What's the point of a special offer?

In the tourism industry there are a whole bunch of reasons for giving away free or discount entry tickets. Sometimes it's for competition prizes or media promotions in return for publicity. Sometimes it's to create a more manageable balance between peak and off-peak attendance. Quite often, as with the many thousands of vouchers being delivered to local homes in the region at the moment, it's to attract new audiences.

In the latter case, these are families who perhaps wouldn't otherwise have visited. But then if venues treat these people well they'll make repeat visits and recommend the place to their friends.

Treat them badly and things can start to backfire.

Our kids had a fantastic time at the National Sealife Centre in Birmingham. The graceful and playful rays, the giant turtles, the ever so cute otters: all worth the trip.

On the other hand our kids don't yet fully grasp the monetary value of things. If they understood the meaning of £52 for a family ticket, they might think again.

We were persuaded to visit the Sealife Centre by a half price discount voucher. It's still not the cheapest of places at £26, but the graceful and playful rays, the giant turtles etc. etc.

Yet no matter how many times we asked the manager to compare the small print on the voucher and the price list displayed at the entrance he could never quite make half of £52 equal £26.

We were only overcharged by a couple of quid, but it's not exactly the best way to treat your new customers at the start of their visit. Without the argument over entrance fees we would probably have paid less attention to the drinks machine that displayed 50p for a cup of tea but refused to dispense anything until you paid 60p. The advertised toys that were missing from the children's snack boxes would have been less of an irritation. And I might have looked more kindly on the notice that promised a half price return trip because some of the displays were still under construction.

At the end of the day we did have a good time. But National Sealife Centre please note: if the special offer was an attempt to win over new audiences, it failed miserably.