By Dr. Peter Tarlow
Perhaps there is nothing more romantic than a June wedding. June is the month of roses and across the Northern Hemisphere the weather in most places is ideal and perfect for an outdoor rose-scented wedding. Weddings range from small and intimate to large-scale events, from local gatherings to destination weddings. From a tourism perspective, weddings can be a very lucrative part of a local tourism industry’s offerings. Technically wedding tourism refers to any time the couple invite out-of-town guests to their nuptials or travel, such as a honeymoon, due to the wedding. Anytime a wedding hosts out-of-town guests it adds to the local tourism industry. These out-of-town guests stay in local hotels, eat at local restaurants, and either before or after the event may stay an additional few days and frequent some of the community’s attractions. Out-of-town weddings have become major money makers in a number of cities or locations around the world. For example the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende and many of the Caribbean islands have become major centers for destination wedding. These locations have created a world in which the wedding becomes a catalyst for additional tourism revenue.
Although all weddings have the potential to be tourism generators, the niche market known as “destination weddings” has become an important part of many locales’ tourism industry. Destination weddings are when neither the bride nor groom is from that locale, but instead they pick a place, often for its charm or romance, to hold their wedding and then invite friends and family to attend. Such weddings are not only a boon to the local tourism industry but in some locales are a tourism industry energizing agent and can add significants amounts of money to the local economy. For example, the destination wedding industry added almost US$50 billion dollars during the period from late 2022 to 2023 to the Indian tourism market. These weddings offered both the Indian domestic market and the international market rich experiences filled with opulent rituals and traditions and many weddings in India are mega events rivaling small to medium- sized conventions.
To help your community or locale create a viable tourism wedding industry, consider some of the following suggestions:
– Know with whom you need to work to develop a successful wedding market. Weddings are complicated affairs that have numerous movable parts and often need precise planning. That means that as a tourism professional you want to have met numerous times with wedding planners, florists, clergy and justices of the peace, bakers, clothing stores, and specialty catering services.
– See a wedding as a small convention but with higher levels of emotions. Weddings, especially large weddings, resemble conventions in the sense that they need food services, hotel accommodations, transportation to and from the site, and pre- and post-event activities. The difference is that emotions run higher at a wedding than at a convention and internal family dynamics can create a major problem for the event’s success.
– Think about the wedding guests’ needs. Out-of-town wedding guests are visitors, and visitors rarely travel with all the accessories that they may need. This is especially true if the wedding is formal or very informal. If the pre- or post-wedding activities involve such things as listening to a concert or picnicking in a park, provide for blanket rentals or the purchase of picnic baskets.
– Develop ways to integrate niche or other forms of weddings into your community’s revenue flow. For example, when meeting with the engaged couple or the wedding planner, make sure that they are aware of all of your locale’s tour possibilities and dining options. Encourage the wedding guests to stay after the wedding by offering special post (or pre-) wedding packages and find some small give-away gift that represents local culture and can be left in hotel rooms.
– Make it easy to learn what is going in the days prior to or after the wedding. Post schedules of events at motels and hotels, restaurants, and major attractions; keep your tourist information booths informed regarding the event or let the wedding planner know the locations and hours of the tourist information booths, and as a community service, ask the local media to publicize holiday happenings, giving directions, contact numbers, and hours.
– Make sure that it is easy to find venues connected with the wedding. Most destinations do not have signage for wedding venues, be these a catering hall or a religious institution. There is nothing that can ruin an affair more that someone getting lost. Offer the engaged couple guest transportation options and easy to follow directions. Make sure that the couple knows when there are traffic jams and how much time should be given to get to the wedding venue from local hotels.
– Consider possible traffic difficulties. Increased traffic around a wedding either because of the wedding or due to other events by locals and tourists alike opens the potential for gridlock and traffic accidents. Meet with your local police and transportation officials to develop traffic flow, parking, and emergency plans.
– Do not forget that even during weddings people have emergencies. Often the most difficult time to find a doctor is during an event such as a wedding. Make sure that hotels, motels, and other relevant places where the wedding party’s guests will congregate have lists of doctors who are on duty and where first aid stations are located.
