By Amitaabh Malhotra,
Omnyway
Tourism is big business in the U.S. In 2016, 75.6 million
international visitors came
to the United States and collectively spent $244.7 billion across the country.
For many tourists, the U.S. is considered a shopping destination for luxury
goods. Why? Mostly because they may not be able to get those brands or products
back home, or what they get there may be more expensive. Sometimes, the visitor
may come from a country where fake goods are widespread, making it even more
attractive to buy authentic goods in the U.S. that can also serve as a keepsake
of the trip. As a result, most tourists spend serious time and money shopping
when they travel here to the U.S.
Tourists represent a huge opportunity for retailers, but
figuring out how to attract those shoppers into stores can be tough.
Traditional marketing and advertising won’t work since they are technically
outside of the regular outreach channels.
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So how can retailers capture the tourist dollars? Here are
four secrets that have shown promise.
Pick The Right Communication Channel
Ever visited a country that you are unfamiliar with and don’t
speak the language? It’s amazing how dependent you become on tour guides
to take you where you want to go. The tourists coming here face the same
challenge. Retailers can overcome these barriers by embracing multilingual
social media channels that are popular in the countries the tourists are
visiting from, like WeChat, Weibo, WhatsApp, Line, Yandex, etc. Reaching out to
customers on these platforms is a smart way to make them aware of what stores,
brands and products are around and allows tourists to have two-way
communication with the merchant in their own language.
They Are Here For The Deals — So Push Them Hard
Travelers to the U.S. tend to be deal hungry and triggered to
take advantage of any offers they can get — in fact, most are not used to
getting such deals from brands in their home countries. However, before
the era of mobile devices and social media, there was no easy way for retailers
to deliver these offers and deals to them. The smart thing to do is to segment
and target using multilingual social media platforms, allowing extension of
personalized offers to travelers that are contextually relevant, thereby
significantly increasing the chances of conversion.
Payments Are Not Just Cash Or Card Anymore
Many tourists rely heavily on cash when they come to the U.S.
because they do not have a credit card that is accepted in the U.S. market,
often because they are not eligible to get one. This limits their spending
power. Meanwhile, mobile payment mechanisms are extremely popular and
mainstream in countries like China and India. A retailer that can offer a wider
range of payment options, including ones that they are comfortable with and
already set up to use, can stand out in the market. Not only will they attract
more tourist business, but they will also enable those customers to spend more.
Pickup, Deliver, Ship — Make Them Want To Buy From You
The last thing a tourist wants to do is lug packages around town
during a visit. And while they may be excited to shop, that doesn’t mean they
want to spend hours trekking around to find the items they are looking for,
particularly if they know exactly what they want. Retailers can appeal to the
tourist market by offering flexibility on pickup and delivery options. For
example, if a visitor can pre-order online in their own language, using the
payment mechanism they like, and then simply pick it up in-store when they
arrive, that’s a convenient and low-stress experience — and fits well into the
limited time the tourists have at each location. In addition, allowing a
customer to request delivery to their hotel room, or even an airport
destination, has tremendous benefits. Retailers can go even further by allowing
customers to purchase products and have them shipped directly back to their
home country.
Far too many retailers leave a lucrative customer pool untapped
by ignoring the unique needs of the tourist market. Each of these capabilities
is an impetus for eager-to-spend tourists to buy more.
Amitaabh Malhotra is the chief marketing
officer of Omnyway,
an integrated platform for payments, loyalty rewards and offers that encourages
consumers to use their mobile phone for all aspects of the buying journey.