baby boomers and tourism
Today I received a disheartening email from the director of the Cyprus Tourism Organization office in New York City.
The CTO is permanently closing the office as an apparent money-saving measure.
Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean, is closing its New York tourist office.
The Republic of Cyprus, like Greece and some other southern European countries, has been undergoing fiscal crisis of late, and I’m sure that keeping a New York office in operation has proved expensive.
Still, this action seems incredibly short-sighted to me.
Cyprus is one of the most alluring countries to visit in all of Europe, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s off the beaten track and overlooked by most Americans.
The island is a popular sun-and-sea escape for northern Europeans, but there’s much more to see and do there than beach life.
It has an amazing history, occupying a… Continue reading
Back in the 1980s, Ward Luthi — an experienced Outward Bound instructor and adventure tour guide — served on the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors. The commission, he says, found that “active outdoor travel was rated one of the top three goals of older adults.”
Walking the World trips are limited to those aged 50-plus — who are mostly baby boomers. Photo from Walking the World.
Based on the commission’s findings, Luthi in 1987 founded Walking the World, which he says was the first company to offer active outdoor adventures just for those aged 50 and above in the U.S.
It was a prescient move, because with almost all the 76 million U.S. baby boomers — the most active generation of older travelers ever — now reaching 50-plus (the youngest boomers are 49), Luthi’s target market is growing exponentially.
I’ll be talking more about Walking the World tomorrow and… Continue reading
Stan Bahnsen in his New York Yankee pitching heyday
Hey, baby boomer baseball fans: Anybody remember former stars like Frank Howard, Ferguson Jenkins, Tommy Davis and Ken Griffey, Sr.?
Of course you do. And MSC Cruises has figured out a way for you to meet them on their long-running series of Baseball Greats Cruises, now in their ninth year.
Organized and hosted by ex-Yankees pitcher Stan Bahnsen, the Baseball Greats Cruises run from November to April or May each year, forming a kind of high seas hot stove league.
Passengers get to mix and mingle with the greats, who mostly vary for each cruise — 17 different players, along with Bahnsen, will appear during five cruises between November 2013 and May 2014.
Highlights include autograph sessions, baseball trivia, pitching contests, baseball skills clinics, storytelling, question and answer sessions, and bonuses like blooper films and baseball movies. Passengers… Continue reading
What boomers want most when they travel?
I haven’t seen the full study, but the online market research firm Lab42 has released this tantalizing tidbit from a recent survey of 500 “social savvy” baby boomers — that is, who use social media — who plan to take a vacation in 2013:
Forty one percent of those surveyed said they were willing to spend more money to “stay more comfortably” in their lodgings at the expense of other aspects of the trip — presumably things like restaurants, transportation, sightseeing and other activities.
This compares to just one-quarter of those surveyed who said they would spend less on accommodations in order to spend more on other aspects of the trip, and a third who said they gave no consideration to the cost of overnight accommodations.
If I ran a luxury resort or hotel, this would have to be good news.
First, I… Continue reading
Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave
I hope that by now most travel agents realize the power of baby boomers in the travel market, but if not, I hope they’ll listen to these words from Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave (which has tracked boomer trends for decades), as he addressed a group of agents at a recent conference:
Baby boomers, Dychtwald told the agents, as reported in this piece from Travel Weekly, are the catalyst of “an entirely new era” for the travel industry.
Boomers have the money to travel, they want to travel, and they increasingly have the time to travel, as more and more reach retirement age, Dychtwald said. They bring their families along on their trips, too.
And boomers are looking for something different when they hit the road.
“There is an appetite for newness,” Dychtwald told the agents, “for different experiences that… Continue reading
Baby boomer women exult after conquering Haleakala volcano on Maui, by bike. Photo courtesy of boldlygosolo.com
When it comes to vacation spending decisions in America, it seems, women rule. Especially baby boomer women.
Women definitely have the wealth. Those age 50 and older have a net worth of $19 trillion, and control more than three-quarters of the financial wealth in the U.S., according to a Mass Mutual Financial Group report. In turn, these same women spend 2 1/2 times that of the average American.
According to statistics from the she-conomy blog, written by Stephanie Holland of Holland and Holland Advertising, women in general account for 85 percent of all consumer purchases in the U.S. — and 92 percent of vacation spending.
To repeat: women spend more than nine out of ten vacation dollars.
That means that marketers should pay serious attention to women travelers. But many women say… Continue reading
I don’t think it had happened to me more than once before in decades of eating in restaurants, but it happened twice in the past three days during my vacation at the Jersey Shore:
A server carrying a tray of drinks to my table spilled some of them onto my lap.
Ocean City, NJ — great resort town, but prepare to get wet
In the first instance, at dinner, the spills were a glass of water and a glass of wine — thankfully white wine.
In the second case, at breakfast in a different restaurant, it was a glass of water.
Both restaurants were casual but nice places, with medium-range prices.
In both cases, the servers apologized profusely, and everyone at the tables — including me — assured them that no real harm was done.
Certainly, it could have been worse:
At dinner I was wearing jeans and a polo… Continue reading
An aerial ad flies over the Ocean City, NJ, beach. Photo by Clark Norton
Ever since my family and I have been coming to the Jersey Shore in summer — off and on for more than 30 years — I’ve spent a few minutes each beach day staring up at the sky as small planes tow intriguing banners with messages advertising various places to eat, drink and otherwise spend your money.
Such as: “$1 beer every Monday night at Captain Bob’s Brew Dock!”
Or: “Try Luigi’s for the Best Lasagna in South Jersey!”
Or: “Empty Your Wallet at the Trump Palace in Atlantic City!”
Well, I made that last one up, though it would constitute truth in advertising.
I’ve often wondered, though, just how much effectiveness such ads have — do they really rake in enough customers that it pays for Luigi to hire a small plane for, say, a… Continue reading
Bicycling is great exercise for baby boomers, who may find running to be too hard on the knees, surfing too fraught with teenagers, golf too pricey and frustrating, and hula-hooping just all-around too embarrassing.
With cycling, though, it’s easy to just hop on a bike and take off. Of course, it’s good to have someplace safe to ride.
Bicycles are much in evidence around Ocean City, NJ. Photo by Clark Norton
Ocean City, New Jersey, on the lower stretches of the Jersey Shore south of Atlantic City, knows how to make cycling safe and appealing, which helps keep people out of cars and improve physical fitness and air quality as well. Its longtime slogan “America’s Greatest Family Resort” is morphing into “America’s Greenest Family Resort.”
A bike lane (and walking/jogging lane) runs along the south side of the beautiful new bridge that connects Ocean City to Somers Point on the… Continue reading
The MS Europa 2. Photo from Hapag-LLoyd.
I’m onboard the Europa 2, Hapag-Lloyd’s new luxury cruise ship, sailing from Sicily to Sardinia in the western Mediterranean.
One of the afternoon offerings onboard is a meat seminar featuring Wolfgang Otto, one of three German brothers who recognized a need in Germany and decided to fill it: supplying Germany’s finest Michelin-rated restaurants with top-quality beef and pork.
Otto admitted to me and the other baby boomers onboard that just eight years ago he knew very little about meat, yet today his family’s company, Otto Gourmet, is regarded as the top beef and pork purveyor in Germany. Kobe cattle and Iberico pig are two of the products they distribute to both top restaurants and private customers.
For enlightenment on the subject, he and his brothers first turned to a Nebraska rancher, Dan Morgan, who taught them the finer points of how to… Continue reading
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