Alabama Tourism Department's Success with Bandwango Paid Passports

The objective of every destination marketing organization (DMO) is to attract tourists to their community and encourage them to stay for extended durations. As we at Bandwango always say, it is one thing to get heads in beds, but another to focus on what visitors are going to do while they are visiting. In order to drive activity state-wide, Alabama Tourism Department created Bandwango paid passports to draw visitors to attractions in a budget-friendly way.

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Bandwango paid passes may often go unnoticed but are a good option for encouraging visitors to indulge in one or more attractions a destination has to offer while generating revenue for an organization. Customers purchase tickets from a DMO’s website and tickets are simply delivered through text and email to the consumer. Bandwango paid passes are mobile solutions designed to enhance the visitor experience, capture dynamic marketing data, and most importantly drive regional economic impact.

The Alabama Tourism Department created the “All-In-One” attraction passes to encourage visitors to stay longer and see more. The tickets can be purchased in 1, 2, 3, or 5-day passes depending on which area pass is purchased. “The Alabama Tourism Department believed a ticket package that could be bought during the planning stage of a trip, as well as once someone is in one of our cities, would increase tourism and the tourism spend in Alabama,” Grey Brennen of Alabama Tourism Department said.

Alabama Tourism opened the campaign to include any ticketed attraction across the state. From there, the passes were broken down into different regional areas. Passholders are able to visit all of the attractions that are included in the passport for one price! Since there was nothing like this “All-In-One” attractions pass on the market prior to Alabama Tourism Department partnering with Bandwango, this product filled a need that the organization had been searching for.

This campaign was new territory and different from any other campaigns the tourism department had tackled; it was created all in-house and not using an advertising agency. It was promoted in various ways so the pass could gain traction and publicity. The Alabama Tourism Department used the Alabama Broadcasters Association PEP (public education partnership) program to promote the pass as well as placing the product card on multiple partner websites. Asking local CVB’s and DMO’s to add the product to their website has created an ease of use for visitors planning their trips to Alabama. Lastly, Alabama has utilized Bandwango’s DXE Connect option which allows Bandwango clients to access a vast network of online resellers. If you are interested in DXE Connect, you can learn all about it here.

Now for the good stuff: The “All-In-One” attractions passport has generated nearly $140,000 in pass sales since launch in 2022 with over $50,000 in sales just this year. This has led to just under 2,500 ticket redemptions at the included attractions. These incredible numbers have generated revenue for Alabama Tourism all while collecting useful first-party data!

The Alabama Tourism Department created this paid passport to fill a budget-friendly need within their destination and it has done just that! Passholders are able to explore more and stay longer while getting the most out of their trip! For more information on how to create a paid pass for your DMO, book a demo here.