While the vast majority of shoppers will buy gifts that can be unwrapped this holiday season, some are instead giving “experiences” varying from riding shotgun with a Nascar driver or eating lunch with the Redskins to taking wine and cheese classes at a local vineyard.
“Each year, people are challenged with finding the perfect gift. One person can only have so many ties and sweaters,” said Adam Michaels, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloud 9 Living. The firm, which is based in Boulder, Colo., offers about 80 experiential gifts in the Washington area, including underwater photography, private cocktail-making classes and a dinner cruise in D.C.
Sterling-based Excitations offers about 500 adventures in the D.C. area, with prices from $50 to thousands of dollars. On average, people spend $200 to $250 on a gift, said Kim AuBuchon, co-founder and chief operating officer.
Signature Days, another such company based in Chicago, has about 80 options in the Washington area, including hot air ballooning, a Tuscan cooking class and a “bipartisan” tour of the city via electric car, according to Chief Executive Officer Andrew Playford. Some of the experiences start at only $25.
The sector, while small, is growing rapidly, even in the midst of forecasts of a weaker holiday season. AuBuchon said Excitations has seen 300 percent growth year over year since its commercial launch in 2005. Signature Days expects to generate about $4.5 million for 2007. Cloud 9 Living has grown tenfold over the past year.
The experiential gift market is still “undeveloped and untapped” and has a “tremendous potential,” said Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, a research firm that follows gift-giving trends.
The total market for experiential gifts was about $50 million, according to representatives from the three experiential companies, and there are 15 to 20 companies in the U.S. market. This is a small fraction of the total spent on gifts, which Unity Marketing estimated to be about $300 billion in 2006.
