When the surprise is part of the trip

Leaving for an unknown vacation destination and letting tourism professionals choose and organize everything, here is the idea of the surprise trip. The traveler provides a certain amount of essential information to avoid mistakes: number of participants, travel dates, departure point, preferred means of transportation, budget, and of course, the desired tourist experiences, and the destinations to avoid. Everything is planned according to the traveler’s preferences and tastes and even the activities on site are planned. The traveler discovers the destination only 24 hours before or on D-day, it’s total excitement!

The couple of travel influencers Wordelse created the little animation below to choose their next travel destination more easily. The principle? You launch the video then click to stop it at random…and miracle a travel destination appears. Is it nice? Then the surprise trip is probably for you 🙂

We explain you all about this new kind of concept and how to integrate “surprise” offers in a tourist communication.

An experience that tempts more and more travelers

After two very complicated years, change and novelty make people dream. Today’s traveler wants to be surprised and to get out of his or her ordinary life without getting into trouble. Surprise trips are for all travelers (all ages, all profiles) as long as they are ready to take a big leap into the unknown.

• A wide range of destinations, for all desires and all means
  
  All destinations are offered as a surprise trip, on the other side of the world or closer. For local destinations, the offer has been adapted to current tourist expectations, such as staycation and slow tourism activities.
  
  Numerous specialized agencies have launched themselves on this market, capmystere, mysterytravel, horizonsecret, viree-surprise, magadi, Mylittletrip… To find them on Google : “surprise trip”, or “mystery trip”. There are also boxes with surprise trips like Waynabox.
  
  

• An adventure by nature
  
  This type of travel allows the discovery of places that one would never have thought of, surprising and less known. Most of the time, the travel proposals avoid mass tourism or cities that are usually in high demand.

• Beyond the trip, a surprising experience
  
  For the traveler, the mystery is complete: he prepares his belongings while ignoring the destination and the activities. The closer the D-day gets, the more clues and riddles he receives, and it becomes a game. He tries to guess the destination with his friends or family. It’s an opportunity to have a fun experience together, create memories and go on an adventure. 

• A great gift idea
  It is possible to offer a surprise trip to a loved one and, thus, to travel together or with friends.

• Travelling Zen
  No need to plan anything, the head is totally free before and during the trip. The vacations are organized by experts, they ensure the quality of the trip. They take care of the organization of the adventure with a personalized service to each request. 

• Save time and money
  A traveler spends an average of 10 hours organizing a simple weekend. With surprise trips, no time is wasted in finding the destination, the best accommodation, the best means of transportation, the best prices, the program of activities. It is a considerable time saving!

The surprise trip is in the spotlight on social networks

We see more and more content about surprise trips circulating on social networks or shared by influencers. La Poze shared all the steps of her surprise trip on Tiktok. Influencer and youtuber Juste Zoé recently went with her boyfriend to Menorca with Waynabox!

Some surprise travel brands, like Mylittletrip, rely on their social network community to organize ambassador challenges and communicate virally about their concept. Thus, they propose to young adventurers to become their ambassadors by taking advantage of a free surprise city-break trip. In exchange, they share the surprising travel experience on their own social networks.

How to put more surprises in a tourist offer?

At the moment, the public wants to be surprised and enjoy the moment. The surprise trip will probably never replace the more classic tourist offer, however it is a good indicator of a growing desire for the unexpected in travel.

So how do you come up with tourist surprises? How to communicate regularly to visitors the possibilities of adventure and discovery? How to make people want to come and visit places that are already known or totally unknown by relying on the surprise effect? Each place or tourist destination has a real potential of untapped discoveries.

The inventory of surprising and lesser-known places, the search for anecdotes that appeal, the establishment of a story telling that encourages adventure … here are some ways to spice up a tourist offer with a little spice. You can also go further and involve your community by inviting them to live a surprise trip on the territory!

The team of Le Studio Labonheure is at your disposal to propose communication tools that integrate surprises and promote discovery.