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New Trends in Family Travel
Society Changes, Human Needs Stay the Same
As members of a rapidly changing, increasingly global society, we feel the pressure to work more and to stay constantly plugged into our devices, our email, and social media. Our tastes are increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan, but our basic needs as humans for meaning and connection remain unaltered. Out of the push of society and the pull of intimacy, new trends are emerging that allow individuals and families to create personal moments, bond with their loved ones and create lasting memories, even in the midst of an intense business trip, and despite the pressure of a competitive, jaded, Instagram-fueled leisure culture. One such trend is the rise of “bleisure” travel, travel that melds business and leisure. The other is multigenerational aspirational adventure travel, the family vacation guaranteed to get the attention of even the most jaded tween, and create memories that will last a lifetime.
Connected Workers, Disconnected Families
According to research by Project Time Off, workers in the United States are using a historically low number of vacation days, fewer than at any time in the last 40 years. (Project Time Off is a non-profit organization with the mission to increase the use of vacation time, supported by a broad coalition across the travel and retail spectrum including the National Retail Federation.) On average, if you live in the United States you’ll take only 16 vacation days in 2015, almost a week less vacation compared to an average of 20 days in 2000. Project Time Off is concerned with documenting and defining the effects of this drop in vacation time, not just for individual workers, but for the health of their children and families. In The Work Martyr’s Children: How Kids Are Harmed by America’s Lost Week, Project Time Off asserts that today’s generation of children are missing out on vacation traditions and quality time with their parents. Dr. Lotte Bailyn, study contributor and professor emerita at the MIT Sloan School of Management, notes that the study found that most kids (61%) want to spend quality time with parents during vacation. While just 19% of kids say they are in a very good mood during their everyday life, this number jumps to 60% when parents take time off work to hang out with them. “Their moods are different and it takes a while to get them out of their shells,” Bailyn explained. “In a strange way, particularly with younger children, the best relationships come when there’s enough quantity time to drive quality interactions.” Although family time is important to children, nearly a quarter of working parents reported that it had been more than a year since their last family vacation. The work pressures that keep parents at the office are the same ones that keep other American workers from using their vacation time, fears that they will “come back to a mountain of work” (29%) because “no one else can do the job” (20%) topping the list.
The Rise of Bleisure Travel
At the same time that families and individuals are suffering the effects of taking fewer vacation days, business travel has been on the increase and is expected to continue to rise through the end of 2015 and 2016. The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), an international business travel and meetings organization, projects that both individual and group business trips in the U.S. will increase by approximately 2% a year in 2015 and 2016, while international business trips are expected to increase by 5% in 2015 and 7% in 2016. According to Michael W. McCormick, GBTA executive director, “thanks to a healthier domestic economy and a stronger U.S. dollar, companies are putting more travelers on the road not only because they can afford to, but because they continue to see a strong return on their business travel investment.”
Squeezed by more pressure at the office and more time on the road, how are workers fighting back? With bleisure travel, defined as a trip that includes both a business and leisure component. According to two recent studies, business travelers are increasingly staying over the weekend, bringing their family, and leaving the hotel room to work in parks and coffee shops. This year BridgeStreet Global Hospitality released THE BLEISURE REPORT 2014, based on a survey of 640 international guests. And Hotwire.com® also published their third American Travel Behavior Survey, both of which documented a strong bleisure travel trend.
The Numbers behind the Trend
According to BridgeStreet Global, bleisure travel is on the rise. The majority, 60% of travelers, report that they are more likely to take bleisure trips today than they were five years ago. The same number (60%) have already taken bleisure trips, adding an average of two vacation days per business trip. Among bleisure travelers, more than half (54%) bring along their family or significant other. Younger travelers (age 25-34) are the strongest adopters, with 93% expecting to take a bleisure trip in the next five years.
Hotwire.com® reported similar results. Roughly half of American business travelers have added leisure time to a business trip, with 56% of younger travelers 18 to 34 and 37% of 35 to 44-year-olds reporting bleisure trips. Henrik Kjellberg, president of Hotwire®, is an advocate of bleisure travel. “You might have to travel for business, but it doesn’t mean you have to let much-deserved leisure trips fall by the wayside. Popular domestic business hubs like Atlanta see a ton of foot traffic during convention season. However, once the corporate groups leave – typically on Thursdays – hoteliers drop their prices for the weekend to try and fill rooms with leisure travelers. As such, you can spend a couple of extra days away to explore or relax in one of these great cities while taking advantage of affordable hotel deals.” Industry veteran Bobby Williams, founder of BOCONI bags and leather, can relate. “I definitely live in bleisure travel-mode with my family…non-stop all the time!”
Equipping the Bleisure Traveler
Retailers can respond to the bleisure trend by tailoring their sales and marketing message to this new reality, rather than drawing a strict line between work and leisure travel, and by stocking products that encourage flexibility and exploration, such as structured backpacks or convertible briefcase/backpack combos. According to BridgeStreet Global, even if they don’t extend their trip 82% of business travelers take time out to explore the city they’re visiting. The right bag can encourage micro-adventures: jumping on a shuttle to see a city during a layover, or taking a hike through a sculpture garden. When talking about bags for business travel, bringing up the idea of bleisure travel to your customer can change the tone of the conversation from the contemplation of impending drudgery to the possibility of wonder and fun.
One game changer, according to both travel icon Rick Steves and the travel blog One Bag, is to steer able-bodied travelers away from rolling bags, which can easily lose a third of interior volume and add a third in weight due to the addition of wheels, retractable handles, and attendant hardware. Doug Dyment from One Bag asserts, “few places worth visiting are conducive to rolling a bag behind you; even modern city sidewalks have curbs, cracks, congestion, and clutter (often of the unpleasant organic variety).” And Rick Steves points out, “I really appreciate the mobility and practicality of having both hands free while en route – I can eat a sandwich or buy a bus ticket and hop on board without breaking my stride.”
But bleisure travel isn’t just about squeezing a micro-adventure in between meetings, it’s about adding on a weekend to explore the city, or bringing the kids along on your work trip. Even seasoned road warriors will need to learn new packing tricks, as their small work carry-on bag will need to fit more and do more. This is where retailers can be game changers, by providing packing seminars and educating their clients about the use of cubes and other organizational features. Steves is a strong proponent of packing cubes, “packing cubes are a worthwhile supplement to any bag purchase. They help compress your clothes, keep them organized, and allow you to easily access your bag’s contents without risking spilling all of them out on the airport or train-station floor.”
The TLS Professional Weekender, developed by eBags in response to the input of business travelers, is chock full of features perfect for bleisure travel. In the office, the TLS Weekender can be carried briefcase-style, with or without a shoulder strap. Because no one wants their socks (or kids’ toys!) to go tumbling onto the meeting room floor when they’re digging for their laptop or charger, clothes are in a completely separate compartment than the laptop and organizer areas. The clothing compartment is shaped to be used with the eBags packing cubes for additional compression, organization, and carrying capacity. While sightseeing between meetings, the bag can be worn as a backpack with sternum straps and a padded, ventilated Airmesh back panel. In the airport, the laptop section is TSA-checkpoint friendly. Although everyone loves basic black, the new heathered graphite colorway is also a great choice. It will pop on your sales floor while still reading as a neutral.
New this winter, BOCONI is introducing the Tyler Tumbled Campus Pack, a polished, stylish backpack that’s ideal for bleisure travel. It looks good enough for the boardroom, in Milano grained leather finished with antiqued nickel hardware. But it’s also comfortable and capacious enough to extend your trip over the weekend and explore a new city.
For customers who appreciate a sporty aesthetic, the TPro® Bold™ 2.0 carry-on backpack from Travelpro is a great choice.
Because the demographic with the largest percentage of adopters is the under-34 set, a roomy, durable and on-trend bag like the HEX Sonic backpack should be part of your store’s bleisure merchandising plan. The Sonic features laptop and organizer pockets for office-access, and two completely separate gear/clothing pockets. It comes in a variety of neutral-but-not-boring fabrications. The most adventure-friendly bag in the HEX collection is the HEX Roark Revival Mule Backpack with a 30-liter carrying capacity and enough comfort features for a weekend in the mountains. The sophisticated PV-coated cotton fabrication keeps you from looking like a backpacking college student, and the separate laptop compartment allows for easy access to your computer without exposing the office to your hiking boots.
Multigenerational Aspirational Adventure
The last decade has seen the rise of “grandtravel,” where time-poor parents are left at home with their busy careers, and grandparents and kids vacation together. In the Instagram age, this trend is combining with adventure travel (bucket-list trips like summiting Everest or an African safari) into the aspirational adventure family vacation. Multi-generational families, not necessarily including parents, but often funded by and including grandma, are looking for more exotic experiences than the beach or the nearest national park. The Travel Channel calls these social-mediagenic family trips one of the top five travel trends this year. “Families are foregoing the family vacations of the past, where quality time was spent parked at the beach, and instead are looking for transformative experiences that the whole family can share.” But going to the Galápagos Islands in a family group with members that are between eight and 80 means shopping for a tour with a lot of support and comfort, dovetailing neatly with the trend of “glamping.” This is good news for retailers, since exotic, aspirational family vacations require support, advice, and specialized travel equipment from savvy retailers. Expect sales of products like soft-sided luggage that can be loaded onto a camel, smart children’s products, bug- and-sun resistant clothing in every size, and lots of opportunities for packing seminars.
The Numbers behind the Trend
How big is multi-generational travel? Rainer Jenss, president and founder of the Family Travel Association, asserts that their research shows that 33 to 40% of the $270 billion leisure travel business is multigenerational. According to a recent national survey conducted by Preferred Hotel Group and marketing company MMGY Global, there are four key aspects to the multi-generational adventure trend. Grandparents (35%) are paying for the trip, more so than the parents (25%), but 40% of both grandparents and parents say the grandchildren are active in vacation planning. Lindsey Ueberroth, president and CEO of Preferred, explains, “(millennials) are doing a lot of online research. What happens is the grandparents come in and want to pay, and millennials come in with the research…to create a unique experience.” Global travel is particularly popular, because multigenerational vacationers “want a deeper cultural experience,” Ueberroth explains. Family Vacation Critic, TripAdvisor’s family travel site, is also touting “experiential travel” as a key family travel trend, noting that Disney is jumping on the bandwagon, with offerings such as a cooking class in Ecuador through Adventure Disney.
Destination Transformation
Because time for family togetherness is scarce and precious, families are setting high standards for their trips. CNN recently published a story titled “10 Places that can Change your Child’s Life.” (No pressure, vacation planners!) Where is adventure travel taking these families-on-the-go? Alaskan cruises combine luxury, separate programs for all ages, and shared experiences in nature. Luxe lodges in South America entice families to visit bucket list destinations like Patagonia, while providing well-organized horseback riding, photo safari, fishing, kayaking, and hiking excursions. Huffington Post author (and CEO of Chill Expeditions) Crawford Hill touts “Ecuador and the Galapagos, Costa Rica and Andalusian Spain, which offer great opportunities for relaxation and countless possibilities for experiential learning as a family. This kind of educational travel adventure is far more enduring than simply traveling to an all-inclusive resort together – and obviously it offers a more authentic and engaging opportunity.” Jenss notes that children love animals, making Alaska, Central and South America and Africa great destinations, and that children as young as 10 years old can get certified to scuba dive.
Equipment and Preparation
For the multi-generational family adventure, equipment and preparation are key. Adventure travel means backpacks and soft-sided duffles in durable fabrics and understated colorways, making Travelpro’s National Geographic™ duffles perfect for the adults, while animal-themed child-sized carry-ons like the ones in the National Geographic™ Collection by Travelpro help get kids excited for the trip. Tuck a tube of critters from Safari Ltd. into the kids’ carry-on to play with on the plane, and help them get in the spirit of adventure. TrendyKid also makes animal character carry-ons, as well as bags with more sophisticated graphics for tweens.
Lightweight packing is even more important for adventure travel than bleisure trips. Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags.com, takes note: “inspired by YouTube and travel blogs, there is an explosion in the number of people deciding to take trips off the beaten path. They want to experience nature, history, culture, and food in exotic locations once thought to be out of reach. They are finding that lightweight travel backpacks with packing cube organizers can make all the difference in managing their belongings throughout the trip.” The eBags TLS Mother Lode Weekender and Weekender Junior (for smaller-framed travelers) fits the bill with ease, offering many of the same organizational features found in the eBags TLS Professional Weekender, but in additional size and color choices. The BOCONI Bryant LTE Ruck Sack, in Heather brown canvas with antiqued mahogany pull-up leather, and finished with a durable waterproof coating, makes an elegant set for adventure travel when combined with the Bryant Safari Bag in antiqued mahogany pull-up leather, also with a waterproof finish.
But it’s not just about bags. Look for travel goods manufacturers who carry products that can help keep traveling families safe, healthy and comfortable. Your customers will appreciate Goodwipes, the extra-large-size cooling towelettes, great for camping, safaris, and hiking in warm climates. Emergency ponchos and mini LED flashlights are a no-brainer. And check out Go Travel’s Mosquito Cot Net, a lightweight mosquito net ideal for cots, cribs, and strollers, which protects against bites and stings. Go Travel also makes a kid’s door stop, which prevents doors from locking accidentally and protects little fingers from heavy hotel doors. And don’t forget Airtushi, Oakthrift’s inflatable travel highchair.
Defining the Problem, Finding the Solution
In this connected world, human ingenuity is allowing us to find ways to relax, to unplug, and to bond with nature and with each other. The new travel trends of bleisure travel and the multigenerational aspirational family vacation are born out of the challenges of modern life, and require more planning and travel knowledge than the road trips and weekends at grandma’s house enjoyed by previous generations. But with advice and equipment from a great travel retailer, families can enjoy the same potential for bonding and fun during their leisure travel time, even if their circumstances and surroundings look very different from 40 years ago.
This story originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Travel Goods Showcase
Generation Y-Not?
Youth Trends in the Travel Goods Industry
In the international travel business a flashpacker is a tech-savvy gen y world-traveler. The gen y demographic, also known as millennials, accounts for 20% of all dollars spent on global travel. If 20% of your sales are to 18- to 34-year-olds, you’ve connected with the flashpacker market. If not, you’re leaving money on the table. There is hope: if you’re not currently selling to gen y travelers, then your core business is probably their boomer parents. Show boomers that you have luggage they can buy for their gen y kids for trips or graduation presents, and introduce their flashpacker offspring to your store.
Who Are the Flashpackers?
FLASHPACKERS ARE VERY DIFFERENT from the penniless, frame-pack toting, Eurail-riding young people of previous generations. ITB-Berlin’s World Travel Trends Report 2014 acknowledges “youth travel was long seen as a small part of the travel and tourism industry,characterized by cheap prices and low spending. However, the picture has changed in recent years, according to diverse studies.” ITB-Berlin reports that“the World Tourism Organization estimates that youth travel generated $182billion (U.S.) in international tourism receipts in 2012…more than 20%.”Globally, fewer than half (45%) of18- to 34-year-old travelers are on vacation. Young globetrotters are instead abroad for educational purposes and volunteer work (43%) and 15% are business travelers. Among U.S. citizens,almost half (49%) of work travel is done by gen y and gen xers: 25% are 18 to34 and 24% are 35 to 44 (Travel Facts and Statistics, U.S. Travel Association). Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags.com, expands on the customer behind these statistics. “Millennials have a different value scale when it comes to work and life experience. They’re not as interested in making a fortune, they want to get out and experience the world. They’ll work for six months and then head to Costa Rica for three months with one backpack.” Many jobs available to millennials (whether traditional entry-level or knowledge-based jobs like computer programming) don’t penalize this type of fractured resumé. In the past 10 years youth travel destinations have become much more global. Europe has decreased slightly in popularity, while gen y travel to the Americas, Asia and Africa has surged over the last decade (ITB-Berlin’s World Travel Trends Report 2014).
Are you gen y-ready?
YOU MAY NEED TO UPDATE YOUR retail assortment with fashion-forward styles that appeal to younger consumers.Backpacks are beginning to replace the classic messenger bag as the personal item that gen y travelers bring on a flight. Make sure your personal item stock reflects the shrinking size of tablets and laptops. Gen y travelers have the latest electronic gear, and they don’t want or need a big bag for their tiny tablet.A personal item could also be a camera bag. Photography is a common passion for gen y travelers, but they don’t want to carry expensive equipment for their hobby in something that screams“camera bag” (a legitimate security concern). Dan Maravilla, co-founder of HEX, shared a bag designed to address this problem: the HEX Camera Gear Bag. The Camera Gear Bag sits upright and can be worn as a backpack. It holds camera or DJ gear with a separate storage compartment for up to a 15”Mac Book Pro and front iPad pocket. Millennials often reject traditional luggage for international travel. No one wants to lug a rollerboard up three flights of stairs from the Paris Metro. Cobb’s experience is that “we sell huge numbers of a backpack called the TLS Weekender, not as a ‘personal item’ but as the carry-on bag and sole piece of luggage that is going to get efficient packers through two to three weeks in Spain. The TLS Weekender looks like a backpack but zips open and lays flat like a suitcase.” Cobb’s must-have list for an international travel backpack:it’s designed to work with packing cubes (which add organization and compression) while being small enough to fit tight international luggage requirements,and squishable enough to shove into the limited carry-on space available on small regional jets. When you’re picking backpacks for millennials, look for neutrals that aren’t black: the on-trend patterns featured in HEX’s Division,Hayward, and Westmore Collections will read as match-anything neutrals while standing out from a sea of black bags. Square backpacks (rectangular shaped,sometimes roll-top, and often made of waterproof fabrications like tarpaulin and waxed cotton) are the most fashion-forward of today’s travel backpacks. Many are large enough that they can be used in place of rollerboard luggage for multi-day trips, especially to foreign destinations with cobblestones.For those looking for a rollerboard with younger styling, HEX will be adding rollerboards to their collection, which they’ll be showing at The International Travel Goods Show in March 2015 and then shipping in fall 2015. Another high-style bag company to look for in the rollerboard category is EPIC Travelgear, based in Sweden but shipping from Seattle to the North American market from newly formed EPIC Travelgear USA by the time this issue goes to print. CEO James Krueger explains his company’s philosophy: “The gen y customer wants to be on-trend but also look different from everyone else. That’s not easy to design for while maintaining our unique EPIC Travelgear visual identity.” EPIC Travelgear’s solution to this design dilemma is something Krueger calls “managed madness.” Krueger explains “take a little bit of risk, maybe 10%. And within that 10% really go crazy. If it doesn’t sell, just let it go. Close it out, move on. That kind of philosophy is where some of our wildly successful product ideas like our Kiss Signature Series come from.” Krueger recommends following the managed madness philosophy across the supply chain, including retail buying. In Sweden, EPIC Travelgear’s best managed madness resources is LuggageLAB, which is both a storefront and a creativity lab for testing new ideas and then showing them to consumers (both in person and through social media). EPIC Travelgear has in-house production capability at LuggageLAB called CustomChromatix™. CustomChromatix™ allows EPIC Travelgear’s LuggageLAB to produce very small runs of luggage with hard-wearing personalized decals, painted graphics inside or out, and custom components for some models. Krueger describes the process: “You send us your jpeg, and within days we’ve printed your graphic with spray paint vinyl on your new custom luggage collection.” With CustomChromatix™, your gen y customers’ desire to have something different becomes a retail opportunity, not a liability. Career-oriented millennials do exist and they travel more for work than boomers. Companies tend to send their young, single employees out on the road, and flashpackers welcome the adventure. They may have to fly to a different city during the week to work and then fly home for the weekend. Road warriors want to leave their hands free as they walk through the airport so they can check email on their smartphones, so a significant number are choosing backpacks over rollerboards. Young business travelers asked eBags for a Weekender with a more polished look, which became the TLS Professional Weekender. It’s built with additional tech features, like a TSA friendly laptop compartment and an external adaptor garage. An important distinction between gen y and traditional business travelers is the degree of energy and exploration they bring to their business travel. When millennials travel for work they bounce around and explore, deliberately extending their work trip over a weekend. A lot of that spontaneous travel becomes less desirable after getting married and starting a family. This is one of the reasons the gen y business traveler is also attracted to stylish weekender-sized duffles like the Overnight Travel Bag by HEX. Duffles and backpacks have the advantage of camouflage: if you are between hotel check-ins, out exploring in your down time, you don’t look like a tourist.
Does your store experience (both brick and mortar and online) match the millennial market?
ADDING ON-TREND MERCHANDISE won’t help your sales if gen y customers walk right past your store or click away from your website. Updating the look of your brick and mortar and online storefront will be appreciated by your gen x and boomer customers as well as your gen y customer. Gen y, gen x and boomer travelers are all influenced by style and trend, enjoy researching purchases and/or buying online, and want both the best price and the best service. The differences are in degree. Gen xers and gen ys have a very similar aesthetic sensibility, but gen xers have a nostalgic enjoyment of mall shopping that was never developed in the gen y consumer. While some boomer customers love to be on-trend, as a group they tend to be tolerant of or appreciate traditional, rather than fashion-forward, design. So the boomer and gen x customer will come see you despite a dated façade and a classic rather than fashion-forward product mix, but gen y won’t. Ask for help: many manufacturers including HEX provide fixtures and POP to their customers, and some will customize them to match the visual identity of your retail space. For example, HEX recently powder coated fixtures black to match the existing look of BrandsWalk in Orange County. Plan your layout so your gen y merchandise is front and center to let flashpackers know you have something for them from the minute they walk in the door. And whether you sell primarily in person or online, you won’t be able to beat the pricing and selection on Amazon, but you can you set yourself apart through customer service and shopping experience. Maravilla explains one tactic they use on their small e-commerce website: “every bag goes out with a handwritten note on Letterpress paper in a black envelope sealed with a logoed sticker.” Is there similar level of retail theater you can deploy that complements your store and sets you apart?
Does your online presence represent the best you?
NO, WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT match.com, we’re talking about whether your website and social media interactions draw millennials in, or turn them away. If you’re not sure, get an outside opinion of whether you need to update the cosmetic look of your website. Everyone can benefit by adding more useful content such as travel information and packing videos. Cobb puts it this way: “millennials are nearly hard-wired to shop on the internet. They enjoy online research to find a product that fits their specific needs at the lowest possible price, it’s like playing a video game for them. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have taken my phone out of my hand and said ‘Dad, let me find that for you. Let me get you the best price.’ Going to a mall to shop, that’s not their idea of fun. They are time starved, shopping online from their phone is one of their lifehacks.” Whether or not you sell online, make sure your website is content-rich in order to engage the treasure-hunting millennial and get them in your physical storefront. Set high standards for your website: “We work hard to make our online communications compelling and informative, we’re proud of the fact that many of our instructional videos average three and a half minutes of viewing time,” explained Cobb.
Start the conversation: enlist help to enhance your presence on social media
ENGAGE MILLENNIALS BY USING the right platform: concentrate on Instagram, with a smaller emphasis on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. You can use a free service like Hootsuite to pre-stage your social media communication across multiple platforms to push content out over a day or a week. Post images that tell a story or are educational, like a great packing tip or a favorite place to eat in Paris. Deemphasize product shots, unless they are extremely editorial, such as a bag with a wow graphic or feature. Carefully chosen friends and customers can “guest host” your social media account while they are traveling (this works best for Instagram). Krueger explains the EPIC Travelgear philosophy: “We view our company as a way to connect with people. The medium happens to be luggage, but that’s just a vehicle to share stories and communicate our point of view.” This carries over to the EPIC Travelgear social media strategy: “we’re in touch with the gen y traveler through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you engage with your customer on social media be ready to listen as well as talk. Be humble. Take feedback, fix problems. Don’t greenwash. If you aren’t authentic the gen y customer will call you out in a public way. But if you are real, if you focus on fun, they will embrace your brand.” Social media is also a key part of eBags’ marketing strategy. In Cobb’s experience “because of the millennials’ addiction to technology they’re relatively easy to engage if you create content that is up to their standards. When we have our handbag-a-day or backpack-a-day sweepstakes on Facebook, the most youth-oriented bags get the most likes and shares.” Jenn Simon from Sea to Summit has also found that “gen yers love any online contest or giveaway. They also are attracted to engaging promotions that involve photos and videos.” Coming up with interesting content is one of the challenges of having a social media presence. Krueger’s advice: “being involved with our local community is one of our values, and also a great way to generate social media content. We sponsor professional cycling teams, they’re an ideal billboard and testing ground for a travel company.” For manufacturers social media is also a key part of the product development process. Cobb shares that “we use social media not only for marketing but also product feedback and development ideas, which we combine with the reviews on our website to inform warranty, R&D and purchasing decisions. All of the thumbs-down reviews go to a group within the company, are passed along to customer service to make right, are compiled and given to our brand partners, and inform our in-house product development.” Two examples of luggage developed out of eBags’ social media feedback process are the aforementioned TLS Professional Weekender, and the TLS Mother Lode Weekender Junior, which was designed for people with a smaller frame and shorter torso. Retailers can comb through their online interactions to inform future buying decisions and respond to unhappy customers. Just make sure you have a staffing plan in place to reply to customer service queries that come in through social media.
Millennials and the future of the travel industry
IN INDUSTRIES SUCH AS YOGA, Skate, Surf, and Bike Messenger/Urban Cyclist there was a moment where the products associated with the activity became an everyday fashion statement. Yoga pants went to the coffee shop, surf trunks were worn to school in Kansas, university students rode fixed gear bikes to class, backpacking clothing became walking-around-Seattle clothing and businessmen took their lunch to work in messenger bags. This is also the moment when people in those industries went from making a little money to making huge amounts of money. And in the same way, a luggage store could become a Travel Lifestyle store. All of these examples have a demographic in common: they were created by style conscious gen x consumers. The gen y customer is now driving retail sales, with the same potential impact in the industries most closely associated with a millennial’s sense of self. Travel consumers are universally proud of their status as world citizens. If you invest in merchandise your customers can buy and use year round, not just on trips, you give them the opportunity for (what a sociologist would call) enforcing self-concept through product symbolism. In English, that means they’ll wear a stylish travel wrap at the office and explain that they bought it for their last transatlantic flight. When they pull out their RFID blocking wallet they can tell the guys they need it for jaunts around Asia. And they can visit you between trips to buy more lifestyle items that they hope to use for travel…someday.
This article originally appeared in the Winter issue of Travel Goods Showcase.
Luggage Obsessed
Good news bad news: I edited my first magazine, the business issue of Travel Goods Showcase. And now I’m obsessed with luggage and travel accessories, and all I want to do is jump on a plane to somewhere fabulous.
Check out travel trends and new travel products at the Travel Goods Association website.