We are flying, Not flyering!
Maybe the oldest profession on the planet is to hand out flyers to people and hope they will be attracted to what we do. VIP-paragliding started doing that just as all the other tandem paragliding companies do. Printing thousands of colorful flyers with beautiful tandem paragliding photo’s and positioning them in tourism information centers, hotels and restaurants. Most often such tables look quite ugly with all these flyers screaming for attention.
What do people need to book tandem paragliding? Just a website. And how do we find websites? Through Google, Google Maps and via some QR code we may see somewhere. Of course most flyers today have QR codes too. So more and more it just doesn’t make sense to take a flyer with you only to discard it a few days later often even without taking a good look. Why not just putting the QR and and phone number out there to let people know that we exist and that …. they can fly!
Wooden blocks
So we decided to stop flying and focus more on flying. Modern laser printing technologies allow to make very nice looking objects with texts and images on all kinds of materials. We decided to a local wood shop to order a few dozen wooden blocks, the size of a stack of flyers. The blocks are oak wood with a great polished look and feel. Our female pilot Dominika made a design and we took it to Karl Zeiller’s agency Lichtblitz in Zell am See to do the laser burning of our design. We found out that the QR needed to be on a metal plate rather than the wood so we integrated that. The QR was also burned by the laser machine.
Discount
So now when you move around the area’s of our 4 tandem paragliding locations in Austria you may encounter one of our blocks. If you follow the QR link you will find a page where you can book a flight using a code that gives you a 10 euro discount. That’s our way of contributing to less waste and a nicer way to present activities near you. Hotels, restaurants and café’s and also the local tourist boards have reacted enthusiastically to our idea and are happy to give our block a prominent place.
It’s not said that this will lead to a huge increase in bookings. Our competition still puts out flyers with their paragliding tandem flights and prices. “I get the impression that in general nobody cares too much about physical presence anymore”, says Hajo Smit, the owner of VIP-paragliding. “To some it might be an inspiration to see a flyer or our block, but most people already know that they are interested in flying, they will look on the mountain if it looks safe and then simply use Google to find a good company offering paragliding tandem flights in a place like Zell am See Kaprun.”
Dream of flying
“So our blocks are not a genius way to sell more flights, but a good-bye to senseless pollution of outdoor spaces”, says Smit. “We hope that other companies will follow our example and that they may become nice arty objects that people like to look at and take QR snaps from. This is a dream for the future. Of course our real dream is simply to fly. If you have that dream too, then don’t hesitate and join us!”
