Baby boomer travel
The Isaac H. Evans sails the Maine coast. Photo from Maine Windjammer Association
Brenda Thomas, the hard-working but fun-loving captain of the historic Maine Windjammer Isaac H. Evans, may or may not think of herself as a travel marketer, but she’s a good one.
During the Evans’ four-month annual summer season, when it plies the Maine coast and scenic Penobscot Bay — anchoring in secluded coves, visiting small islands and offering views of lighthouses and marine life — Thomas offers a number of specialty cruises that seem tailor-made for baby boomers.
Chocolate Lovers Cruise? Check.
Knitting Cruise? Check.
Lighthouse cruise? Check.
Perseid Meteor Shower cruise? Check.
Puffin Cruise? Check.
“Old Salts” cruise? Well, maybe “Older Than We Once Were Salts” cruise. Check.
Music Cruise With Hank Cramer? I have no idea who Hank Cramer is, but what the heck…check.
Lobster Festival? Double check.
Even Thomas’ swashbuckling Pirate Adventure cruises… Continue reading
AARP: The Magazine — has long since replaced “Modern Maturity”
“Senior citizens.”
“Retirees.”
“Aging.”
“Golden Years.”
“Silver Years.”
“Mature.”
“Prime Time of Life.”
Seven terms that a very perceptive academic journal article (by Kaylene C. Williams of Cal State-Stanislaus and Robert A. Page of Southern Connecticut State University) warns marketers against ever using when trying to appeal to baby boomers.
I would add another: “elder.” (See my post on why the non-profit tour operator Road Scholar was wise to change its name from Elderhostel.)
Why? I’ve made this point in previous posts and will make it again: most boomers — some of whom are turning 67 this year — do not consider themselves old. And if they secretly think they’re getting old, they don’t want to admit it, even to themselves.
Remember, leading-edge boomers, who came of age in the 1960s, didn’t want to trust anyone over… Continue reading
RVs for sale — and baby boomers are buying.
The recent news that the Winnebago company — which makes motor homes — nearly doubled its profits in the 2013 spring quarter is just the latest indication that the baby boomer recreational vehicle boom is in full gear.
Winnebago motor home sales jumped more than 50 percent in the same quarter, while trailer sales jumped 10 percent.
Some 9 million U.S. households — 8.5 percent — now own RVs, and the number is growing rapidly. One out of every six U.S. households say they have future plans to buy an RV.
Baby boomers — the youngest of whom are now nearly 50 years old — are Winnebago’s and other RV manufacturers’ biggest customers. And with many of the oldest boomers (now 67) retiring or nearing retirement, they’re devoting more and more time to travel.
RV owners average more than a… Continue reading
Captain Cook Cruises’ 130-passenger vessel sails through Fiji. Photo by Clark Norton
Possibly due in part to recent bad publicity about large ocean cruising vessels gone wrong, travel agents are seeing an upsurge in interest in small ship and river cruising, according to an internal American Express Travel survey released during a recent cruise industry conference in Vancouver.
The survey of 250 Amex agents showed that 38 percent of them ranked small ship cruises as their highest-demand voyages, followed by megaships at 31 percent and river cruises at 27 percent.
This dovetails with my own surveys of baby boomer travelers, who have often told me they would never consider taking a cruise — until I ask about small ship and river cruises. Then I often get this kind of reply: “Oh, those are different — I’d try them.”
Megaships carrying thousands of passengers — with their myriad on-board activities, entertainments,… Continue reading
Boomers on a ROW Adventures river trip. Photo from ROW Adventures
If you want to know how important boomers are to adventure travel tour operators, ask Peter Grubb of Idaho-based ROW Adventures, which was named Travel and Leisure’s top tour operator for 2012.
“VERY important,” Grubb told me, especially since most of ROW’s international trips are comprised primarily of members of the baby boomer generation, now aged 49-67. International trips may range from sea kayaking in Baja and whale watching in British Columbia to snorkeling in the Galapagos and venturing to Machu Picchu. Boomers, he notes, often have more time and money to spend on such trips than other groups.
Boomers also join many of ROW’s domestic adventure trips, which include rafting, hiking, kayaking and canoeing in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. (ROW began as a small Idaho river-rafting operation 34 years ago and has expanded rapidly over the past… Continue reading
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
Does it pay to create a baby boomer travel niche — to market only to baby boomer travelers?
Brian Luckhurst of homexchange50plus.com believes it does.
I’ve been lucky to “meet” Brian (in a virtual sense) through this blog. Brian and his wife Catriona live in London, England, and started their home exchange website four years ago, as a way to create an online business they could run when they retired. Because there was already a fair amount of competition in the market, they decided to specialize and aim just for baby boomers — the 50-plus crowd.
And they advertised that fact right in their domain name, so that all those searching for 50-plus travel could find it and know immediately that the site was targeted to them. (Members pay a small fee to list their home on the site and view other members’ homes for potential exchange.)… 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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