Mike Bayon, CEO and Founder of Sound Travel, tells us about how his business has created a new revenue stream for the events industry through the hotel rooms that it fills…
When a major act’s tour dates are revealed, it is not just their fans who get excited as they jump online to snap up tickets.
Tour announcements are music to the ears of hoteliers, who can hear the beautiful melody of their cash tills ringing months in advance of a band or performer coming to town.
“Putting on an event requires a huge amount of planning, forward investment and risk but hotel operators are free to increase prices and enjoy a surge in bookings on the back of the hard work of others,” said Mike Bayon, CEO and Founder of Sound Travel.
Such a balance of risk and reward between the different parties does not seem fair.
Bayon added: “It’s crazy that tour organisers have been missing out on the demand their events create. We understand why and its mainly down to it not being core to the model of selling tickets and adding roll dates.”
Everyone wins
Sound Travel recognised that many customers were travelling and booking overnight hotel stays near music venues, but hotels had already taken advantage of the announcement leaving fans left to book their hotel stays at overinflated prices after they’d bought their tickets.
In addressing this, Sound Travel has made things easier for customers and created incremental revenue for the ticket ecosystem with its innovative packaging model.
Sound Travel has since built a comprehensive portfolio of partnerships with the UK’s major hotel groups, including Hilton, Marriott, and Accor. It also has a successful distribution partnership with Ticketmaster.
These partnerships ensure that Sound Travel’s clients – which include rights holders, promoters, venues, sports associations, and ticket agents – all benefit from the extra revenue generated. The hotels also prosper by their association with the events.
“Everyone wins,” Bayon said. “It’s basically a data play using the ticket as the trigger point. We secure rooms in bulk from hotels close to the venue, before they even know events are going to occur and then focus demand into these hotels. When gigs are announced and hotel prices surge, we have already locked in low prices, allowing us to make extra profits for the organisers whilst offering convenient, price competitive packages of hotel and ticket to customers.
“We have had a very positive response from those on the events side. Our service is completely de-risked for them. Rights holders and organisers don’t have to do anything, other than provide an allocation of tickets for which we share a healthy profit share.
“Hotels like it because they get bookings maybe six to nine months in advance, are paid by us upfront, and notwithstanding the challenges of the last two years, hotel bookings are pretty much guaranteed as fans normally do not cancel.
“Most importantly, the customer has their trip planning process made much simpler as they can buy a convenient and well-priced hotel room, along with the ticket to the event, knowing if the event is cancelled or deferred Sound Travel, as a bonded package provider, will either return their money or rearrange everything. Covid-19 disruption has really opened customers’ eyes to the benefit of this packaged approach.”
Criteria
Sound Travel is involved with its event-side partners from the moment they are ready to announce tour dates. It secures a ticket allocation and then confidentially sends out an RFP to accommodation suppliers within those areas, locking down lower prices before they surge due to the announcement of show dates.
“We’ve developed smart tech that calculates both the hotel’s standard pricing pre-announcement and predicts what the pricing will be, and the likely uplift created by the subsequent demand,” Bayon said.
Hotels know they will receive good base business from the Sound Travel allocation allowing them to charge more to direct customers. Being part of the ‘inner circle’ of Sound Travel’s partnership model is a more cost-effective method of generating sales than their typical customer acquisition model.
Sound Travel has strict criteria to maximise the customer experience considering quality rating from review scores and proximity to the venue as well as added value such as late checkout options and discounts on food and drinks.
Customers can choose from a variety of packages that team up different types of tickets and accommodation from general admission standing tickets and a budget hotel to VIP tickets and a luxury offering.
A passion for music
Bayon is a music tourism pioneer who started his career in the travel industry, but it was his passion for music and the heady days of early 90s clubland including a stint as a club promoter, that led to fusing these two interests, creating the Clubbers Guide Holidays brand in association with Ministry of Sound. He then created a box office-based ticketing business in Ibiza before partnering with Ticketmaster to introduce online ticketing to the island’s superclub scene in 2002. This combined experience led to co-founding Europe’s biggest youth travel business, Ibiza Rocks, with the brand owners, in 2007.
Sound Travel as a natural evolution of a marketplace, was created in 2018 and since then has been successfully building its presence through a growing number of successful partnerships. It backed 25,000 packages in the UK in 2021 and is looking to double that figure this year.
He added: “It’s an exciting time for the business particularly after the last two years. Experiential travel is a booming sector, and we sit right in that sweet spot. We want to expand our distribution footprint via ticket agents, generate more awareness of the model we’ve created and build an international presence.”
Bayon is looking forward to bringing his business’ unique proposition to this year’s TheTicketingBusiness Forum, of which Sound Travel is a Sponsor.
He said: “We are keen to meet people from across the industry and to demonstrate how our model can ‘earn more from your tickets’ providing a new revenue stream and an improved offering to their customers. Anyone who is a rights holder can benefit.”
Sound Travel is a sponsor of TheTicketingBusiness Forum, the world’s No.1 B2B ticketing business meeting, which will take place from July 7-8, 2022 at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester