get right?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I think the first that human approach and helping people imagine themselves there. Like helping people imagine themselves like they're already there. Because people often ask, like, what's in it for me? What do I get from this? Like, help me, what what is this gonna feel like? So I think showing that, like showing, kind of telling that story, showing those visuals, like this is what it imagine yourself like laying down, listening to the roar of the river, reading your favorite book, or doing nothing, staring up at the stars and seeing the Milky Way, like picture yourself doing this. I think is the most successful is the most successful thing for us. Like, we are we are a family of river guides and storytellers and historians and visualizers and dreamers and pushing that out there.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

That's where it's really important to understand your customer base and what they want to see, what excites them, because in the Grand Canyon, at least the lower half that I went on, there's a mixture of like really just kind of hanging out and then hitting a rapid and then kind of hanging out, hitting a rapid, sometimes they're closer, sometimes they're not. I know in the upper half you have like Havasu Falls and some really pretty places that you hike to and different things. But if if someone's looking for like a nice relaxing getaway, you know, maybe that's not what they want to see is these huge rapids that you're gonna go down. And so showing a mix between both might get, you know, maybe the their husband's excited and they're excited about the the the part that doesn't have rapids, right? So really understanding your client base and knowing what they want to see goes a long way, I think, with being able to really touch on those those feelings and and helping them get themselves to you know be in that location as well.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

Yeah. That's why I love going back to how you have different people on social media doing different types of posts to hit their your because you have different ICPs, different ideal customers you're trying to reach. So I love it utilizing that to reach the right customer and put themselves in their shoes. I that's incredible. Yeah, well, Allison, thank you so much for joining us today. This was an incredible um conversation. I think that everything that you're doing um for the company is incredible. You guys obviously have an incredible history and legacy, and you're doing awesome things. And it's really cool to be able to share that with other tour operators so that they can see the success you guys have you know created and hopefully look up to that. So thank you, Allison, for coming on. Thanks for having me. This is great. Awesome. All right, well, that is another episode of the Tour Operator Growth Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe, follow, give us some feedback. We'd love to hear it. And we'll see you on the next episode. Bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

See ya.