2014 National Bicycle Tourism Conference (Part 2 of 2)

21 Nov 2014 National Bicycle Tourism Conference (Part 2 of 2)

Fleet of San Diego’s Bike Share Bikes

This is the second part of a two-part event write-up from the 2014 National Bicycle Tourism Conference. The first part can be found by clicking here. Both articles cover the 4 day events that happened on November 5th to 8th.

Day 3 – Conference Closing

Friday morning was kicked off with a breakfast buffet, which gave us more networking opportunities. We settled back in the large conference hall to listen to Pat Cunnane, President of Advanced Sports International (ASI). In his keynote address, Pat admits that the bicycle tourism industry has been significantly underserved by vendors like ASI. Their main focus was on recreation bicycle riders and maybe commuters from brands like Fuji. Hopefully, this is the step in the right direction moving forward. I’m actually glad that the conference finally has representation from a major bicycle manufacturer. This was one of the suggestions mentioned from last year’s conference. I’m glad they listened to this suggestion.

Beer & Bikes

For our first breakout session for today, I attended the presentation Beer and Bicycles – How Does This Combination Contribute to Bicycle Tourism? given by Michael Craft, Marketing Director of New Belgium Brewing. Let me first say that Michael is an incredible public speaker. He was funny and witty. He seemed very comfortable and at ease in front of a large audience. I suppose having to host 90+ Tour de Fat has something to do with that. Never had I heard a person speak so passionately about his company and loving every minute of it. It didn’t hurt as he gave everyone free beer from New Belgium – what a great way to warm up to your audience.

Michael talked about the huge success of the Tour de Fat and how even putting on fewer Tour de Fats in the recent years still yielded more revenue. We’re talking about revenue from beer sales. He’s examined ways of improving a person’s experience when buying beer and reconfigured how barriers for lines are positioned to help generate a more positive experience to his customers when buying beer.

New Belgium Brewing Presentation

Luncheon

We were served lunch once again before we sat down to listen to Todd Davidson, CEO of Travel Oregon speak about Travel Oregon’s success in gaining more visitors who have seen videos (produced by The Path Less Pedaled) and have wanted to come to Oregon to visit.

Shortly after Todd’s speech, it was time for the Bike Friday raffle. Unfortunately, I didn’t win, but the representative for Bike Friday, Raz spoke briefly to encourage others to just bring people out to ride. It’s really that simple.

How to Collect Data that Counts

The panel of speakers consisted of Charlie Cooper, Vice President Membership and Development for PeopleForBikes, Dr. Jennifer Boldry, President of Breakaway Research Group, Chandler Smith of Ride The Rockies / Pedal the Plains, TJ Juskiewicz of RAGBRAI, and Michael Craft, New Belgium Brewing. Jennifer provided valuable insight, including a benchmark report, which keeps track of interesting bicycle metrics. What was new to me was that there was a nation-wide group called the Bike Walk Alliance.

Charlie pointed out that the Open Streets Project can provide other data points about bicycle tourism. TJ divulged the fact that RAGBRAI makes $364 million / $1 million per day from bicycle tourism. They attribute their success in cross promoting with other events, like the Iowa Bike Expo to get buy-in from the communities. Chandler also reinforced the idea of cross-promoting and shared 2 bike touring events as well. Michael also gave more insights about his Tour de Fat events where they sell about 1,000,000 barrels of beer a year. He stated 3 things you can do to set the tone of your event to be pro-bike.

1. Put on a crazy parade.
2. Have souvenirs
3. Provide beers – find partnerships to make this happen. Breweries like Dale’s, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium are a few companies open to this.

Above all, make fun a priority in your life, and you’ll never work a day in it.

Furthermore, data from the Outdoor Industry Association reports that the outdoors industry makes $130.7 billion. What that means to me is that there are opportunities to make money even if you appeal to 1% of that group.

Dr. Boldry solicited the audience by asking what is the main barrier that is keeping people from getting economic data for their own use. It all pointed to one thing – too expensive to do it. One of the most effective way to offset the cost is to identify partners that can help you out with this. Be creative! Here were some examples.

1. Local businesses
2. Tourism & visitors’ bureau
3. Healthcare companies or wellness groups
4. Universities – $10K to $15K for a study.
5. Advocacy organizations
6. Local, state, or national bicycle organizations.

Best Practices to Gather Datasets

To obtain secondary data points, you can look at the following place:

1. Local or regional tax revenues, specifically time constraint events.
2. Revenue from local business.
3. Inquiries to the visitors’ center. Visitor counts from tourism departments.
4. Lodging numbers or occupancy rate.
5. Event participation.
6. Media coverage, both print and online.

To get qualitative data points, you can do the following things:

1. Solicit participants, tourists, and users.
2. Community members and other stakeholders of your tour.
3. Vendors who are on your tour.

For quantitative data points, you should have at least the following things captured.

1. Number of people.
2. Number of days & overnights. Be sure to separate that information.
3. Distance and method of travel.
4. Cost per day.
5. Likelihood to return to the area again.

Once all that data is available, be sure to share the results immediately.

• Develop an event story and publish to the media as press release.
• Government / regulatory authorities.
• Tourism and visitors’ bureau.
• Sponsors from past, present, and perspective.

Closing It

TJ Juskiewic, the incoming President of the Bicycle Tour Network (BTN), gave his closing remarks as everyone took advantage of the networking opportunity during the closing reception. I took the opportunity to visit each vendor and found possibilities to work with them on future projects, so that was a fruitful endeavor.

The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition (SDCBC) treated everyone to a Happy Hour get together immediately after the reception. As a duty of being a good guest in their town, I obliged and was awarded with a drink ticket. I even purchased one of their super comfortable t-shirts in support of their organization. Enjoyed a hearty dinner and made sure to solidify my appointment on Sunday to ride CicloSDias.

Meeting with Arlen Hall

Day 4 – Discussion Group, Swag Swap, & Scavenger Hunt

The last morning of the NBTC is usually pretty slow as the day begins later than the previous 2. It’s understandable, as most people have travel plans to return home. I actually packed up my touring bike from my friend’s house and rode it into the conference since I was planning to stay at a hostel in downtown San Diego for the weekend.

Discussion Group

Our morning began with a general discussion group, which included tour operators and potential tour riders. It seemed that the SDCBC was invited to represent the riders as all questions of accommodations were directed towards them. I had to chime in a few times to remind them I’m also a rider. What I took away from that roundtable was that there is a lack of qualitative data that tour operators and the industry is needing. Looks like another opportunity there.

Swag Swap

At first, I was reluctant to participate in a swag swap as I’ll need to haul home anything I took. Therefore, I only opted to pick up smaller things, like a blinky light. There were several bicycle kits and t-shirts that I looked over. For future reference, I’m probably not going to be looking to do anymore swag swap as I am looking to minimize on things I own and collect.

Scavenger Hunt

This is probably the one thing I regret not doing this year. San Diego is planning to start their first bike share at the end of November 2014, and the scavenger hunt attendees were the first to ever ride these bikes in public. I wish I had signed up to have the opportunity. These bikes were very well made and looked like the typical bikes you would see for bike share. Equipped with a drive shaft to propel your pedal strokes to the rear wheel instead of a chain. They came with an integrated plastic basket and light which was powered by a dynamo hub. People enjoyed riding them on the scavenger hunt with the exception of one bike whose front brake disengaged.

One Last Meeting

The scavenger hunt marked the conclusion of another NBTC conference. I took the opportunity to seek out Adventure Cycling’s Tour Director, Arlen Hall for a quick-lunch meeting. We last talked in Iowa when I was starting my journey with Milestone Rides. I gave him my updates and plans for the future. He gave me much-needed advice before we parted ways. He was planning on staying through Sunday to attend CicloSDias as well.

Final Thoughts

I was telling people that this year’s NBTC felt much different. I’m not sure if it’s because the location was much more favorable because of the weather or if it was the variety of people from the bicycling industry who attended, but it felt much different. It could also be that the initial excitement from last year did not carry through to this year. Or maybe because I wasn’t staying at the same hotel as everyone, I was feeling a bit disengaged.

Whatever it was, I still felt the 4 days were beneficial as I learn different things and made new contacts to hopefully catapult my business forward.

Did you attend this year’s National Bicycle Tourism Conference? Do you agree with the points made here and in my previous blog post? Let me know what you think in the comments below.