[JONAT] Why the low turnout in many areas?

Mark Stephenson jonat@autox.team.net
Thu Jun 24 17:10:01 2004


There are a number of reasons, many of which are interrelated. Here are
the ones that come to my mind. I'll rank them in terms of impact as I
see it.

Critical

Planning time: Bob and Craig, you are exactly right. We were asking
people to plan a vacation of a week or more, have their car prepped and
roadworthy, but we didn't have the route finalized until a month or so
before the start. We are a tour for and by the common-man Jaguar owner
(if there is such a thing). That means that we have family, work,
financial, and car repair commitments that we have to fit into the
available hours of each day. Very few folks with normal jobs can take a
week off on that short of notice. Generally it's something they set
aside at the end of the previous year or the very beginning of the
current one. If we want people to plan this as a holiday, we need to
have the starting and ending points and holiday destinations of each
sector for the entire route unalterably set well before the end of the
year prior to the tour. It means that we have to have the full
compliment of SCs in place a year in advance. With exciting stops to
entice them and ample time to ready their Jaguar, owners will consider
us for their holiday. To be honest, I think we should start recruiting
SCs and begin the general discussion the 2006 route as soon as the 2004
is wrapped up. We can keep it light, brainstorm ideas for six months,
and scrounge up SCs to replace the departed.

Big picture: Based on our experience with JONAT 1, focusing on people
spending weeks on the road is a mistake. You could probably count the
number of people who participated for more than a week on one hand (OK,
maybe with a couple extra fingers). I think we should market the tour as
participation in a continental relay, encouraging participants can cover
as many sectors as their schedule allows. In that regard, the current
fee structure is ideal. A flat JONAT rate for one sector or all keeps
things simple. With the shift to a local focus, this becomes much more
of a local event with local flavor planned for local Jaguar owners. Even
if I wasn't in my local area, I'd prefer the little-known out of the way
places to the tourist traps anyway. What this means in terms of route
planning is that each sector should be a loop. SCs should map link from
their major metropolitan center to the start and end of each sector. You
might do what we did in Arizona and map out a shorter link or two for
people who don't have the time to do the whole sector. If you want to
make it interesting, these should be on different roads than the sector
route. 

An event of note: Second only to sufficient advance planning, it is
imperative that there be something that a lot of people is going to want
to do on every sector. I placed this after the big picture only because
"noteworthy" means to the local folks who are your prime audience. I was
drooling over some of the stuff the California sectors were doing.

Getting the word out: You really have to expend a lot of time and effort
to raise the level of interest. You are going to have your core of
driver-owners who will take any excuse to hit the road. In our club
there are about five. There are another ten who will make it if you give
them a good reason. After car problems and scheduling conflicts, that
left the ten stalwarts on my sector. If I had had the time to call every
club member, I could have probably talked another five to ten members
into bringing their cars. It really boils down to months of contact,
mentioning it at every club meeting, keeping the active local members
apprised of how the route is developing, getting their input for places
to go so they feel a part of the process. You have to have a route to
get them excited, which gets back to early planning. I know that in two
years, if the route comes through here again, I'll have a larger
contingent, just based on the feedback the ones who joined this year are
passing along to other club members.

Important

Sector organization: One thing that worked well with our sector was that
we started mid-week and ended on a weekend. This makes the sector a long
weekend for the participants. That'll create more interest than a
Tuesday through Friday sector. Participation is going to be at an ebb on
Wednesdays unless you have something amazing planned, which is not
highly likely. In keeping with the proposed new big picture (above), the
handoff time on the weekend should be set so that participants can make
it to the sector's home base that weekend. In other words, sectors would
run for a half-week or, if someone is willing, about a week. Whenever
possible, the handoffs would take place Wednesday and Saturday or
Sunday. In our case, our handoff was five hours from Phoenix and about
the same from San Diego. A Saturday night or Sunday morning handoff
would have been perfect. The joining San Diegans could have driven
Saturday to get there and the departing Arizonans could have left Sunday
for a leisurely drive to Phoenix or Tucson. We had the mitigating
factors of heat and the Fun Run, so Sunday evening worked well, but we
lost half of our remaining eight vehicles after lunch because they
wanted to head back. Real life will impinge on the schedule, but we
should do everything possible to avoid a mid-week sector.

JCNA Affiliation: I really think the biggest single thing we could do to
play up "JONAT, the Sequel" is to form an affiliation with JCNA. It
would be a win-win for both groups. This goes back to critical advance
planning. Having been involved with the Challenge Championship, I know
that a continental tour would be outlined in the Jaguar Journal at least
a year in advance. In our case, CC artwork and major details had to be
there three months before that. Imagine if we had the basic itinerary
including all the stops published on a two page spread in the Jaguar
Journal a year before the event. Imagine updates and an entry form in
every issue until the tour ends. Imagine insurance coverage by JCNA's
blanket policy for members. Suppose JCNA encouraged all the clubs along
the route to hold their concours the weekend JONAT passed through. JCNA
would be ecstatic because the tour would boost concours participation.
Imagine someone traveling just a short distance on a two week vacation,
accompanied by a bunch of Jaguar enthusiasts, hitting a concours each
weekend and making the minimum requirement for JCNA ranking. What if
there was a JCNA-sanctioned rally Sunday that was part of the JONAT
route? Or a slalom, as part of a Wednesday evening handoff? We'd have
immediate credibility with JCNA's longtime sponsors. The possibilities
are endless. This is something else we should begin to do as soon as the
2004 tour is over.

Not so important

Advertising: None of the big Arizona driving events, from the lavish to
the most economical, make a concerted effort to attract participants.
People already know about them. They've developed a following via
word-of-mouth. The high-dollar ($1000+/day) tours garner attention
simply by being there. They get free newspaper coverage. TV camera crews
broadcast from the starting line. The quality of the cars and the
notoriety of the people make them noteworthy. The tours for normal
people ($100/day or less) don't get the coverage, but spread the word
through the Internet and the local clubs. I say clubs because they are
all multi-marque. They also have a higher level of organization,
services and amenities than JONAT provided. All have tow vehicles and
all provide some or all food and lodging, with the amount and quality
being reflected in the price. Neither model matches ours, as these are
all self-contained loops.

Tour fee: Our current one-price-for-all is ideal. Trying to set prices
for each sector would create a nightmare of accounting. I don't think
bumping the cost up $5-10 next time around is out of the question, but
using that for advertising is going to be relatively ineffective, with
one, maybe two, exceptions. If we don't affiliate with JCNA, Jaguar
Journal ads for the year before the tour would be the best targeted.
Another option is a mailing to past participants, but, since we are
primarily Internet-based, do we need a mailing?

Valid reasons for low turnout?

The biggest difference I see, between JONAT and the other events is that
we have a much smaller base of cars to draw from. I'm not disagreeing
with the concept that it be Jaguar-only. It's just that when you have,
for example, 20-30 active Jaguar Club members in my area you don't have
the pool to draw from that you do when you add 50 active Triumph Club
members, 40 active MG club members, ten active Lotus club members, five
active Rolls-Royce club members, etc., etc., etc.

Another factor is where you are and when. I think the Arizona Sector was
a great success given that at the closest point, we were 150 miles from
our core constituency (Phoenix) and it was the first year. Some of you
may not realize, however, that at the handoff with Denver, on a Tuesday,
in the middle of nowhere about 400 miles from Phoenix, Albuquerque, and
Denver, there were only three cars -- Robert, Denver SC; Dick, AZ ASC;
and me. We picked up a straggler the next morning, another one the next
evening, and a bunch at the Grand Canyon the following day. It will pick
up as the legend grows, but we aren't ever going to have a big showing
in the middle of the week in the middle of nowhere.

Those are my thoughts.

Mark Stephenson, Sector Coordinator - Arizona
Jaguar Owners North American Tour (www.jonat.org)
April 15 - July 4, 2004
AZ Sector Home Page - http://jonat.org/sector/info.cfm?sequence=7.0
Arizona Sector Report - http://jonat.org/mark/JONAT07AZReport
Route details - http://jonat.org/mark/secdetail/secdetail.htm
Printable maps - http://www.jonat.org/mark/routemaps.pdf


-----Original Message-----
From: jonat-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:jonat-admin@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Bob
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 11:45 AM
To: jonat@autox.team.net
Subject: [JONAT] RE: Disappointing turnout in NE

Craig

You are right.  We have to create a demand for the Tour to be a holiday
- in essence we have to try to get people to consider this as a holiday.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: jonat-chat-admin@autox.team.net
[mailto:jonat-chat-admin@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of talbotc@telus.net
Sent: June 24, 2004 9:50 AM
To: jonat-chat@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: [JONAT-chat] Disappointing turnout in NE

Hi Bob,

Somehow I think that its just the nature of the beast. Most people have
families, and for a lot of them it isn't a holiday to go on a driving
tour through their local area. They seem to want to go somehwere, see
what's there and head home. When I first mentioned the idea of joining
the tour, I knew I'd be doing it alone, as there was no way my partner
could spend that much time

in the car without being a total grouch.

For me it just happened to come at the right time when I had the time
off to

be able to head down to SF and join the tour, but it was a substancial
financial obligation considering fuel and accomidation costs. My week on
the

road for just me cost about as much as my partner and I spent two years
ago to go to the UK for 2 weeks. I think for most people its a no
brainer - a week in the car or 2 weeks in Europe for the same cost?

Just my take on things. All that being said, I'm glad I went to
California as I had a great time, the weather was perfect, the scenery
was amazing, and the people warm and friendly, but it was an expensive
holiday.

Craig
Calgary SC


Quoting engl@jonat.org:
 I think this is the thing
> that surprised myself the most that more people were not considering 
> this
a
> holiday and taking a week for the Tour - most seemed to take a weekend

> or
a
> day or two.
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