marketing baby boomer travel
Sailaway to Alaska aboard the Disney Wonder. Photo from Disney Cruise Lines
When my wife and I took a Disney cruise to Alaska last summer — sans kids, who are now grown — we weren’t sure if we would feel out of place on a Disney vessel. We had enjoyed all the usual Disney entertainments when our kids were young, but how would we fare as a couple on the Disney Wonder, sailing through Alaska’s Inside Passage?
Would we be overwhelmed with small children in the swimming pool and dining rooms, and besieged by roaming Mickeys and Minnies?
We needn’t have worried. While Disney cruises are certainly as family-friendly as you would expect, with far more kids sailing with Disney than on the average Alaska cruise, Disney is expert at balancing the needs and desires of different ages and interests — just one way in which they are expert… Continue reading
Cape Town offers spectacular coastal scenery. Photo from Cape Town Travel
Teaming with the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, Cape Town Tourism invited Facebook users to send their virtual profiles on a “holiday” to Cape Town.
Based on users’ answers to various questions, their Facebook profiles could then experience customized itineraries in the South African city, with the players receiving regular illustrated updates on how their profiles were spending their virtual time seeing the sights and perhaps relaxing at the beach.
Those enrolled in the game — more than 8,000 players in all, who hailed from South Africa, the UK, the U.S., Canada, India, Germany and elsewhere —… Continue reading
Explore Europe on your own on a Rick Steves “My Way” tour. Photo by Catharine Norton
The recent well-publicized flap about George Zimmer — founder and longtime TV pitchman for the Men’s Wearhouse — being fired by the company he started got me thinking about the power of personality in travel product branding.
Zimmer and other celebrated pitchmen — notably KFC’s Colonel Sanders, Frank Perdue of Perdue Farms chicken fame, Wendy’s hamburgers Dave Thomas and popcorn king Orville Redenbacher — all became the public face of the companies they founded.
And when they died or became too old or too controversial and were no longer able or considered suitable to serve in that role, their companies all suffered to one degree or another. (This New York Times piece offers good background on the topic.)
I had to think a bit before coming up with an equivalent personality… Continue reading
Overlooking the Atlantic in Casablanca, Morocco — a baby boomer favorite destination. Photo by Clark Norton
It’s been a widely accepted premise in the travel industry for years that Americans want shorter vacation options. The classic two-week vacation of days of yore has gone the way of nickel candy bars and Cokes, a relic of the 1950s. (Yes, folks, there once were such things as nickel candy bars and Cokes.)
In its place are “long weekend” trips or — if the traveler is really fortunate — a week to get away and recharge. Everyone is too busy, office work is piling up, the kids have to get back for soccer practice, the dog is lonely — all the usual reasons in a stressed-out society.
Understandably, the travel industry has responded by offering shorter tours, long weekend getaway packages, and other ways to feign a true travel experience without using… Continue reading
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