The fastest profit in tourism is not another guest. It is more value from each guest already standing in front of you.
When I ran Aquaduck on the Gold Coast, merchandise sales went from $63,000 a year to $308,000 a year in three years.
Same tours. Same boats. Roughly the same number of guests through the door.
What changed was that I stopped treating merchandise as a bin of stuff near the exit and started treating it as part of the experience.
I want to walk you through how, because most operators I work with are sitting on the same opportunity and cannot see it. They are chasing the next booking while the guest who has already paid walks past the counter with money in their pocket.
Why add-ons matter more now than they did in 2019
Costs have gone up and your guests feel it. Headline inflation jumped again in the March 2026 quarter as fuel prices bit. So people stop and think hard about the $290 family booking.
What surprises operators is what those same people do next. They happily spend $14 on the way home.
Marketing people call it little treat culture. Buyers get more careful about the big spend and more generous with the small joy. A coffee and a cake. A souvenir the kid picks out. Something that feels like a reward rather than a cost.
That behaviour is not going away. And it is the best argument I know against the thing most operators do when trading gets tight, which is discount.
Discounting takes money straight off your bottom line and teaches people to wait for the next sale. An add-on does the opposite. It gives the guest a reason to spend a bit more, and it almost always carries a better margin than your core ticket.
What I actually changed at Aquaduck
Four things. None of them are expensive.
I worked out what a guest was really worth.
Not revenue per booking. Revenue per guest. Total revenue divided by total guests. Most operators have never calculated this number, and until you do you cannot tell whether anything you try is working.
I moved the offer to where the guest was ready.
Merchandise sitting near the exit catches people who are already halfway to the car park. Two moments convert. On the way out, while they are still in the experience emotionally. And online at the point of booking, while the family is excited. I offered at both.
I made the crew part of it.
Guides sell more than a shelf does, because guests trust guides. Not a pitch. A mention, at the right moment, in their own words. When the person who just gave you a good hour tells you where to find the thing, it does not feel like a sale.
I stopped selling generic souvenirs.
Nobody travels to the Gold Coast for a keyring they could buy anywhere. The items that moved were the ones tied to our experience specifically. If a guest can buy it at the airport, it is not merchandise. It is stock.
[Sarah, naming one or two items that actually sold well would make this section much stronger. A specific product beats a general point every time.]
How to apply this in your business
You do not need a gift shop. You need one add-on that works, then a second.
Calculate revenue per guest for the last 12 months. Write the number down. That is your baseline and everything gets measured against it.
Pick one add-on you can deliver for less than 20 per cent of your ticket price. A local product, a printed photo, a drink on arrival, a small thing they keep.
Price it between $8 and $20. Above $20 people stop and weigh it up. Below $8 it is not worth the labour to run.
Do not bundle it into the ticket. Offer it at checkout, then offer it again in person. The second offer converts better than the first.
Make it local and specific. "Add the Tamborine Mountain scone and cream, $12" beats "premium upgrade available".
Brief your team properly. One sentence each, in their own words, at an agreed moment. Reward the people who do it.
Track take-up weekly for four weeks. If it is under 15 per cent, change where and how you offer it before you change the product.
Once one works, build a second.
Two add-ons running at 25 per cent take-up will do more for your margin this year than a 10 per cent price rise, and no guest will complain about them.
The honest version
It did not happen in a quarter. It took three years and a fair bit of trial and error. Some items sat in the storeroom for a season. Others sold out and I could not restock fast enough.
But merchandise at that level changes what a business can carry. It pays wages in a quiet month. It softens a bad season. And it comes from guests you have already paid to acquire.
That is the part operators miss. You have already spent the marketing money to get that person through the door. Everything they spend after the ticket is the cheapest revenue in your business.
What I would tell you if you rang me
Your next profit boost is probably not more guests. Check revenue per guest before you spend another dollar on marketing.
Discounting is the expensive option. An add-on is the cheap one.
Your team sells better than your shelf does. Give them the words and a reason to use them.
Make it specific to you. Generic souvenirs sell about as well as generic marketing works.
Give it four weeks and a real number before you decide it did not work.
I suggest you start with the calculation, not the product. Once you know what a guest is worth to you now, every decision after that gets easier.
Related reading on the Exceptional Experiences website
Your Next Profit Boost Is Not More Guests, It Is More Value Per Guest
Maximise the Lifetime Value of Every Guest (free resource)
Growth Action Plan: Dynamic Pricing Adoption (free resource)
Your next step
Before you build an add-on, find out where your business actually sits. The Tourism Business Health Check is free and takes about ten minutes. It shows you the parts of your business worth looking at first, including where your revenue per guest is leaking.
Sarah Colgate is a Tourism, Hospitality and Events Growth Specialist and the founder of Exceptional Experiences. She previously owned and operated Aquaduck, Southern Cross Tours and iVenture Card Australia on the Gold Coast.
