This weekend Cape to Cape MTB is running, 16 to 19 October, Australia’s largest four day mountain bike stage race. Beerhall at Shelter is in Busselton on the 18th and 19th, and the Augusta Bream Competition runs the same days. Next weekend brings Tour de Gracetown and the Pavilion Hoedown on the 24th and 25th, with Coastrek Margaret River on the 25th.
That is a lot of people in the region with a schedule, an early start and money they intend to spend. Event visitors are not browsing. They have a fixed location, a fixed time and a set of very practical needs around it, and the business that answers those needs first gets the trade.
Endurance events bring more than the entrant. Riders and walkers arrive with partners, support crews, families and friends who are not competing and who have an entire day to fill while someone else is on a course. That non competing group is often the easier customer and almost nobody markets to them.
1. Pick one event. Do not try to cover all four. Choose the one whose people look most like your customers and build properly for it.
2. Solve the unglamorous problem. Early breakfast. Somewhere secure for a bike. Laundry. A big meal at an odd hour. Late checkout on the Monday. These are the things event visitors search for and complain about, and they are usually easier to provide than a package.
3. Market to the support crew. While one person is racing, two others are looking for coffee, a view, a walk and lunch. Write directly to them. Nobody else is.
4. State your distance. Minutes from the start line or the finish. That number is the entire decision for someone with a six in the morning race brief.
The event schedule: Read the actual programme. Start times, finish times, presentation times, rest days. It tells you exactly when people will be hungry, free or looking for somewhere to sit.
Google Business Profile hours: If you are opening early for the event weekends, change your hours before the weekend. An early opening nobody knows about is not an early opening.
1. Choose one event weekend and read its programme properly
2. Publish one offer built around a practical need, not an experience
3. Say how many minutes you are from the start or finish line
4. Update your hours if you are opening earlier or later
5. Write one post aimed at the people who came to watch rather than compete
Event visitors judge a business on whether it made their day easier, not on whether it looked good. Solve a logistical problem and you get the booking, the review and the return trip next year when the event comes back.
Two weekends, four events, and a regional visitor base that has already paid to be here. You do not have to attract them. You have to be findable, open at the right hour, and clear about how far away you are.
Missing out on event trade every year? If you want this looked at properly, book a strategy call.
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There is a particular kind of visitor arriving in the region over the next ten days. They set an alarm for five. They know exactly where they need to be. They will spend money without hesitating, on the right things, at unusual hours.
Six ways to be useful to them.
1. Open earlier than you want to
A four day stage race and a coastal trek both start before most cafes are open. Whoever is serving coffee at six thirty on those mornings will have a queue and no competition. If that is not you, at least know that it is somebody, and that they are collecting a weekend of trade you decided to sleep through.
2. Sell to the person not competing
For every rider on the Cape to Cape there is a partner holding a coffee with six hours to fill and no plan. They are the best customer of the weekend and nobody writes a single word to them. One post that says here is what to do while they are riding will outperform anything aimed at the athletes.
3. Answer the logistics, not the romance
Where can I wash muddy kit. Is there somewhere to lock a bike. Do you serve dinner after eight. Can we check out late on Monday. Event visitors do not need to be inspired. They need those five questions answered in writing so they can stop worrying about them.
4. Put the number of minutes in the headline
Not near the course. Eight minutes from the Gracetown start. Twelve minutes from the finish at Coastrek. A specific number is a decision. A vague claim of proximity is a paragraph people skip.
5. Plan for the Monday, not just the weekend
People who travel for a Sunday event frequently stay the extra night rather than driving home tired. A Sunday night rate, a late checkout and a decent Monday breakfast turn a day trip into a two night booking. Publish it before the weekend, because nobody negotiates that at nine on Sunday evening.
6. Capture them for next year
These events come back. The rider who had a good weekend at your place will book you again in twelve months without shopping around, but only if you got their email or their follow. Ask while they are still glowing about their result. The whole point of an event weekend is that it is not a one off unless you let it be.
Your action for the week
Pick one of the four events. Read its programme, find one practical problem its visitors will have, and publish the answer with your distance in minutes in the first line. One event, one problem, one post.
Weekly South West Visibility Ideas is a series for tourism, accommodation, and hospitality operators across the South West of Western Australia.
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