#Trending This Week - What Consumers Are Spending On For The Holidays, Marketing The Fantasy Might Be A Mistake, Repurposing Unused Spaces, And Have You Heard About This New Travel Opportunity?
Issue 116 • November 8, 2022
It’s time for a reality check for those of us marketing travel. A new airline campaign is focusing on all of the great reasons why we need to travel, but the actual reality of the flying experience is quite far from the dream. The holiday season might be a bad one for retailers, but it is looking REALLY good for travel. Hotels are sprucing up unused, overlooked, and weird spaces for exclusive experiences. And we’re going to let you in on a little secret about a potential new trend the media is starting to write about. Check it all out in our three-minute read below.
Can The Promise Of Travel Outweigh The Harsh Reality?
The world got back to traveling in record numbers this summer, but that dream of travel and seeing amazing places was often interrupted by the nightmare of how the journey actually was: delayed and cancelled flights, lost bags, restaurants struggling to keep up with service demands, hotels cutting out housekeeping, room service, and more. We heard a lot of complaints about people who finally made it to the Italian Riviera and other notable places only to be standing in a maddening crush of tourists which made the inflated prices and overall experience just not worth it to them. As marketers we need to recognize the reality for what it is and not overpromise by selling the dream. Read more in Skift here.
Consumers Spending On Travel Over Retail For Holidays
With concerns over inflation as we head into the holidays, it seems Americans are choosing to continue to spend their money on travel versus stuff — and while this is good news for those of us in the industry, it has retailers worried. Americans bought furiously during the pandemic, but now people are continuing to put experiences over possessions and the pursuit of travel has shown no signs of slowing down as we race toward the end of the year. Read more on CNBC here.
Repurposing Unused Spaces For Exclusive Opportunities
Here’s the thing: if you haven’t already figured it out, people want to go places where no one else has been before, where they can be early adopters of something cool, and for the ultra-luxury traveler, enjoy experiences which are very limited and unavailable to the average person. Many hotels are getting in on this trend by taking unused, outdated, or previously hidden spots and cleaning them up to create a cool dining room, bar, or even meeting planner experience. We’ve seen this first-hand at a hotel in Irvine, California which turned an old meat freezer in their kitchen into a super-secret lounge, and a former banquet kitchen in a hotel in Philadelphia that became a lab where they wooed meeting planners with demonstrations of cool food and beverage presentations. Read more about unique spaces hotels are identifying as exclusive spots in Forbes here.
“Closure Holidays” Are About To Be A Thing
Here’s an idea you can get in on now — before it becomes a big trend. We’ve just seen a reporter querying for hotels and resorts offering special packages/treatments for couples who have broken up but are on a “closure holiday” together. Maybe this is a group therapy session that both parties can join or a spa treatment for the couple to decompress. This reporter is researching if couples are traveling together after a break up or divorce as a last hurrah – or just because it was already booked. There’s no link to refer to because the story hasn’t been written yet, but if you are brainstorming about new packages to promote to get some buzz, this might be something you want to look at since it’s already on the media radar and we’re not finding any examples of packages which already exist.