How much would you pay for surfing holidays in Taiwan?

[billie_morini]

Pretty interesting thread!
Sorry, I have nothing to contribute.
However, am enjoying it.

[dtc]

BaNZ, hopefully you aren't taking my comments as anything more than a observer!

I feel, in general, there are 3 types of 'surfers' who will travel

1. beginners/backpackers - a bit of fun on their tour but not going just to surf. For these guys, value is important. Maybe not no star, but 2 star level. But maybe a big market. It would definitely include local Taiwanese, whether trying to surf more or just on holidays. They may not have transport, or you need to make sure you can pick them up from an accessible train station or whatever.

2. people who travel to surf - they want to experience difference waves. Often surfing is the only thing of importance, where they stay or what they eat isn't a big thing (I have friends who lived on peanut butter and crackers for several weeks, now and then they would buy some fruit from the locals). You probably don't want to target these guys.

3. people who travel to surf but are middle aged / professionals who know there is a life outside surfing (apparently...). Often time poor, they are happy to trade a bit of money for a more comfortable experience. Perhaps some cultural things, food in particular is important; somewhere nice (but not over the top) to hang out. Basically all the ex pat professionals I was part of in HK - surfing wasn't a big thing with my friends but a lot of them were into diving, and they would dash off to Phillipines or Okinawa for a weekend of diving. They just wanted everything organised so they could maximise the time spend doing what they wanted, no language issues, no transport issues. Surfing is a bit harder than diving - if you target this market you need to have the ability to go to somewhere with waves on that day, not the ability to put them up in a really great hotel that happens to be 2 hours drive from where they are going to be surfing. People might be willing to come over for a week or so and mix up surfing with other sight seeing. Not sure of the logistics involved here.

I was in HK over 10 years ago so no idea what the competition might be nowdays. But perhaps sneak a look at companies offering dive vacations or ski vacations (eg to Japan from HK) and see what kind of arrangements they offer.

Anywhere that is within, say, a 3hr flight of Taiwan could be a market. Outside of that then people might have other destinations (Indo, Sri Lanka etc).

I suspect group 1 is the biggest market in terms of numbers; group 3 probably the most profitable per person. But you have other issues with group 3, such as smaller groups, more demand on weekends and limited demand during the week and so forth.

Anyway, good luck and hope it works out