Every year there are a plethora of reports, predictions, crystal balling and studies commissioned by various agencies for various agencies for a variety of hidden meanings and… you get the picture.
Long reports with pretty pictographs prophesizing the future.
I’m fortunate to have an eager reader as a Ukranian partner (Tetyana’s dad is a professor of English at a prestigious university in Eastern Europe) who forwards me a selection of readings, Youtubes and cat pictures with memes. So cute!
One of these reports, “Top 10 global consumer trends for 2015” as written by Daphne Kasriel-Alexander started us reading and discussing some of these trends with respects to agents.
Whilst relevancy varied for our different markets and locale’s, there was some pretty amazing common ground.
We read more, we discussed lots and here’s five relevant consumer trends.
1. Consumption “heart driven”
Definition: making decision because they want now, because they want to feel good about their choices, the triple bottom line, giving whilst receiving, minimalizing.
For agents: economic doom and gloom is maybe getting tiring. Sure, it might come crashing down, but like happened in New Zealand last year, people just said “F^&* it, we’re going on a holiday anyway”.
Any smart agency is also thinking triple bottom line. There is A LOT of this going on right now. Get on board.
2. Buying for time sakes
Definition: wanting to save time, wanting service, don’t waste my time, make it easy, make it happen, one point of contact.
For agents: it seems an opposite, but really, there has never been a better time to say “really, you were happy to spend 12 hours on the internet to plan a high risk holiday… or you could have called us once, dropped in once, read a few emails and BAM, two hours effort, better holiday, lower risk, planned by the expert and time of your life.” Loser: OTA’s.
3. High streets are back, baby
Definition: the community is a hub, local people, a local flavor, a local investment, my place… not a faceless soulless entity inside a massive mall where I can’t find you.
For Agents: Cray cray rents in massive glitzy malls with no guarantee of exclusivity. Its shifting back to the mobile agent who meets you at a local raw food shop over a kale smoothie and plans your honeymoon on their iPad whilst downing a protein ball. Do you need the big shop or a fresh venue every week?
4. What, you aren’t doing video?
Definition: not everyone can make a viral video involving a cat, a fish, a raw chicken and a cigarette. But Vloggers are on the rise and challenging commercial norms of entertainment.
For agents: why not talk about your trip? Sit on a beach with a SSD Go Pro, bang out a freewheeling script on that famil, intersperse with some scenery and a few standard effects , drop in some stills and next time they can you send me a brochure, send them a link instead.
5. Dealing with millennials
Definition: digital natives, the 2.6 billion people between 12 and 32, those annoying ones you are struggling to connect with.
For Agents: think more about the 22 to 28 year olds. Spending less on assets and more and travel.
Truth is, Whilst they were sucking down a kale smoothie over an organic steam driven hookah pipe and preening their beards, they have already decided travel agents are so 2013.
Let them use booking.com and complain like hell once they realise the error of their ways. Just be nice to them when they come back and offer the privilege of making $23 on a multi segment flight
So where to from here? How do you tap into all that is 2015 and beyond?
Find a hipster, get them on board.