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Summer Travel Worth Celebrating Business is booming in the travel sector and summer is promising to break records as leisure travelers get set to vacation. Wednesday, June 13, 2012 Francine Cohen

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The start of the summer season means Best Western is once again marshaling their hands-on research to identify summer leisure travel trends and present their findings to the industry.  This year's Best Western Travel Summit, which included experts from AAA the US Travel Association, was lucky number seven; standing out in a sea of economic bad news as this year's prognostication is some of the best hospitality industry news heard in a long time.

Featuring a look at leisure travel and its advance summer booking stats, a summer of deals and how brands are using loyalty programs to court travelers in 2012, the impact of rising gas prices on travel, an exploration of those destinations travelers are headed this summer season, and Brand USA and its impact on U.S. tourism, the news kicked off with a very nice statistic- 87 percent Americans will take more or same number of trips they planned last year. Dorothy Dowling, SVP Marketing and Sales, Best Western International confirms, "Summer travel is stronger than ever.”


Gary Oster, U.S. Travel Association’s SVP, Business Development concurs.  He realizes that its consumer confidence that’s going to drive a return of the leisure traveler in 2012 and says, “If you take a look at the changes happening from 2008 to 2012 you’ll see, we're on a significant upswing.”   

Over at AAA they are expecting their members to be driving this trend forward as Bill Sutherland, AAA Vice President, Travel Services, comments, “Our Memorial Day forecast was just released and we’re predicting an increase in this year’s Memorial Day travel [over last year’s], and expecting it to continue into the summer.”

He continues, “The traveler’s theme has changed from last year when they were sick and tired of waiting for the economy to turn around.  This year they’ve decided they are going to go, they are looking for value and have approached it with the ‘I’ll alter behavior about how I travel.’ outlook.”  Downing adds, “We are seeing a much more discerning traveler.”

Luxury travel, which took the biggest hit of all, seems to be coming back strong.  Of all travelers changing their approach to leaving home, Sutherland sees a seismic shift in the segment of travelers with a household income of $100,000 or more; they’re the largest growth segment.  He notes, “There’s some behavior changing.  They may cut
back slightly on entertainment or dining and reduce the length of stay or downgrade their usual hotel level, but they are not saying they aren’t going to go.”

Oster and his team realize the success behind the growth of this segment of traveler is attributable to, as he says, “There are plenty of incentives for travelers to try out in the marketplace.”  Sutherland adds, “Trends are pointing to value.”  For instance, car rental prices are approximately 4 percent less than they were in 2011.  And that’s just the benefit one sees when finally making the decision to travel.  Downing comments, “There’s tremendous increase in promotions; we’ve seen 20 percent growth year over year.”  That number certainly makes sense when you realize that the average traveler visits 27 websites before making a decision and booking their trip.

These trips are happening online before anyone ever gets in the car or arrives at the airport and that’s where the difference needs to be made; connecting through the computer or a mobile device or an app is the first successful step to capturing these revitalized travel dollars.  Sutherland notes, “We just built AAAvacations which offers new products.  Even non-members can walk in and book our benefits.
If we can help traveler with more effective planning we can help them have a better travel experience.” 

Domestic travel growth is experiencing a boom past international travel and our hoteliers, tourism boards, and local businesses couldn’t be happier.  And they should remain so.  But they also need to keep their eye on the prize…keeping guests happy.  That happens in a number of ways, customer service being a big point of differentiation between a great stay that engenders a return visit or positive review, and an experience that’s perhaps best forgotten.  On those elements that are crucial to a pleasant stay, like Wi-Fi which is the number one driver for amenities, Downing comments, “We, like many brands, try to align ourselves with travelers.  We want customers to understand they’ve got the assurance of a good experience.  We focus on customer care as opposed to customer service; the difference is accountability.  It’s a business delivered by human beings.  If anything [unsatisfactory] happens we want to deal with it immediately.”

Keeping that guest satisfied, and hopefully a loyal customer, is one purpose of loyalty programs.  Many of them have been maligned in the past for being too complicated to get much benefit from, unless you’re a road warrior, but with leisure travel on the rise some good news is on the horizon.  Downing explains, “We are continuing to see the power of loyalty programs.  13 million people are members and that reflects an 18% year over year growth.”

She continues, “The loyalty program is a great way to communicate value, to let travelers know that they will always find the best price on brand.com.  But you also need to ask, is there something meaningful they can redeem for?  Ubiquity of redemption is important.  Whether it’s points, certificates or stays they want to be rewarded and thanked for their business and that's what our loyalty programs do.”

It’s often a thankless job traveling regularly for business.  Oster realizes that and he’s a huge proponent of the proposed Trusted Traveler initiative that enables pre-screened and approved travelers to circumvent long lines at the airport.  He also sees the hassle of air travel having a negative impact on leisure travelers, both US and those from abroad, and is working hard to make a change.  He remarks, “We should take more care at the point of entry.  Our travelers want to enjoy their trip, not be frazzled.”

Frazzled travelers aren’t as open to opening their wallet and shopping as they could be. With international travelers staying in the US an average of 17 nights and spending an average of $4,300 per person, our gateway cities, and the people manning them, should do everything they can to make the point of arrival pleasant and welcoming.

We’ll know if we’re succeeding at this by tracking social media.  Which sounds a little odd to folks who relied on advertising and conversion rates to keep tabs on whether their media buys were worth the spend.  Odd because the ROI isn’t quite as clear cut; but the trends are.  And the reaction time is faster.  This is a great thing in this “need it now” world.  Downing notes, “Understanding the voice of our customer is the future.  At Best Western a significant part of our social strategy is to monitor conversations about our brand.  We get a measure of engagement.”  Oster confirms that’s a wise and profitable approach as he says about social media tracking, “Its real time solutions to problems, monitoring the conversations.   It helps you shape as a business person how you're going to do business.”

While business continues to look up for the immediate future as indicated by this Memorial Day weekend kick-off, the months beyond hold great promise too as Sutherland concludes, “Americans are resilient and resourceful.  They will find a way to take a vacation.  And together we are going to find a way to give them the best vacation we can.”