If you want to push your guest ranch to succeed in the new year, the best thing you can do is learn from how people planned and booked vacations in 2018 and take that information with you as you plan for the upcoming busy season. With personalization and online trends taking the front seat, ranches should look for ways that they can fulfill the modern traveler’s desires.
The way that people are planning their ranch vacations is changing. As adventure travel continues to grow, guest ranches need to be assessing how their processes for taking and managing reservations are performing.
You probably know by now how important having a strong website is for your guest ranch. New guests aren’t going to be familiar with your ranch or where you’re located, so the best idea they can get aside from word of mouth is by looking online. If you don’t do a good job at making a strong impression, it’s not going to take a lot for them to move on to the next location. Websites are a living, breathing thing, so it’s OK to make changes and updates. Here’s how to do a website audit to ensure you’re making the best effort possible to attract new reservations.
There are a lot of different tasks that go into ranch management, and not all of them are all that glamorous. On top of caring for your horses and your livestock, you’re also facing back office struggles that can pull you away from more valuable matters, such as tending to the needs of current guests and managing incoming guests.
Adventure travel has been making noticeable increases in recent years — growing at an average of 60 percent annually. And for the future, it’s projected to grow 46 percent as we look toward 2020. More people every year are looking to book more experiential vacations, so how is your ranch taking advantage of it?
Colorado Cattle Company is a true working ranch that offers their guests the opportunity to experience the real ranch experience by day and relax in a resort environment by night. Tom and Darcy Carr purchased the ranch after making four trips in three years and finding out it was for sale. Since 2009, they’ve worked on building their ranch into one of the top guest ranch vacation spots in Colorado.
Rocking Z Guest Ranch is a family horse ranch dedicated to sharing Montanan traditions and the practice of natural horsemanship with their guests. The Wirth family has owned and operated Rocking Z Guest Ranch since 2000. Their Montana ranch is dedicated to teaching their guests about horses, the practice of natural horsemanship, and cow working.
Latigo Ranch is located high in the Rocky Mountains at about 9,000 feet in elevation and offers some of the best views reaching as far as the Continental Divide. The George family bought the ranch in 1987 and has since grown it into one of the best guest ranch vacation spots in Colorado.
Traditional ranch bookkeeping is a challenge. It’s time-consuming and exhausting keeping track of the financial information that customers give you. Paper processes are tedious places to store your guest information, and when your information is scattered between documents, it’s too easy for things to get lost or forgotten when nothing is backed up or saved.
Did you know that the adventure travel industry is growing over 60% year over year, and that two thirds of travelers are booking online? But only 10 percent of ranches are able to capture qualified leads online.