Travel trends of the millennials

You must have heard of Joon, Air France’s new subsidiary that wants to be young and connected. Small prices, the cabin crew’s uncanny look with electric blue striped jersey, an urban and comfortable fashion between basic and chic, onboard wifi, virtual reality headsets for the first class passengers… the airline totally reinvents the economic class to appeal to the young generation.

eDreams and Expedia just published a study on the multi-generations travel trends. eDreams’ study was released with 13,000 adult repliers from the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Italy and the United States. Expedia’s study was released with 3,000 travelers from the UK, Germany and France last spring.

Millennials’ travel aspirations and inspirations explained

European millennials travelers key figures

Booking stays by clicking on a button has never been that easy. Between leisure and business, or both with bleisure, the millennials traveled 4.3 times last year, against 3.1 times for the baby boomers. The millennials are the ones who travel the most, nearly 3 times more than their grandparents, and they rather travel by plane.

The fact that travelers can now book holidays in far-off destinations so easily means that you can travel at a much younger age than before. Baby boomers first traveled abroad at 19 years old, when the millennials did at only 9 years old.

Millennials are a target that can easily be influenced by advertising during the decision-making process. They enjoy a greater variety of travel and activity types combining relaxation, touristic visits and discovery breaks. They are looking for adventures — almost 80% of them opt for unfamiliar destinations. Tourist attractions really appeal to the millennials — they dedicate 11% of their budget for it, against 8% for baby boomers. The millennials are mostly undecided, almost 62% of them have not decided what their destination will be when they start planning their stays, against 48% of the baby boomers. That is to say the importance of marketing campaign to catch their attention! Especially as nearly half of the millennials (53%) consider that tempting adverts and promotions can influence them.

On a technology level, they mostly use their smartphone when they are looking for inspiration or even information during their stay, as the article on the use of smartphone in the key moments of the travelers shows. A multi-screens strategy with a relevant content to reach this potential audience.

The millennials: the social media members target

This acquisition channel forms a promising lever for tourism experts. These young travelers refer to social medias and trust the influencers. The travel photos posted on Facebook and Instagram by their friends influence their destination and activity choice. Around 36% of them said they were inspired by blogs and articles about travel destinations. The influencers are therefore the millennials’ best friends, as this article shows about the round table held at the 2017 IFTM. The brands’ major stake is to integrate influencers in their acquisition strategy in order to collect new customers.

Today, the millennials travel and embrace a sense of adventure with the will to discover new destinations. Inspiration channels are now more varied, instantaneous, visual and impactful. Interesting fact: 18% of the travelers want to travel more than normally and therefore travel more. Inspiration could be one of your marketing strategy’s key to success…