This article examines the budget's immediate and longer-term impacts on visitor organisations and explores strategies for helping your organisation navigate the challenges and rebound effectively.

The full-budget headlines can be seen in this BBC article [here]. Some of the main points we think are going to affect the sector are;

// The legal minimum wage for over-21s will rise from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour from April.

// The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds to go up from £8.60 to £10, as part of a long-term plan to move towards a "single adult rate".

// £2 cap on single bus fares in England to rise to £3 from January, outside London and Greater Manchester.

// £1.3bn extra funding next year for local councils, which will also keep all cash from Right to Buy sales from next month.

The significant increase in national insurance costs will heavily impact visitor attractions. Visitor attractions are labour-intensive organisations and the increased costs will strain staffing budgets in the coming year. However, it’s not only the NI increase. The minimum wage increase will also impact visitor attractions, which traditionally rely heavily on minimum-wage employees for seasonal and operational roles throughout the year.

The increase in NI payments and the increase in minimum wage will likely be taken from staffing budgets, where organisations might have looked to promote or increase salaries. In turn, this may mean there are fewer team members available to operate an attraction.

Less staff can have a twofold impact;

1. // Current staff workloads are demanding and intense as they are, with recruitment reduced this may increase what teams are currently juggling, leading to burnout in the long term.

2. // The visitor experience for organisations that rely on a large number of employees to enhance it may decline in real terms.

These staffing concerns may have a larger and much longer-term impact. Summer seasonal staff often stay in the industry and are promoted throughout the organisation. Fewer seasonal staff will lead to a lower recruitment pool for full-time positions.

Just before the budget announcement, the government introduced new worker rights and policies to protect staff from day one of employment. While this policy will positively affect employees, it may impact seasonal worker recruitment for visitor attractions.

Ideally, your hiring process is outstanding, ensuring you only hire those who are a perfect fit. However, if not, the HR process and time it’ll take to review new recruits who aren’t a great fit will undoubtedly have a negative impact on resources.

It’s always been important to weigh up the pros and cons of hiring a new member of staff or finding other delivery methods, and this will only exacerbate the situation further.

Whatever your political leaning or bank balance, the fallout from the latest budget has been nothing short of dramatic. The headline “£40 billion in tax increases” will likely send a shiver down the spine of many, and this sensationalism leads to public unease about their personal finances.

Therefore, we will likely see an impact on visitor spending across the UK spectrum. Many organisations will pass on the NI increase to their customers via price increases, which of course leads to reduction in visiting for some.

Speaking to our CEO, Anthony feels that the 2024 visitation baseline of 10% lower than 2019 levels will be further impacted in 2025. He predicts the new baseline will likely be 15% lower than 2019 levels.

With visitors being the primary driver for revenue across the visitor attraction industry, this lower level of visitation for many, coupled with the budget pressure, will mean another hard year ahead.

According to the latest from booking.com, the highest driver for people booking via their platform is… Value for money (57% of people globally).

Whilst in other markets like tech and retail, brand can be a primary driver for purchase. When it comes to visitor organisations, the last 12 months have showcased that the weather, cost or perceived value are all vital factors for audiences.

An example of a sector pivoting in terms of value is the cinema industry. After the boom of at-home streaming entertainment, coupled with the pandemic, the cinema industry (or parts of it at least) realised they had to adapt or die.

Whether it was building demand in offpeak times (hello, Compare the Meerkat 2 for 1) or a dynamic price point depending on where you want to sit in the screening, they’ve adapted their value-based approach to ensure consumers can get the most for their money.

When it comes to attractions, your audiences may be looking for the best value for their family day out. They won’t be asking whether they want a “heritage day out” or a “cultural one?”. A lot of them will be thinking, what’s the best value?

If your experience is between 2 and 3 hours, what is the price comparison for the same family to go to the cinema instead? Of course, an engaged experience at a visitor attraction may be our preference, but when it comes to the value, they might not agree.

So, if you can introduce a dynamic pricing model to offer value at off-peak times or add a free return pass with your ticket option, this will be the deciding factor for visitors in 2025.

Our clients have implemented some amazing value offerings this year and reaped the rewards. From Trentham Monkey Forest (view here), which kept its price as affordable as possible, Leeds Castle, which offered a free return pass with all visitor tickets, or Willows Activity Farm, which brought in batch ticket offerings in the summer. The time to communicate value has never been more important.

Do you include the staff costs in your marketing budget? With increased staff costs for visitor organisations, it’s vital you do so. What is the total amount you’re spending? What is that delivering for you?

In 2025, ensuring your marketing budget can adapt and evolve is vital. Don’t run the same three-month TV advert. Don’t push out a billboard campaign for which you’ve had to commit artwork for six months out. 2025 is the year for marketing optimisations, weekly tweaks, and pivots reacting to the market we’re dealt.

Digital marketing should deliver 80% of your visitors as long as you spend the right amount on it. We’ve defined the right marketing mix through working with over fifty attractions currently. If you want to find out what that is, get in touch.

And once that budget is set, you have to be able to track as much as possible. Where is your traffic coming from? What are they buying? Or what are they not buying? Setting up your sales funnel and tracking all digital activity is paramount.

If you’re not already putting plans and strategies in place to diversify your revenue and audiences then this is the time to act. Visitor revenue is of course, the primary driver, and optimising the booking journey, secondary upsells and ticket income is very important. But long term, we know that the pool of people visiting is declining (see our summer article for more information), so we need to ensure we’re diversifying not only the areas we’re looking to grow revenue but also who that revenue is coming from.

First, let's tackle audiences. We predict the biggest growth area for visitor organisations is the 16 to 25 market. This demographic has just had an increase in minimum wage, and their primary channel of engagement is digital, where we can track and optimise spend. This audience also doesn’t mind travelling in bad weather and actively wants to try new experiences. Building this audience and developing brand loyalty will lead to them bringing family and friends for years to come (and shouting about it on social).

So next is the diversification of revenue streams themselves. We’ve built a commercial growth model to increase all of the areas you should be looking to grow revenue, that aren’t visitor income. From e-commerce to experiences, this approach will build out a more varied model for growth allowing you to avoid the constant stresses of visitor revenue. This isn’t the case of doing more with less. It’s about doing the right things, to deliver maximum benefit.

If you’re looking for ways to diversify your revenue, get in touch today to discuss with our leadership team.