Which Experience Day Results for 2009

Looking for a really special present for a loved one but not sure what to buy for the man or woman who has everything? An increasingly popular choice for special gifts is an experience day. In the six years to 2007, the number of experience days provided in the UK roughly doubled to nearly a million a year, and their popularity continues to rise. It’s also clear that once someone has tried an experience day they often go back for more as a research survey conducted in 2007 (by MINTEL) found that one in ten adults in the UK had already been on seven or more experience days. If you've not considered giving an experience day before then perhaps its time to take a closer look but the question then becomes which one? To help out with this, over the last year we’ve collected together information on the top ten best selling experience days in each month. Using this data we’ve put together this guide to experience days outlining the kind of experience days that people have actually been buying in 2009.

The runaway top individual experience day across the year was flying lessons. This sold consistently across the year and never dropped below 3rd place in any month. I guess this is something that people really want to do – a once in a lifetime experience that a lot of people are now being given or even buying for themselves. It was also consistently popular throughout the year so people are happy to learn to fly whether it’s summer or winter. Strangely, none of the other flying experience days appeared in any of the monthly top tens over the year. This might be because learning to fly a light aircraft is so widely available up and down the country that it dominates flying experience days, or perhaps more people actually want a proper lesson, rather than just want to experience flying and being flown in a hot air balloon, glider, helicopter or gyrocopter.

Driving experience days were the most popular broad category if you added them all together, but within the driving category Aston Martin themed experience days were top and these Aston Martin driving days were the second most popular type of experience day overall. Aston Martin experience days sold particularly well during the first half of 2009 and I wonder if this was partially due to the release of the film Quantum of Solace at the end of 2008 and the inevitable Bond film repeats on the TV over Christmas. If you know a James Bond fan then I guess this might be the ideal gift for them. Of course a number of other driving experience days appeared in the top ten, including opportunities to drive one or more Ferraris and other supercars, as well as single-seater racing cars (the sort of thing Jenson Button and Louis Hamilton would be more familiar with). Driving a Humvee off-road vehicle also made an appearance including second most popular experience day in May, but generally this was a summer activity. Despite the fact that Hummers are designed to protect from bullets and shrapnel (let alone rain and muddy splashes) I guess people still want a bit of warmth and dry weather when they are torturing the countryside.

In third place came a collection of different experiences all of which can roughly be grouped under the twin headings of relaxation or pampering days and experience days for two. In fact ‘for two’ experience days cropped up regularly across the year in the monthly top ten charts, and it wasn’t just the girls going for a spa, makeover or pamper day or having a massage and taking a friend (although these were all popular). Experience days that are targeted at couples rated well, and these were generally some kind of day out with food included. The two most popular (mainly in the summer) were lunch and a flight on the London Eye, and dinner with theatre tickets for two. However other days out for two that sold well throughout the year were football club tours and trips to stately homes with pre-reserved afternoon tea included in the price. Interestingly, football club stadium tours (mainly to the Emirates stadium and Old Trafford) appeared in the lists but only at the beginning and end of the year when the football season was still in swing, so people really do forget about football over the summer.

On the subject of football, another type of experience day that made a brief appearance in the top ten lists were football academy and training days for kids. This was the only experience day intended for children that appeared in any of the monthly top ten lists and this surprised me given the huge number of experience days available specifically for kids and teenagers such as driving, flying and learning to be a fairy, cowboy or spy. These football experience days mainly showed up at the end of summer, coinciding nicely with the tail end of the school holidays and the start of the new football season.

We were surprised to find harness sphereing and aqua sphereing were so popular. Given that it’s a swimming costume activity, it’s no surprise that aqua sphereing (sphereing without a harness and with one to three people and several buckets of water in the sphere) was more popular in the summer. Other popular pursuits for the adventurous and thrill seekers included bungee jumping and paintballing (mainly in the summer) and indoor skydiving and tank paintball, both of which are less dependent on good weather.

Looking down the list, we’ve pretty much covered all the main kinds of experience that appeared in the top ten across the year with the exception of classes where you get to design your own perfume. This appeared in three of the monthly lists placing 4th, 7th and 8th at different times. Clearly a good gift for the lady of the house unless you’ve already booked her a pamper day, a flying lesson, or are taking her on a day out to the theatre.

We hope the above has given you some food for thought. Of course you don’t need to follow the trends of the last year as there are a huge range of experience days available to cover all sorts of hobbies, interests and desires for adventure. We were a little surprised that some of the newer experience days didn’t appear in the top ten lists over the year as on our own website we have seen a lot of interest in these activities. However places are often relatively limited on these new introductions and we only took into account overall popularity in terms of sales rank. Perhaps supply will rise to meet the increasing demand we think we're seeing, and cooking experience days, recording studio sessions and going loopy in a stunt plane may well be edging their way up the monthly top ten’s for next year.

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Monday November 09, 2009 | The Blogging Team | Advice