Have Themed Trail Tours Become Oversaturated?

Thematic trails are everywhere–but have they become passé?

We don’t get a lot of visitors to my Cincinnati gym, but whenever a “drop-in” shows up, the instructor always announces them. I make a point to introduce myself and say hello. I did just that with the young woman from D.C. who now stood alone, ready to knock out burpees and squats. I asked her what brought her to our fair city.

“Well, there’s a donut trail here. So, my girlfriend and I packed up and came out for the weekend to hit the donut trail.”

It’s true. Just north of Cincinnati, in Butler County, Ohio, the local tourism board developed a themed “trail” for visitors to hit all 13 of their donut shops. And here, standing before me in my own gym, was proof that it was working. Two visitors were spending their hard-earned dollars and precious weekend to come and hit the donut trail (and effectively erase the calorie-burning effect of the burpees and squats).

These themed trails are everywhere. You can hit the Surry Sonker Trails of North Carolina to celebrate their local cobbler, sampling them at two bakeries, two general stores, a winery, a casual bar, and a restaurant. In Keweenaw, Michigan, you can hit nearly a dozen stops on the Pastry Trail to sample an array of savory pastries. Passing through Branson, Missouri? Visit all seven stops of their “Branson Gravy Train” to compare all the biscuits and gravy offered in town.

“Thematic trails have been around for a while, but they have seen an acceleration over the past five to seven years as destinations looked to connect the dots of experiences for travelers seeking unique ways to explore,” notes Amir Eylon, president and CEO of Longwoods International, a well-respected travel industry research firm. “Whether they are culinary, outdoor, retail, or culture-driven, they give travelers—especially Gen-Y and Z, who seek more experiential travel—a fun way to explore a region or destination in a way that matches their interests. Travelers are becoming less generalist and more thematic in their explorations, and this hits upon that trend.”

We can blame the microbrewery revolution for these trails. As the craft beer revolution took hold, marketing teams at tourism boards developed self-guided craft beer trails to promote these establishments to visitors. The travelers would be lured to the destination by the thought of filling a “passport” with stamps, and ultimately being rewarded with that most exalted of rewards: a cotton t-shirt.

These beer trails became so prevalent that during a travel conference, a travel writer friend of mine once said to me: “If I hear one more destination exclaim that they have a new brewery trail and that I should write about it, I’m gonna scream.”

Seeing the success of these beer trails, destinations quickly developed other trails based around local spirits, be they wine, bourbon, cider, or something else. Kentucky’s Moonshine Trail, for example, will now guide you to six moonshine distilleries (and four bonus stops that include a “shine museum, a farm, and, appropriately for the region, a “holler”).

The trails then evolved to cover specific regional culinary dishes. There are some 25 stops on the Manitoba Perogy Trail, more than 40 stops on the Butter Tart Tour in Ontario’s Kawarthas Northumberland, and, not to be outdone, 49 stops on the Cajun Boudin Trail in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The tourism boards now had a way to package their unique local highlights, so they expanded further still, creating trails and digital passes to encourage travelers to visit the outdoors, such as birding (Ontario’s W.E. Bird Trail Digital Pass), local heritage (the Kansas City KCK Legacy Trail), religion (North Alabama’s Hallelujah Trail), history (Mississippi Blues Trail), and even ties to celebrities. Want to join me in Augusta, Georgia, for the James Brown Journey or perhaps Shawnee, Oklahoma, to knock out all 34 sites on the Birthplace of Brad Pitt VIP Pass?

Love cats? The Cat Café Passport is an exclusive passport to “a collection of cat cafes to experience across the U.S. and Canada!” Love dogs? Then head to Claremont County, Ohio, for the “Ultimutt Trail Fur Happiness,” a collection of dog-friendly hotels, patios, parks, and paths. Hit all eight and you’ll earn a custom dog tag.

Some trails even tackle more serious, even somber topics. The U.S. Civil Rights Trail showcases important civil rights locations across 14 states, and some of those states, in turn, have civil rights trails of their own. Martha’s Vineyard considered the birthplace of American Sign Language, has a Deaf Heritage Trail. But are such trails now passé and overwrought? The website for Visit Fairfield County lists no less than 23 trails within their central Ohio destination, including Sweet Tooth and Green Thumb Trails.

The bottom line is that, as evident in my encounter with the woman headed to the Donut Trail, these themed trails work in drawing travelers to destinations that might have otherwise been overlooked. There’s even a company that has evolved to help destinations develop, package and market such tours. Bandwango is based in Salt Lake City, works with 425 state, provincial and local tourism boards and has helped develop more than 3,000 such trails.

“The mission is to send customers into these local economies,” explains Mo Parikh, the CEO of Bandwango. “This is a new asset class of experiences. Whereas a lot of what exists in the market currently is a single ticket activity, we’re trying to integrate the consumer into a variety of local experiences.”

He also said that he’s seen exponential growth in visitations along these trails. Their company has tracked nearly 5 million visitors to their clients’ trails–and their goal is to get to 10 million.

He points to the success of the West Virginia Waterfall Trail, which has tracked more than 100,000 visits of travelers from every state and 41 countries. Visit Detroit promoted the Detroit Pizza Pass on National Pizza Day and ended up with some 100 million media impressions.

So, whether you love them or perhaps find them somewhat trite, destination-themed trails are here to stay and will undoubtedly continue to expand. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to visit all 20 stops on Greenville, South Carolina’s Eugenia Dukes Unofficial Mayo Guide. After all, I’ll be conquering a mayonnaise trail and there just might be a cotton t-shirt on the line.