For hosts in remote regions
A unique audio stargazing experience for your guests.
Suitable for glamping sites, easy to offer, helps you to make the most of your starry sky.
With Guided Stargazing by Visit Dark Skies, guests can immerse themselves into the night sky on their own. All in private and ready to go when the stars show up.
As a host in a remote area, you’ll provide a place for your guests to lay down and give them access to our stargazing audio-file.
You can enrich the event according to your value proposition with warming accessories, food and drinks.
We offer you an easy way to create an activity related to the remote qualities of your accommodation.
Meet the expectations of your guests and help them enjoy your beautiful night sky!
◾️No guide dependability
◾️No weather risk
◾️Self-guided private activity
or request a brochure.
Our product: a ready-made experience concept for dark sky glamping sites
We have created an audio-file of 33 Minutes especially designed for full immersion into the night sky. It has been tested and iterated many times until probands felt a deep experience creating awe and relaxation, and more knowledge about the Big Dipper.
You as a host in a remote region can distribute the audio experience and do events on site with it. No guide with astronomy expertise is needed. The audio experience license kit is delivered with marketing materials and we will guide you until you have established the actitivity on your site.
The secret sauce: audio file adapted to biology of the eye
Guests lay down for 30 minutes, as long as their eyes take to adapt fully to darkness. With this, they see more stars as their eye has become much more light-sensitive. The biological process takes 30 Minutes to complete - the audio file has the same length.
With our audio guidance and perception technique, listeners are able to immerse themselves even more into the starry sky. This results in an overwhelming and exceptional encounter of the natural night. Guests can enrich their evening at a remote location where events are rare.
Content - have a sneak peak:
People lay on their back for 30 Minutes to enjoy a slow immersion into the night sky
They can play the audio-file themselves, providing a private event for them.
These companies trust us already
The problem we solve
Night Guide Scarcity
◾️ Hosts in remote regions usually depend on educated astronomy guides to offer successful nightly activities. Often, guides are rarely available.
◾️Offered activities are astronomy-dominated and often too long. No focus on personal experience, aesthetics and awe, fitting to the glamping value proposition.
◾️Night tours usually have a group focus - not fitting to romantic couple retreats that are made for couples or small families.
However, for hosts in areas with a visible Milky Way, not offering stargazing experiences means missing a big potential.
Impact of a mega-trend
A rising astro-tourism market due to urbanization
Astro-tourism, meaning traveling in order to the experience the natural night sky, has recently seen a steady increase of interest.
A rising glamping scene is discovering stargazing as a value proposition.
The rising interest in astro-tourism can be witnessed in books like “Million-Stars Hotel” by Bob Mizon, 2016, or the “Lonely Planet Dark Skies” by Valerie Stimac, 2019. A strong increase of news and articles in the last five years shows the interest of journalists and bloggers for the topic.
This article in the National Geographic is only one of hundreds of articles inspiring guests to travel to locations with a natural night sky.
“Many urban residents have never seen the Milky Way before they travel as an adult. Seeing a natural night sky might be a life-changing experience for them.”
Why now?
Light pollution has increased by 10% every year (!) in the last decade.
Every year, the visibility of the stars has been declining by 9,6%. Urban areas are heavily affected. (Source: Kyba et.al, 2023)
Is this something for your glamping site?
Remote enough?
Locate your site on the light pollution map. You need to be located in an area that is not yellow, white or red. Grey and lilac is best, blue and green still good.
Is your site remote enough? Then help your guests enjoy this beautiful night sky even more - with our audio experience.
or ask for an offer here
Guided Stargazing by Visit Dark Skies allows spontaneous stargazing, perfectly adopted to the needs of glamping guests. No guide and no fixed appointments needed.
How to offer it
You need: a remote place
in addition, you should offer
a blanket
something to lay on
a warming accessory during off-season
Choose a safe and still remote stargazing spot, to create a real overwhelming experience for your guests. Clearly indicate the spot as the stargazing spot. Make sure there is a good view towards the horizon and no wind.
Nature park Nossentiner/Schwinzer Heide created their own stargazing benches and added Guided Stargazing to it, accessible via QR-code on a weather-proof plate
The solution for you
Guided Stargazing helps you create a stargazing experience for your guests easily.
It takes little effort to implement Guided Stargazing on site. Choose a location, get your QR-Code and put it out there. You may choose our ready-made poster or create your own design. Choose the comfort level for your guests and add services as you like, from basic to luxury.
Do you know someone who could be interested in offering Guided Stargazing? Recommend them to us and become an affiliate.
The Guided Stargazing experience package offers benefits for hosts in remote regions:
◾️ No astronomy guide needed
Night guides need to know about the stars, like to speak in front of groups and work late at night. Not really many people are like that. With Guided Stargazing, you own a scalable activity that can be facilitated by everyone.
◾️ Unlimited distribution / events on site
With a license, hosts can share the audio-file unlimited times with their guests and create an unlimited amount of events around it at their venue, all at the same license costs.
◾️ No organisational hassle
Once installed, guests can do the activity on their own. You still might organize group sessions to create additional revenue. But tour guides need no expertise, which makes organisation much easier.
◾️ Marketing material included
The license for Guided Stargazing comes with ready-made marketing material as well as hosting of the audio-file on a customized web page done for you. No additional marketing expenses needed.
◾️ Yearly license
Your license is booked for 12 month and renews automatically every year. It can be canceled six weeks after renewal. Cooperations are also possible without investment into a license. Which one is best depends on your business model.
◾️ Full support by Visit Dark Skies
License owners and cooperation partners are fully supported for the duration of the partnership by our founder Etta Dannemann. We help you implement the event suitable to your location and target group via online and chat support. We can also help you adjust lighting to create a bug-free and starry-friendly experience for your guests.
Benefit for your guests:
◾️ Private character of the activity
Is there something more powerful than looking into the stars together? Guided Stargazing brings couples together. It is a private event, different from an astronomy group tour with others.
◾️ Weather-flexible
Sometimes, a cloudy evening is a great evening one hour later. Guests can listen to the audio-file exactly at the time when the stars show up. No fixed dates. No dependency on a booked tour.
◾️ Staying on site
Guest do not need to leave your site for the experience if your space is big enough. This is comfortable and feels safe for them.
◾️ Made for people
The audio tour starts with knowledge about the Big Dipper and ends with a relaxing perception exercise, leading to a deep immersion into the night sky. For some people, the beginning is the strongest moment, some like the second part most.
◾️ Intense experience
Watching the stars together laying on your back is a powerful way of creating friendships and relationships. It is ideal after a long day of activities - people can relax and still create a common experience.
◾️ Life-long memories
The uniqueness of the moment with its large contrast to daily life creates a life-long memory for your guests and will create mouth-to-mouth recommendations. It will strengthen your brand as a remote location.
Apply today as a license holder for Guided Stargazing
Be among the pioneers in your region to offer a new way of stargazing
How others work with us
Clear Sky Resorts, Grand Canyon, U.S.
The glamping resort features stargazing both in their name and their marketing visuals. Offering Guided Stargazing by Visit Dark Skies contributes to the brand experience. Being featured on our website, they become visible to the Visit Dark Skies Audience as well.
License style: yearly basic license
Sternencamp Rübehorst, Germany.
The small glamping site with tents and old GDR Wagons with direct view to the stars features the view towards the Milky Way prominently on the website. They are known all over Berlin as the place to go to visit Dark Sky Park West-Havelland.
Being a true ambassador for Guided Stargazing from the very beginning, they gather over two hundred download page visits a year. Guests listen for free.
License style: yearly pilot partner license.
Dark Sky Dome, UK.
Dark Sky Dome is a dome-like structure in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, UK. The owner is keen on offering something special:
“I have listened to the audio file and I am very impressed. The combination of history, mindfulness and guided star locations goes perfectly for the experience I am trying to provide.”
— Chris McCrindle, Owner Dark Sky Dome, Scotland
Guests buy on the Visit Dark Skies Website, the Host gets commission.
License style: Collaboration.
Emma Wanderer, Austria.
The workation resort is a brand-new facility, offering freelancers and businesses to work close to nature.
Guided Stargazing by Visit Dark Skies is part of their activity offers that help workers relax after a long day. The QR-Code was integrated into their own branding.
Guests buy on the Visit Dark Skies Website, Host gets commission.
License style: collaboration.
Naturwacht Brandenburg, NGO in Germany.
When Naturwacht Brandenburg did their Night of the Nature, they piloted with a two-week license by Visit Dark Skies.
We are open to offer our audio stargazing experience temporarily, e.g. for Dark Sky Festivals, Perseid events or similar.
License style: temporary license for event
Nature park Nossentiner-Schwinzer Heide, Germany.
When Nature park NSH established their local stargazing benches, Guided Stargazing was an addition to the value proposition of the benches for the visitors of the park. In addition, visitor numbers of their individual website provided by Visit Dark Skies have given them a hint on how many people visit the benches.
License style: Five-year-license Nature Park
Process
This is how we work with you
Analyze: Check if you can offer a place on your site with free view to the horizon for guests to stargaze.
2. Book a free 30 Min call with Etta (optional). We help to do an individual calculation and explain the concept in detail.
3. Become a partner. We will create your individual landing page or give you access to your affiliate link, depending on your cooperation option.
4. Choose a place where people can stargaze. With this, the experience becomes “a thing to do”. Add furniture, if you like, and accessories.
5. Make a QR-Code accessible on your site
For license holders, we deliver an individualized plate as a pdf
Guest access your individual site in the license model, that we host
6. Provide marketing in your booking email or digital guest book. We provide photos and texts for our partners at no additional costs for you.
Book a call
with me to find out how Guided Stargazing can contribute to your unique selling position under the stars.
Frequently asked questions
Please get in touch with me!
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Of course you can, but it won’t be an experience people will enjoy. You should have Bortle scale 4 or smaller on the light pollution map.
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You may offer Guided Stargazing to your guests without investing into a license. They need to buy it on our website then, and we share net revenue. You will become an affiliate and get your individual tracking link. However, the license may make more sense in terms of economics, as it frees the budget of your guests. Then they can spend more on your related offers.
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The license price depends on the number of beds you provide. We only differ between glamping and resort size. Details can be found in the brochure.
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We are cooperating with a few providers that are offering interesting accessories for our use case. You can find them in the brochure or in our shop.
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Usually, from the moment you request the license, you should be able to offer the activity within two weeks.
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Yes, you can refer other clients and will get a 10% lifelong commission on their license.
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We calculate with a 10 x return on investment. More details can be given in a call or in our brochure.