Weekly stories curated exclusively for digital tourism marketers
Streetsense has partnered with CBRE to present the best quick read trend report we’ve seen on Gen Z characteristics.
Since the largest generation (born 1995 through 2010) will soon become the world’s largest group of consumers on the planet, forward-thinking brands are planning ahead, “playing with boundaries and introducing radical new business practices.” Are you?
Get to understand Gen Z (you may even BE ONE (!) or have one or two of them living under your roof…) Read more here.
Be glad you didn’t have to join the 2018 earnings call at Tiffany & Co. when sluggishness headlined the agenda. The heritage luxury brand isn’t the only one feeling the pinch as Chinese visitation and spending patterns revert to pre-2016 level.
Greater Los Angeles is in the headlights, but destinations across the U.S. should take note.
This week, the Los Angeles Times reported on a distinct change from packed to empty at luxury stores where hundreds of Chinese visitors had been shopping in recent years…why it’s happening and what it means for inbound tourism.
Kathy Smits, VP of International Tourism at the L.A. Tourism & Convention Board and Julie Wagner, CEO of the Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau are among those quoted. Read more here.
Two retrospective presentations caught our eye this week.
I. Skift has produced a data visualization of the world’s top 15 countries in international outbound travel over the past two decades. The explosive growth from China, especially after it takes over the top position in 2012, is explosive.
The speed behind the shifts is mesmerizing. You’ll want to hit the replay button again and again…
II. TravelAge West runs through the major moments in travel from the trade magazine’s birth in 1969 to 2019.
Can you name the year? “Travel Milestones From the Last 50 Years” highlights include:
Get the illustrated article here.
Find out which 10 U.S. zip codes generate most in actual online travel purchase transactions in this study by ADARA published by Skift. There are a few expected results among the top spenders—such as 60602 in downtown Chicago and 10118 in Midtown Manhattan—and a few surprises, such as 42667 in Indianapolis. Get the details here.
Pew Research Center answers the demographics question: When do the Millennials end and Generation Z begins? “Generational cutoffs aren’t an exact science,” they state. Nevertheless, in 2018, the fact tank determined that anyone born after 1996 and before 2011 belongs to the Gen Z cohort (1997-2010).
That said, what about Gen Z travel trends? According to custom research data gathered by Expedia Group Media Solutions, Looking Ahead: How Younger Generations are Impacting the Future of Travel, Gen Z is most likely to travel outside the United States, with most favoring off-the-beaten-path destinations.
And according to 2019 Virtuoso Luxe Report, Gen Z is very involved in family trip planning, “persuading others to embrace their desire for more active experiences [and] seeking out unusual destinations.”
And what next? Expedia just came out with a report entitled Generation Alpha and Family Travel Trends, How the World’s Youngest Generation is Influencing Family Travel. They’re labeled as Generation Alpha for now and the oldest is currently just nine years old.
The largest-ever study of travel marketers comes from Sojern. What are the key challenges for 611 respondents based in 46 countries who work with annual budgets of less than $50,000 to multi-million dollar ones?
To explore the findings in more detail, download the full report State of the Industry: The 2019 Report on Travel Advertising.
The world is getting smaller but congestion is pushing our cities apart. U.S. Travel Association has issued results of a new Memorial Day Weekend study that indicates the high impact road congestion has on the American economy…and how American drivers feel about it.
Roger Dow, U.S. Travel Association president & CEO said, “Our survey gave travelers a choice: would you rather pay more, or continue to sit in traffic?”
For each additional hour that traffic adds to a weekend car trip, travel demand drops by an average of 18%.
In the time it takes to drive between major U.S. cities during summer and peak hours, Americans could travel hundreds of miles farther if they had an efficient, safe and modern transportation network.
For example, along the I-95 corridor from Washington, DC to New York City, the study found that in the additional drive time necessitated by peak holiday conditions, travelers could have driven an additional 127 miles.
To get the survey’s key findings and several additional congestion maps for popular road trips, click here.
Lousy traffic aside, a Travelzoo survey confirms that people say holiday travel is good for our mental health, according to an overwhelming 83% of respondents. Also, 70% say they intend to incorporate wellness activities in their travel plans.
Findings come from an April survey of 10,736 Travelzoo members from Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Spain, the UK and the USA. Read more here.
The 51st Annual IPW convenes in Anaheim, CA on June 1-5 with approximately 6,200 attendees holding 100,000 buyer-seller scheduled appointments, including 500 travel writers.
IPW, then known as the International Pow Wow, began 50 years ago in 1969 at the Commodore Hotel in New York City when 69 travel suppliers met with 67 buyers from 10 European countries.
Sounds like inbound tourism could use a boost, as Oxford Economics recently released data indicating international numbers to the USA are stuck in a slump. (A score of 50 means no change, a score below 50 means slowdown, above 50 means positive growth.)
In 2018, Chinese tourism to the US dropped for the first time in 15 years. The 2.9 million visitors from China represented a 5.7% decrease from the year previous. Read more here.
March 2019 overall international visitation was down by 5.4%, the worst showing since 2015.
Click here for the full report March 2019 Travel Trends Index.
Meanwhile, at a time when the US is losing international travel share, Destination DC CEO Elliott Ferguson takes on the role of national chair fo the U.S. Travel Association. He voiced concerns this month at a Travel Rally in the nation’s capital.
“Be it tariffs on China or walls being built in Mexico, those are not things that are resonating in a positive way,” Ferguson said. “Therefore, we continue focusing on U.S. Travel’s need to interface with members of the Cabinet, folks on Capitol Hill to get them to understand the importance of the economic impact of travel.”
Ferguson added that while Trump is clearly focused on safety, he’d like to see messaging along the lines of making sure that “how that’s delivered does not deter potential visitors from coming to the U.S.” Read more here.
