baby boomer travel
A Galapagos iguana, best seen on a stress-free guided trip. Photo by Clark Norton
Do you come back from vacation more stressed out than when you left?
Based on a survey of world travelers by author Shawn Achor and “happiness researcher” Michelle Gieland from the Institute of Applied Positive Research, “poorly planned and stressful vacations eliminate the positive benefit of time away,” as Achor recently wrote in the Harvard Business Review.
(See my previous post on travel and happiness for more detail on these findings.)
Achor contends there are four main ingredients that you should add to your vacation mix to result in a happy travel experience:
* “Focus on the details”: Nearly three quarters of travelers found the most stressful part of travel to be “figuring out the details,” according to Achor. “Travel uncertainty, transportation, wasting time figuring things out on the trip, and being unfamiliar with the location”… Continue reading
Keeping track of your passport can mean the difference between a great trip and a disaster.
The recent news about the two passengers with stolen passports boarding the missing Malaysian Airlines jet has gotten me thinking about how important it is for international travelers to keep track of their passports — and pay attention to possible problems with these vital documents that could severely impede their journeys.
Years ago, when I was traveling in Austria, I thought my passport had been lost or stolen. I spent an entire day trying to retrace my every step since I had arrived in Vienna — restaurants, movie theater, museums — with no luck, then a couple of more days caught in a bureaucratic nightmare: filing a report with the Vienna police, applying for and receiving a temporary passport from the U.S. consulate there, and, in the interim, trying unsuccessfully without my documentation to… Continue reading
Boomers — especially boomer women — book more travel online than any other group. Photo from Adventure Women
I’ve come across some statistics that should of interest to any travel marketers who wonder whether to reach out to women, boomers — and boomer women in particular.
In a previous post, I wrote about how boomer women spend the most money on travel.
Now, new findings show that if you’re basing a travel marketing campaign on social media, it pays to aim it toward women.
With the exception of Linked In, where the majority of users are men, women dominate social media in the U.S., according to findings published at FinancesOnline.com (compiled from reports by the Pew Research Center and others).
Here are the stats: about three-quarters of adult women in the U.S. use Facebook, compared to two-thirds of the adult men.
For Pinterest, women outnumber men 33 percent… Continue reading
New York’s LaGuardia Airport — sometimes saving money just isn’t worth it.
Booking airplane flights these days is one of the most confusing and potentially aggravating of all travel activities, which is why a lot of folks just leave it to travel agents.
But since I can do it myself online, I do. Just like millions of other passengers — including lots of baby boomers — I like the sense of control.
But how much control do we really have? Dotcom sites like kayak, skyscanner, priceline, hotwire, Expedia, Orbitz, CheapoAir, etc. etc. will all give you a range of prices, but they’re only good for that particular time — they can change (often drastically) day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute.
Sometimes you find a great fare only to learn a few minutes later that it’s sold out — but wouldn’t you like to book this other… Continue reading
Many European trains have dramatic views. Photo from Brendan Vacations
Like many baby boomers, when I was in my 20s I spent a lot of time — sometimes months at a time — riding European trains.
On shorter trips, when I would purchase separate tickets from one point to the next, I would always travel second class, and had some memorable experiences meeting the locals — and, from time to time, having to sleep in the corridors because the trains were so packed.
Once, riding the Spanish trains between Malaga and Barcelona, I spent 24 hours without a seat, standing up, lying down when possible, but having a blast sharing food and drink with my fellow seatless passengers, trying as best we could to understand each other in our respective broken Spanish and English. (Remember, I was in my 20s.)
But on my longer trips around Europe, I would buy… Continue reading
Travel seminars were popular at the New York Times Travel Show held Feb. 28-March 2, 2014, at the Javits Center.
The keynote panel on travel industry trade day at the New York Times Travel Show in Manhattan this past weekend was made up of travel agents and their representatives, and they had one plea to the public: We haven’t gone away!
Apparently a good percentage of the public thinks travel agents have gone the way of the dinosaurs or at least print newsweeklies, on the seriously endangered list.
Stark statistics were presented: while use of traditional travel agents for booking trips is up 18 percent over the past three years, only 13 percent of the public uses them to book leisure trips, and only 16 percent use them on the business side.
The Internet, of course, is the culprit, encroaching more and more on travel agent territory since the late… Continue reading
Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas should wow cruisers with its “virtual balconies” offering sea views to occupants of inside cabins. Photo from Daily Telegraph.
At the “What’s New in the Cruising World” industry trade seminar at the New York Times Travel Show in Manhattan this weekend, representatives from six major mainstream and premium cruise lines talked up some innovations that cruisers can expect to find on their latest ships in 2014.
The six did their best to try to wow travel agents (and some from the media) and get them fired up to sell and promote the new cruise season, which should be of interest to many cruise-loving baby boomers — and to some new cruise converts as well.
The innovation that impressed me most was Royal Caribbean’s “virtual balcony,” coming to its Quantum of the Seas ship scheduled to debut later this year.
What’s a “virtual balcony?” Well,… Continue reading
Ryanair is not known for its comfort, but at these prices…photo from Alamy
British newspapers and travel trade publications are all abuzz with the news that the CEO of Ryanair, the cut-rate European airline, plans to offer flights to New York and Boston from a number of European cities for prices as low as 10 euros per seat.
That’s about U.S.$13.70 by today’s exchange rates. Flights back to Europe would cost even less, about U.S.$10.
Not bad. Of course, there are some caveats.
First, Ryanair will have to buy up to 50 long-haul aircraft to make the flights worthwhile, and that could take several years.
Second, not all the seats on the plane would be that cheap. “There will also need to be a very high number of business or premium seats,” the CEO, Michael O’Leary, told the Irish Hotels Federation in Meath, Ireland, where he made the announcement.… Continue reading
Boomers are willing to spend to take experiential trips such as walking tours in Ireland. Photo from Walking the World
While travel industry advertisers continue to pursue the Millennial market — perfectly reasonable, considering that the Millennial generation is the future — it makes no sense to overlook the currently booming baby boomer travel market.
Here are some statistics — gathered from both government and private research surveys — to ponder if you think boomers (now aged 50-68) are over the hill, travel-wise, and are largely staying at home, maybe watching TV or tending their flower gardens:
* Adults over age 50 account for four out of every five dollars spent on luxury travel in America
* Adults 55 and older spend half of all vacation dollars in the U.S.
* Baby boomers make most of their major purchases, including big-ticket travel items, over the Internet, and spend two hours… Continue reading
Spurred by saturation TV coverage of poker tournaments that rival more physical sports for high-stakes drama, poker’s popularity has exploded throughout the U.S. in recent years.
And baby boomers are in the thick of the action. But what are the top spots to play in the country? Here are America’s top three poker-playing locations for traveling boomers:
Harrah’s Casino in Tunica, Mississippi.
Tunica, Mississippi
The once impoverished town of Tunica, Mississippi, suddenly turned its fortunes around a few years ago and emerged as America’s third largest casino region (after Las Vegas and Atlantic City).
Located just 30 minutes from Memphis, Tunica offers avant-garde poker rooms, no-limit gaming, and warm Southern hospitality. Harrah’s Hotel and Casino, Hollywood Casino, and Bally’s are among the most popular places to play poker here. The Senior Poker Tour (SPT) at the Horseshoe Casino Tunica has made the town even more appealing. Launched in January… Continue reading
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