Hotels and destinations are busy trying to woo millennial travellers, but they are not a monolithic group and their vacation patterns this year are skewing in opposing directions.
While 40 percent of respondents in a TripAdvisor survey of 32 countries indicated they plan on increasing their vacation budgets in 2015, nearly 50 percent of the millennials who responded that they intend to spend more on their vacations said they will do so because they are travelling somewhere on their bucket list.
In this TripBarometer March 2015 Global Travel Economy Report, millennials, defined as people 18 to 34 years old, were the most-frequent group to cite the bucket list factor as the reason they believe their travel budget will increase in 2015.
Some 42 percent of survey respondents — not just millennials — noted that the reason they plan on increasing their vacation budget is because their families deserve it. Roughly 60 percent of both families and Indonesian travellers, in particular, gave this reason for upping their vacation budgets in 2015, too.
Not All Millennials are Created Equal
While 40 percent of the respondents globally in the survey indicated they plan on increasing their vacation budgets in 2015, 25 percent said they plan to keep the budget the same as in 2014, and 25 percent noted they intend to reduce their vacation budgets this year.
If some millennials are increasing their vacation budgets to cross off destinations on what TripAdvisor calls their “wish lists,” some 38 percent of millennials who stated they are reducing their vacation budgets indicated that their vacation budgets are being downsized because they haven’t saved enough money.
Source: TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer March 2015 Global Travel Economy Report
In fact, millennials were the most likely group in the survey to cite financial constraints as the reason they were reducing their vacation budgets this year. Just 31 percent of respondents as a whole cited this reason compared with 38 percent of the millennials who stated their vacation budgets would be lower in 2015.
Some 30 percent of millennials who indicated in the survey they would be reducing their vacation budgets in 2015 noted they would be traveling this year to less expensive countries as a result. Just 27 percent of the vacation-budget downsizes as a whole indicated that cheaper destinations would be in their plans.
Ipsos MORI conducted TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer survey, carrying out the fieldwork from January 16 to February 2, 2015. The consumer research took place in 32 countries and primarily consisted of a pop-up link on TripAdvisor sites in those markets. Ipsos’ online panels bolstered the sample sizes in some countries where needed.
The Great Divide
As might be expected, vacation budget trends vary widely by country.
South Africa, Thailand and Argentina could boast of travelers who were three to four times more likely than survey respondents as a whole to increase their vacation budgets.
The survey found that Russia, hit by Western sanctions and the decline of the ruble, and Greece, feeling the crush of austerity measures and pressure on the euro, were the only two countries with travelers more likely to downsize their vacation budgets rather than beefing them up.
Source: TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer March 2015 Global Travel Economy Report
Source: Skift