10 things for visitor attractions to do in June: before the summer strategy trap starts

Every year, around the end of May, as visitor attractions we all take a sharp intake of breath as we realise the school summer holidays are just 6 weeks away.

The whole team goes into 100% operational mode. Heads down. All hands on deck. The summer is coming, the visitor numbers are building, and there is literally no time to think about anything other than getting through the day.

And then it's September.

And someone, usually in a meeting, usually slightly frustrated says: "We really need to sort our strategy."

Except now it's October half term. Then it's the Christmas push. Then it's January and everything is too quiet and too stretched to think clearly.

Then it's Easter. Then somehow it's May again.

Six months gone. Same gaps. Same missed opportunities. Same conversation.

This is the summer strategic trap. And almost every visitor attraction I've worked with has fallen into it at least once - because it's largely unavoidable. It's not a failing, it's just the demands of keeping up with - demands.

Summer is actually the best time to gather the raw material for a brilliant strategy. Your visitors are there. The queue is real. The experience is live. The gaps are visible if you know what to look for.

Why this happens (and it's not your fault)

Running a visitor attraction in peak season is genuinely really hard - you can't fully get used to curve balls of infectious diseases, cost crisis, or world affairs - the ground just keeps moving under us. Plus you're managing staff, dealing with weather, handling complaints, monitoring capacity, keeping the experience consistent at 3x the normal volume.

The attractions that break this cycle don't necessarily have bigger teams or bigger budgets. They do the strategic groundwork in June before the chaos so that September arrives with a plan already half-formed.

Here's what that groundwork looks like.

10 things to do in June before summer takes over your life

1. Write down your three biggest strategic worries

Not operational worries. Strategic ones. The things that keep you up at 2am. The audiences you're not reaching. The experience you know isn't translating. The competitor you're watching with a knot in your stomach. Write them down now.

2. Map your customer journey from the sofa to the exit

Get a piece of paper. Draw every single touchpoint a prospective visitor has with you before they arrive, on the day, and after they leave. Don't make it complicated. Just honest. Where are the gaps? Where does the experience drop into a black hole? Where are you invisible when you should be unmissable?

3. Google yourself as your visitor

Not as the marketing manager who knows what to search for. As someone who's vaguely heard of you and wants to know more. What do they find? In what order? Does it make them more or less likely to book? Does it even make sense? If you're not sure what to search, use TikTok as a tool, or look at your Google reviews - what language are people using?

4. Ask your team what visitors say most often

The front-of-house team, the guides, the café staff - they hear things you never hear in the office. What do visitors ask? What do they complain about? What surprises them? What delights them? This is research gold that's already sitting in your building and it costs nothing to collect, yet we often forget about it.

5. Spend an hour on your reviews

Not to respond to them but to really read them. What words do people use when they love you? What words do they use when they're disappointed? The language your visitors use to describe their experience is the language you should be using in your marketing. Most attractions aren't.

6. Check what AI says about you

Open ChatGPT or Claude and ask: "What's the best thing to do near [your location]?" and "Tell me about [your attraction]."  What comes up? Is it accurate? Is it compelling? Is it even about you? AI assistants are increasingly the first stop for visitor research. If you're not showing up well there, you're invisible to a growing chunk of your potential audience. Then do the same for TikTok and even Reddit.

7. Look at where your bookings are actually coming from

Not where you think they're coming from. Where they actually are. Pull the data. Which channels are converting? Which are driving traffic but not bookings? Where are people dropping off in the booking journey? Ten minutes in your analytics will tell you something your instinct won't. Then, have a look at your OTA partnerships, which ones are horrifically out of date or not doing you any favours?

8. Name the audience you're not reaching

You know who your current visitor is. But who should be coming who isn't? Who's living nearby, or searching for exactly what you offer, but somehow not finding you - or finding you and not converting? Name them. Give them a bit of a profile. Then ask why the gap exists.

9. Write down what's changed in the last 12 months

New competition opened? Funding landscape shifted? A key partnership ended? A brilliant member of staff left? The context your strategy was built in has probably shifted more than you've had time to consciously register. Write it down. It matters more than you think. And, train your favourite AI assistant to store and analyse all of these changes regularly so you can stay a step ahead rather than reviewing in a rush.

10. Decide what September is for

Don't wait until September to decide what September is for. Decide now. If you had six weeks in autumn to do one strategic thing before October half term, before the Christmas panic what would it be? Book the time in the diary. Now. Before summer makes that decision for you. This is a great one to get full team ownership on and excited about - I'm a bit advocate for a full day team hackathon.

Too much to do? Choose one thing:

You can do all ten of those things and still end up in September with a list of observations and no clear plan.

Because strategy has to be a combination of both data analysis and pattern recognition. It's knowing which observations matter and which ones are noise. It's understanding the gap between what your visitor sees and what you think they see and knowing exactly what to do about it.

That gap is where The View From The Queue comes in - and here's the plug.

An opportunity for someone to take away all the stress

This summer, I'm visiting attractions as always.

While you're running your season I'm doing the pre-research, the brand strategy review, the on-site immersive day, the analysis, and the recommendations. All of it.

While your experience is in full swing in all it's glory, the visitors are real, and the queue hopefully happy and full of excitement and anticipation.

We regroup in September. Before the October half term chaos sets in. And you go into autumn not scrambling for a plan but activating one.

Two visits available. June and July. Blueprint in your hands by 1st September.

If that sounds like the summer your attraction actually needed find out more about The View From The Queue and get in touch.

But what do others say?

"Her ability to cut through the noise of Brand strategy is transformational. Catherine brings a blend of insight, creativity, and commercial clarity to any project she undertakes."

Blenheim Palace.

"Catherine has an exceptional grasp of the experiences marketing space, and the industry as a whole."

Arival.

"It’s been a blessing…your involvement. A real catalyst for change!"

Mersey Ferries.

I'm Catherine Warrilow and I'm a brand strategist for visitor attractions and experience-led tourism. I've worked with attractions across the UK for 16+ years and I visit so all those things stuck on your to do list actually get put into a wider strategy and something important happens with them.