Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Earlier this year, several research shops predicted the return of business travel. The corporate travel budget may be back but expenditures are still carefully watched. To eke out as much profit as possible, hotels are now being encouraged to target women travelers. This group exhibits different travel patterns and looks for different features when compared to male business travelers.

The accommodations industry is beginning to emerge from a long downturn in both business and leisure travel. Operators are turning to new media formats to promote their best features and to engage with customers. That strategy may work well for trendy resorts in downtown locales or vacation destinations. But for bed & breakfast inn operators, the key to new business is all about emphasizing the right details in a marketing campaign.

According to a recent MarketTools study on travelers’ flying experiences over the past six months, 43% of the passengers were not specifically “satisfied” with comfort aboard the plane, 41% were not satisfied with ticket prices and fees, and 34% were not satisfied with in-flight service. The study also showed that a growing number of travelers are using social media channels to voice their complaints about airlines, indicating that airlines should be paying much closer attention to the voice of the customer in social media channels.

Now that consumers are traveling again, hotel, motels, and bed and breakfast inns are marketing hard for new business. At the same time, marketing tools that have become available to merchants offering accommodations have changed significantly. Operators say they’re adjusting their strategies to stay current with consumer interests.

The travel market is slowly coming back from historic lows experienced during the Great Recession. And specific segments of the population are spending more on leisure travel than others. To reach these consumers, travel agents will need to roll out key services.

On average, U.S. consumers are planning to take slightly fewer vacation trips this summer than last, 1.6 excursions versus 1.8. But a larger percentage of one demographic group – lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) consumers, plans to take between 1-2 trips this summer. In addition, these consumers say they’ll increase their spending while on vacation. Other consumer groups plan a slight decrease in spending.