The need to invest, hire the right staff and use technology to improve the visitor experience were some of the takeaways from the Attractions Management in Southern Africa 2014 conference, which took place in Cape Town last week. It aimed to highlight the areas attractions should focus on to stay relevant and improve visitor numbers.

Chris Webster of Wink Associates in the UK, the keynote speaker for the conference, said attractions should have the confidence to invest in their businesses to ensure visitors got the best experience possible, that the attraction should optimise its market penetration and have the appropriate capacity to host visitors. He also encouraged the attendees to manage their visitors’ journey by planning the location of certain amenities and hiring the right staff, as well as looking for secondary spend opportunities.
The attractions that attended the event seem to be on the right track – 100% of those who participated in a pre-event survey said they were planning to invest in their attraction in the next two years. 
According to Tony Rubin, MD of Maropeng, hiring the right staff is essential because they have to carry a business into the future. To find the right people he advises looking at an applicant’s attitude and personality rather than skills. “Skills can be taught but attitude comes from the heart. There’s a difference between staff who just come to work and my staff who are a committed group of people, all coming to work with a single focus – to welcome guests and give them a good experience.”
He said although for many attractions the staff overhead was the biggest cost, they also made the biggest difference to a visitor’s experience, which is why they needed to stay motivated. Money, he said, was a short-term motivator. He urged delegates to look for other ways of “lifting people and their performance”. These included hiring people from the local community as it gave them a sense of purpose knowing that they were playing a part in uplifting their community; treating staff with respect; giving them opportunities to grow within the organisation and recognising them for excelling in their roles. 
Technology was also a recurring theme among the speakers. Sabine Lehman, CEO of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, spoke about the provision of WiFi at attractions, noting that it was an expensive exercise and didn’t always seem to be necessary, especially at natural attractions such as Table Mountain. She said in certain instances hotspots were a better option as they were more affordable and manageable. “We can put them where we want them. For example, we can have one at the queues so people can entertain themselves but we don’t want them at our restaurants as we don’t want people spending too much time there.”
Lehman said attractions shouldn’t get involved in the technology arms race. “Don’t be ignorant but don’t overinvest in technology.” One innovation she did believe was worth the investment was digital menus and rate cards, which made it easier to update the constantly changing information and rates. 

Jillian Grindley-Ferris of Scarlet Wing Consulting, who spoke about creating family-centric attractions, also discouraged attractions from incorporating too much technology into the visitor experience if they were hoping to attract more families. She says parents don’t want their children to sit in front of another screen while on an outing and that there was a trend to return to “old-fashioned” activities. She said if it was too sophisticated it could actually scare visitors off. 
Many speakers highlighted the change in visitor interests and requirements and the need to provide an experience that appealed to all the senses rather than just allowing visitors to observe and listen to what an attraction offered. Rooksana Omar of Iziko Museums said the role of 21st century museums in South Africa had changed as they now needed to provide interactivity, not only through technology but also humans. 
She said, in the past museums took a show-and-tell approach but that was changing. “Museums are no longer untouchable and static. There is a shift in focus from collecting to connecting. Visitors want recreation and engagement, a story to tell, hospitality, value and convenience,” she said.