Destination first: driving mobile ticket sales with high-quality tourist information

When a bus patron thinks about getting somewhere, they will always consider their destination before they put any thought into the logistics of the journey. This is why marketing that promotes the appeal of a destination – rather than the efficiency of arriving there – is such a powerful thing.

Consider the two-system thinking of Daniel Kahneman, postulated in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. In Kahneman’s approach, the “System 1” mode of thought is fast, instinctive and emotional. “System 2” is slower, deliberative and logical. Research continually shows that System 1 responses are the key drivers of our purchase decisions.

In context, System 1 represents the emotional response customers have towards their destination. System 2 plays out as they contemplate the journey necessary to get there.

Promotional strategies that focus solely on System 2 and benefits related to network efficiency have their place, but they don’t always speak to the emotional side of the customer’s decision-making process. Conversely, destination marketing taps into that initial, impulsive reaction; it can compel a customer to buy a ticket before they’ve dedicated a single thought to the logistics of arriving.

Passenger products – particularly the Passenger Kiosk – are designed to fold destination marketing and travel information into one streamlined process. Using these tools, marketers can put destination information at the heart of their strategy, then wrap travel details and ticket sales around it. Here’s how.

The Passenger Kiosk

When visiting a new location, customers – especially tourists – often want to know how to spend their time. The Passenger Kiosk is an on-premises information point that readily provides this advice with just a few taps of the screen.

The Passenger Kiosk comprises a stand with an iPad enclosure. The iPad runs a version of the Passenger app with a user interface designed to give precedence to local travel information. Attractions, offers and current events are all highly visible and showcased via high-resolution imagery and descriptive text.

Once a destination or event has grabbed a customer’s interest (System 1), their next question is naturally “how do I get there?” (System 2). Using the Passenger Kiosk, customers simply click on the “Get Me There” button included in the travel information. This instantly routes them to the destination or event they have selected via the services of the operator in question.

Arming customers with this knowledge makes the final step of the process – the actual purchase of the ticket – a no-brainer.

“Bournemouth is a big tourist destination, so we put a lot of effort into marketing the events and attractions we have on offer,” says Fiona Harwood, Marketing Sales Manager at Bournemouth’s Yellow Buses. “The Passenger Kiosk enables us to do this in a big, bold way, putting that emotion-led destination information front and centre in our marketing. This then stands as the first step in the frictionless process that goes on to push practical travel information and ticket sales. The Kiosk seamlessly answers the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of customer questions.”

For Nottingham City Transport (NCT), one of the key benefits of the Passenger Kiosk is that the information it provides is all easily created and maintained via the Passenger Cloud backend.

“The Passenger team had already built us two great products in the form of the NCT app and website – the Kiosk enabled us to put that data and infrastructure to use elsewhere,” says Anthony Carver-Smith, Marketing Manager at NCT. “The Kiosk takes all of the destination information and journey planning processes we have in place and filters them through a very customer-facing, on-premises tool. With the Kiosk, we can give destination marketing much more prominence, while tying it into ticket sales in a very intuitive way.”

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