The Strong looks to adults for growth

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The Strong is looking to increase its business by targeting adults. The museum is expanding its domestic and international group tour programs and has added a new position to focus on such sales.

Karen Dodson, with 20 years of experience in the sales and hospitality industries, including serving as general manager of Waterloo Premium Outlets, joined the Strong in April as tourism sales associate. Her role is to work directly with tour operators to introduce new itineraries that encourage guests to visit the Strong.

“We are just beginning to see groups as a result of her participation in sales missions and expos,” said Suzanne Seldes, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Strong. Dodson reports to Seldes. “We had a group of nearly 40 students from mainland China last week and have another group from Ohio visiting next week; pretty good turnaround in just three months’ time.”

The Strong decided to pursue the adult group tour sector following extensive study of travel trends. Group travel is a $4 billion industry annually across the country and is growing, Seldes said.

“Market research indicates the time is right for the group tour market, and the Strong has the attractions that draw many adults: the National Toy Hall of Fame and the World Video Game Hall of Fame,” Seldes said.

The museum’s reputation is growing throughout the Northeast and Ontario, Canada, the research shows, for adults seeking enriching entertainment, she added. While the Strong is known for its unique collection of toys and games, it is also a representation of American culture, which is appealing to many travelers.

“We are leveraging our collection of items that can only be seen here to illuminate American cultural history, our pop culture. What are the stories? What are the artifacts we collect?” Seldes said.

To help groups as well as individual guests navigate the museum, the Strong is launching a mobile app that takes visitors on a self-guided tour to locate 12 must-see artifacts on all three floors. The app is in five languages: English, Chinese, French, German and Spanish. In anticipation of increased international travelers, the museum is updating its website with translations in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Ukrainian.

Collaboration is crucial to the success of the group travel strategy, Seldes said, citing a Brand USA 2015 travel trend survey that found there were 1.2 billion international travelers to the United States last year and 62 percent were repeat visitors.

“They want to come back and do something different, something they can brag about,” Seldes said. “There’s a wealth of activity in Upstate New York. Our strategy is to communicate with operators and attraction partners across the region to extend their stay.”

There are two ways to approach group sales, said Cathy Fabretti, chairwoman of the Group Tour Travel and Trade Sales Committee of Visit Rochester. She and her team spend a lot of time on the road making sales calls to tour operators and motor coach companies as one way to pitch Rochester as an excellent group travel destination. They also attend conventions, trade shows and expos where they set up a booth and meet with travel and tour groups who stop to meet them.

The Strong is one of the main selling points in describing the cultural attractions Rochester has to offer, along with the George Eastman Museum and many festivals such as the Fringe Fest.

“So far in 2016 we’ve had sales missions to New York City, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Fabretti said. “We have a mission in Canada now. These trips are not for socializing. We have up to 25 sales appointments over two to three days.”

The missions pay off, Fabretti said, noting there were 800 group tours in Rochester and Monroe County last year.

There are plans to extend the sales missions to a wider geographic region and expand the group travel base here as a result.

“We believe in 2017, if we extend to Long Island and New England, we’ll have success,” she said.

Customizing packages with tour operators that cater to travelers interested in specific topics brings groups to the region that are interested in everything from shopping to wine tasting and dancing to museums.

The Corning Museum of Glass, which is the most visited art museum in the state outside of New York City, attracts 460,000 visitors a year. Forty percent are group travelers who arrive by motor coach, said Elizabeth Duane, director of marketing and community relations at the facility.

“The majority of our group business is international,” Duane said. “When I say international, I mean the tour operators themselves are located in the U.S. But the customers are from around the world.”

China is the largest foreign group customer, Duane noted.

School groups are included in the group travel segment, but they are a single-digit percentage of the overall group business, she added.

There has been significant success with Wine, Water and Wonders, a tourism marketing program Corning Museum of Glass joined in partnership with Visit Rochester, the Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance and partners in Niagara Falls.

“These entities do get the power of partnerships,” Duane said. “We may be a stop en route to another destination. These international motor coaches are traveling from New York City or D.C. heading to Niagara Falls.”

The Strong hopes to find the same success in group tours that Corning has, expanding the appeal of the museum known for its collection that encourages people to rediscover their inner child.

“The Strong has something for people of all ages,” Seldes said.

8/12/2016 (c) 2016 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email [email protected].