How Many People Participate In Bicycle Tours?
For the past two years I have been slowly surveying my readers at BicycleTouringPro.com… and in that time I have collected more than 10,000 completed surveys about my readers’ current interest and participation levels in guided, self-guided and multi-sport bicycle tours.
In the bicycle touring survey I’ve created I ask my readers a number of different questions about guided bicycle tours… and over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing my readers’ responses to these questions with you.
Today I want to concentrate on three simple questions from that survey.
These three questions are:
- How many SELF-SUPPORTED bicycle tours have you been on?
- How many GUIDED bicycle tours have you been on?
- And how many MULTI-SPORT bicycle tours have you been on?
Knowing the answer to these three questions (especially the second question about GUIDED bicycle tours) should give you a good idea of just how many people are interested in participating in the bicycle tours that your company currently offers.
Before we get to that second question, however, let me share with you the results of the first question pertaining to SELF-SUPPORTED bicycle tours.
As you likely know, a self-supported bicycle tour is a type of bicycle tour in which an individual travels alone (without a guide) and carries all the clothes, tools and gear he or she needs for the trip on his or her bicycle.
Of the first 10,000 people that answered this question on my survey, 78% said that they had indeed been on a self-supported bicycle tour before!
That means that of the 10,000 people I surveyed, approximately 7,800 have already conducted a self-supported bicycle tour of some kind.
Looking at the data even further, those that said they had indeed already participated in a self-supported bicycle tour, some 56% of these people said they had participated in more than one bicycle tour of this kind.
In fact, of those individuals, the average number of bicycle tours they said they had participated in was right around 2.4.
This means that:
- Of the 10,000 people I surveyed, approximately 7,800 of them have already conducted a self-supported bicycle tour of some kind.
- 4,368 of those have conducted more than one self-supported bicycle tour.
- And of those 4,368 people, most of them have already completed 2.4 self-guided bicycle tours.
Pretty amazing… right!?!
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Let’s look now at GUIDED BICYCLE TOURS… because the data here is even more interesting!
Again, I surveyed 10,000 people and asked them how many guided bicycle tours they had participated in. Of those surveyed, 43% said they had already conducted a guided bicycle tour of some kind.
58% of those who had been on a guided bicycle tour had conducted more than one guided bike tour.
And of those who had participated in more than one guided bicycle tour in the past, it was discovered that the average number of tours those people participated in was a solid 2.
This means that:
- 4,300 of the 10,000 people surveyed have already participated in a guided bicycle tour of some kind.
- 2,940 of those people have conducted more than one guided bicycle tour.
- And most people who participate in one guided bike tour will come back and participate in yet another one at some point in the future!
Again, this is some amazing information!
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Now, let’s take a look a MULTI-SPORT bicycle tours.
A multi-sport bicycle tour is a bicycle tour mixed with some other activity, such as hiking, horseback riding, kayaking, paragliding, etc.
Of the 10,000 people I surveyed, 37% said they had participated in a multi-sport bicycle tour at some point in the past.
Of those who had conducted multi-sport bicycle tours previously, 62% said they have participated in more than one tour of that kind.
In fact, the people who reported participating in more than one multi-sport bicycle tour showed numbers suggesting that the average number of multi-sport tours they participated in was somewhere around 3.
Once again, this means that of the 10,000 people I surveyed:
- Approximately 3,700 of them have been a part of a multi-sport bicycle tour before.
- 2,294 of those people have conducted more than one multi-sport bicycle tour.
- And most of the people who participate in a multi-sport bike tour more than once come back an average of three times to conduct other multi-sport bike tours.
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So, what does all this mean?
Well, there are a number of important things to pull from this data.
However, there are two important points I think I should direct you toward.
First of all, you should now be able to see that there are a lot of people participating in bicycle tours all around the world. Lots! And for each of those people who have not yet participated in a bicycle tour is a small army of people who are currently looking for bicycle tours to participate in.
Second of all, I think it is important to note that most people who participate in bicycle tours don’t just take part in one bicycle tour over the course of their lifetime.
Instead, many of the people who conduct at least one bicycle tour will come back and do it again!
THIS IS IMPORTANT – – – SO PLEASE PAY ATTENTION
It is important to realize this because when you sign someone up for a bike tour with your company, there is a good chance that that individual will want to participate in another bike tour (possibly with your company) at some point in the future.
If you treat that individual well, show them the time of their life and ensure that their bicycle touring experience is a positive one,
there is a very good chance that person will come back and tour with you again!
And that is the one major lesson I want you to pull from this email… so let me say it again!
MANY OF THE PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATE IN A BICYCLE TOUR COME BACK AND DO IT AGAIN… SO IF YOU TREAT THEM WELL AND SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME, THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL HAVE REPEAT BUSINESS FROM YOUR BICYCLE TOURING CUSTOMERS.
So, that’s all I want to talk to you about today. This has been a very long email, but a very important one.
Stay tuned for next week’s email in which I will be talking about that massive group of people who have not yet participated in a
bicycle tour, but are actively searching for bicycle tours to participate in at this very moment!
Until then, make it a great week and I’ll talk with you soon!
Sincerely,
Darren Alff
PS – To get your company’s bicycle tours listed on the GoBicycleTouring website and in our annual GoBicycleTouring
ebook and in-print directory, please see this page on our website:
https://www.gobicycletouring.com/about/details/
Or sign up here:
