Get Your Guide’s Fall 2024 Travel Experience Report
Smart travel business owners and marketers should get access to insight travel market research. It drives smarter business decisions so you’ve got the right presence for your brand for the exact audience you need.
Bold, confident, profitable decisions are driven by real data and insights. A healthy respect for is research is called for.
As many travel research studies have shown, travel is big business and it’s growing, even if we’re in a short lull in travel demand right now.
The post Covid revenge travel has been a big boost since it has drawn spending away from physical products toward active experiences which is what travel is all about. And, in my estimation, the fact that consumers can’t afford to buy homes and thus can’t furnish and renovate them, means they have cash in the bank, ready to spend on travel. Massive stimulus spending was undertaken by many governments worldwide now leading to a hangover.
Another big market boost is a huge growth in travelers between 25 and 46 years of age (Gen Z’s and Millennials).
And there’s one more eye-opening fact about this recent growth in travel demand. It’s the age and spending power of young people who are now powering up the travel industry. They seem to have a lot of money (inheritance, booming economy) and aren’t so price sensitive, yet are particular about their travel experiences. Of course, they are powered by more efficient booking systems, more hotels and venues, and more tours of all kinds that cater to their specific interests.
Get Your Guide Tour Marketplace
You might be familiar with Get Your Guide, a popular and growing online tour marketplace which lists tour experiences for tour guides and travel companies across the Globe. They partner with 30k tour creators of 170,000+ experiences worldwide. Along with Viator and TourRadar, they’re a key source of leads for tour companies and travel agencies.
GYG just released the results of their own study on traveler preferences and habits, in a publicly available report called the Fall 2024 Travel Experience Trend Tracking report. The survey was of 6133 respondents 25 to 64 years old who traveled in a recent 12-month period. They also accessed travel industry research along with data from users of the Get Your Guide booking platform.
It’s so nice when a company undertakes research and shares it online where travel industry pros including travel agents, tour guides, travel management software providers, and travel marketers can enjoy it and learn from it.
The report offers tips and insights for tour guides on how to market to today’s travel and tour consumers.
A High Spot in the Consumer Spending Landscape
The report suggests there is a current recession in the tourism industry with a contraction of -2% in the past year. High interest rates, inflation and back-to-work mandates might be the culprit (IMHO). However, GYG cites that within the tour segment in particular, travel experience OTA’s still outperform other sectors.
If it is a recession in travel spending, then travel agencies and tour companies should sharpen their market knowledge, branding strategy, and content marketing strategy to capture a better chunk of the available market demand.
This chart reveals the growth in demand for travel experiences via OTA’s. That’s impressive. Such a steep growth over the last 3 years. And much of the growth drivers seem to be still in place.
Get Your Guide has dubbed the customers who spend the most as “Explorers” which is fine. I suspect most tour experience buyers are explorers, but they might be referring to a particular group of big spenders who represent 60% of the entire leisure travel market. So this is would get your attention.
This group of Explorers does more of everything, uses more resources to research and book, and they like to book trips online. Seems they’re fairly spontaneous too, although for major trips they may take many months to plan and then book.
As this chart from Get Your Guide’s report shows, this group does more of everything, which makes them a key profile for OTA’s and DMO’s. They prefer the do-it-yourself approach yet rely on local experts and like-minded travelers for tour and destination recommendations.
GYG suggests this group is influenced by 3 key factors: distance they will travel, who they’re traveling with, and where they’re from. And they divide them up into 4 groups: culture/history bookers (+16% growth in bookings), leisure activity bookers (+123% growth), Boat and bus tour buyers (+55%), and walking tour bookers (+59%). Surprisingly only about 60% travel with their spouse.
In this chart below, GYG reveals package deals and tours continue to grow in popularity. Makes sense since other research shows a strong travel consumer preference for experiences and personal growth.
The report offers even more actionable insights including:
- preferred experience types per vacation type
- marketing tips
- traveler research process
- traveler research channels and sources
- brand recognition
GYG advises travel and tour company CEO’s to be visible, focused, consistent, aware, resourceful and efficient. Sounds like great advice to me. Download the report at Getyourguide.com.
As I say repeatedly, we’re all selling the joy of travel, this one single emotional driver that represents anything and everything travelers are looking for. Whoever creates the most joy, gets the booking!
Please visit my travel blog now and share this report and link to it! Honestly, I could use the help in getting established as a travel marketer. This is a competitive business but you’ll be seeing more of me and my helpful content in the years ahead. View my travel marketing services and posts on traveler intent insights, how to grow your travel company and how to generate high-impact travel content.
If your agency is struggling, it might be time to rethink how you’re marketing your offer to today’s travelers.
đź“ž Contact Gord at 416 998 6246 for a free review of your travel company’s digital marketing and how my affordable, powerful approach will work.
Title graphic courtesy of Wannapik.com
