Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Price
As families are more price sensitive today (Yeoman, 2012) and will keenly
understand differences in service offers, suppliers must be able to segment
tourists by value and life cycle in order to build a relationship and encourage
repeat purchase at different life-stages. Suppliers should consider loyalty
schemes or cash-back offers for those regular and repeat purchase tourists.
For example, having found that more and more customers were wishing to
holiday with both children and grandparents together, Eurocamp, a holiday
accommodation company, decided to waive the adult fee for grandparents
who share the same accommodation as the rest of their family. Where
consumers want difference and activity, the trend towards healthy activity
is important and providers should focus on the values, safety and benefits
of doing such activity. According to research by VisitEngland (2011), as the
global financial crisis deepened, pessimism about the economy grew, and
therefore the trend towards the 'staycation' picked up pace, with two in 10
consumers taking a short break in England in 2010 rather than going abroad.
In particular, 18-34-year-olds were more likely to staycation.
Family bond
Research by Mintel (2009) suggests that the family leisure time is shrinking.
Families have less time to relax and play together; therefore time together
becomes the new luxury (Yeoman, 2008) and tourism is the facilitator of
quality time. As a consequence, family tourism has an opportunity to be the
social glue that increases the opportunity for family interaction. Indepen-
dent domestic holidaymakers simply want to relax and unwind and hand
over childcare to someone else. Parents who go on package family breaks are
the most likely to spend time with their children (Mintel, 2009). The same
can be said for family consumers who go on short breaks, although they are
slightly more inclined to choose to relinquish childcare to someone else, who
is likely to be a trusted friend or relative. Therefore, tourist businesses can no
longer differentiate themselves based on price alone and need to formulate
distinctive approaches to target different family holidaymaker types. Facili-
ties alone are insufficient to attract all segments of the family market. Clear
and different messages for each target group are essential. For instance,
companies targeting independent family holidaymakers should emphasise
the opportunities for parents to relax and unwind without the children.
Ageing population
As society ages, the elderly population has an important caregiving role
in looking after children. Closer bonding between young and old (as
illustrated by the Disney-Pixar film
Up -
http://adisney.go.com/disney
videos/ animated films/up) is an important social phenomenon, along
