Why attraction marketers need better reporting cultures, not just better dashboards

For visitor attraction marketers, proving the value of marketing has never been simple. Ticket sales, footfall, admissions income, online engagement, brand awareness, visitor sentiment, school holiday demand, weather, price sensitivity and local competition all interact in ways that are difficult to separate.

According to a survey of attraction marketers by Nik Wyness, Director of Marketing and Engagement at The Tank Museum, marketing teams are not avoiding accountability, but many are being asked to prove impact through reporting systems that do not fully reflect how attraction marketing actually works.

Pressure to prove ROI is increasing

One of the clearest findings was that accountability expectations have risen sharply. According to Nik’s survey, 85% of respondents said they were under more pressure to demonstrate ROI than two or three years ago.

That pressure is not happening in isolation. Half of respondents reported decreased visitor footfall over the last two to three years, while 30% said footfall had stayed broadly the same. Budgets are also tight: around 30% reported reduced marketing budgets and a further 37% said budgets were static. Once inflation is considered, even flat budgets can feel like cuts.

In practical terms, many teams are being asked to deliver more impact with fewer resources, in a market where demand is harder to predict.

Attraction marketing is a complex environment

A central theme of the session was that visitor attraction marketing is not a clean, controllable environment. Unlike some ecommerce businesses, attractions cannot simply scale spend and expect a neat, proportional increase in revenue.

A campaign might be well planned, well targeted and well executed, but still be affected by weather, transport disruption, school holiday timing, economic confidence, local competition or changes in visitor behaviour. That makes attribution difficult. It does not mean marketers are making poor decisions. It means they are operating in a complex market where precise cause and effect is often impossible to prove.

Reporting is focused on what travels upwards

The survey found that reporting is heavily anchored to bottom-line outcomes. That is understandable: senior teams and boards need to understand revenue, admissions, sales and return on spend. But those figures do not tell the whole story.

Revenue metrics, engagement metrics and performance marketing metrics dominate because they are specific, measurable and easy to put into a dashboard. Nik highlighted that 63% of respondents use some form of KPI dashboard, while 53% admitted they are mainly reporting the things that are easiest to measure.

The danger is that the things that are easiest to measure become the things that are most valued. Brand awareness, emotional connection, reputation, audience trust, relevance and long-term demand generation all matter, but they are harder to attribute and harder to defend in a monthly report.

Only part of marketing spend is truly attributable

One of the most striking findings was that respondents could attribute, on average, only 43% of their marketing spend to measurable outcomes. That does not mean the remaining activity is wasted. It means marketers can only confidently connect part of their work to specific results.

Digital platforms have encouraged teams to expect detailed attribution, with dashboards full of clicks, impressions, conversions, cost-per-click and return on ad spend. But those dashboards often reward short-term, trackable activity and can underplay the impact of brand, PR, organic social, partnerships, offline media and word of mouth.

Attraction marketers understand this. The issue is that the available tools provide only a partial picture, while reporting expectations often demand certainty.

What gets scrutinised gets prioritised

]If leadership teams focus most heavily on easy-to-measure numbers, marketing teams will naturally spend more time optimising for those numbers. The survey suggested this is already happening: 60% said accountability pressure had changed how they plan, prioritise, defend and report on marketing, and 60% agreed that the need for accountability makes trying new things more difficult.

That should concern senior leaders. Marketing needs accountability, but it also needs space to test, learn and innovate. If every activity has to be justified through immediate, measurable returns, attractions risk reducing investment in the work that builds future demand.

Brand-building is at risk

The survey also pointed to a worrying tension around long-term brand-building. Forty-three per cent of respondents said they had reduced spend on long-term brand activity, while 38% had kept investment broadly the same.

Visitors do not always decide to book after one advert or one search. Their decision may be shaped over months or years through repeated exposure, emotional connection, reputation, recommendation and relevance. If long-term activity is reduced because it is harder to report, future demand may suffer.

Better reporting culture matters more than perfect attribution

When respondents were asked what would improve reporting, the answer was not simply better attribution. Many wanted better reporting cultures: more recognition that not all marketing activity has an immediate payoff, broader definitions of success, more understanding from senior stakeholders and more time to analyse data properly.

That means asking better questions. What are we trying to achieve? Which activity is designed to drive short-term sales? Which activity is building future demand? What do we know, what can we infer and what can we not prove but still need to value?

Marketing should be seen as value creation

Marketing is about making the product relevant to the target audience. For visitor attractions, that connects directly to income, visitor numbers, public benefit, charitable objectives, community relevance and long-term sustainability.

Yet in some organisations, marketing is still viewed primarily as a cost to be controlled rather than a source of value creation. If senior teams want marketing to contribute strategically, marketing needs access to data, time for insight, permission to test and a reporting culture that understands the difference between measurable activity and valuable activity.

The real challenge: measure more meaningfully

Attractions should still track revenue, bookings, campaign performance, engagement, conversion rates and return on spend. Those metrics matter.

But they should not be the only way marketing is judged. Attractions also need to understand awareness, reputation, emotional resonance, audience relevance, content performance, community growth, search behaviour, visitor motivations and the long-term impact of brand activity.

While the survey was not scientific and did not represent every attraction, it did reveal a sector wrestling seriously with difficult questions. Marketers are under pressure to do more with less, in a market shaped by complex and often uncontrollable factors, while being expected to prove ROI through systems that only capture part of the story.

The challenge now is for attractions to build reporting cultures that reflect how marketing really creates value: sometimes immediately, sometimes over time, sometimes directly, and sometimes in ways that are harder to measure but no less essential.

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