Simplifying the product matrix with new tourism experiences

New tourism experiences can easily get overcomplicated by offering too many products.

It often starts by planning around having something to offer for everyone:

- Adults
- Children
- Families
- Students
- Group bookings
- Event deals
- Trade rates
- Voucher availability
- Special discounts (eg locals discount, gold card etc)
- Add-ons (eg transport, meals, drinks etc)
- Return passes
- Packages with other tourism businesses

We did this when we started mountain biking at Skyline - adding on to all of the options above we also had half day passes, full day passes, 3 day passes, 5 day passes, half season passes and season passes!

It made for a very complicated product + category matrix.

Over time we refined it back to adult or child + half day, full day or season pass.

Since then, they've adapted further where visitors can now buy a fixed number of uplifts (eg 50 ride pass).

This makes sense in terms of the value it offers is the same for everyone as opposed to someone doing 20 rides on a half-day pass and someone else doing 5 rides on a half-day pass but still paying the same price.

This also shows that there should be a constant evolution of the products you offer, depending on what's working and what's profitable.

(This might sound strange but I've seen operators who keep selling unprofitable products because they're worried about what might happen if they put prices up...)

When it comes to the product mix, the reality is the more simple the better - you don't have to cater to everyone, guests will deal with what's on offer.