| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 21/08/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 8 |
| Copyright: Other |
Comment
Dome slow to wake up and smell profits
T he experience of the Dome provides a lesson for other companies in how to treat the trade. By any measure, the Dome has been a failure.The New Millennium Experience Company expected to attract 12 million visitors this year and so far it’s achieved 3.75 million.
But throughout its troublesome year, the trade has come up trumps, producing 26% of the bookings.
Now the Dome is giving the trade special rates to help get more people through the turnstiles between October and December. That’s great, but why has the trade had to wait until the Dome is on its last legs to get this bonus?
At the beginning of the year, or at least shortly afterwards, the NMEC should have given these rates to the trade. The Dome has hardly been packed to the rafters and it would have been better to have bumped up the numbers with discounted tickets than not have visitors at all – at least there would have been more money coming in.
And it wouldn’t have caused a problem with the public. People would accept that those who bought tickets in advance from travel agents or as part of a package, would get them cheaper. It would have made people see the value of booking through the trade.
Millions of people still want to book holidays and tickets to events through agents and more companies should wake up to that fact.
Jeremy Skidmore – editor