Online Revealed

Boomer Women – The Tourism Industry’s Newest “Purse-onality!”
By Patricia Brusha

At the end of 2008 I will turn 50 and become an official member of the club “Boomer Women.” Recognizing that this is not my mother’s version of 50, I have decided to embrace this upcoming milestone in my life. Instead of overwhelming depression and fear, I feel liberated and excited anticipating this milestone.

Who are the members of this new sorority I will soon belong to, and what effect are they having on Tourism and Online Marketing? Intuitively, I knew that this was a powerful demographic, one that has been under the marketer’s radar for a long time, and a group that has not been fully acknowledged or understood by the travel industry. My research into Boomer Women has proven that not only was my initial hypothesis correct, it had more layers and a bigger impact on the tourism industry than I had imagined.

Boomer Women- The Facts

The travel industry should take a closer look at this wealthy demographic; at the complexity of Boomer Woman as individuals, and the affect on their buying behavior. My research has uncovered the following facts about Boomer Women:

• Every 7 seconds another Boomer in the US alone turns 50!
• By 2010 over 43% of the population in the US will be over 50.
• One out of every 5 adults today in the US is a female over 50

Boomer Woman are healthier, more confident and are one of the biggest market contributors making travel decisions today. Interestingly enough they feel happier and more optimistic than their younger counterparts, and feel that their greatest life achievements are still ahead of them.

This is an educated and fearless group. In the past 15 years women collectively have started 70% of all new businesses. Boomer woman are college educated, have acquired a serious earning power, and are in better shape than ever before. 60% of Boomer women feel at least 7 years younger than their actual age.

Boomer Woman have spent the majority of their life taking care of others. The demands on them have finally started to lessen, and Boomer Woman tend not to feel guilty about embracing this stage in life. They are turning their attention to themselves and this emerging focus is not an isolated, introverted experience but one they want to share with others. For Boomer Women, “My Time” means more time with Girlfriends, Family and Community.

Travel for the Boomer Woman is time to re-connect, rejuvenate, learn, try new things and build life long memories with friends and family. Traveling is one of the top gifts this group buys for others, or purchase for themselves. These trips are not solely focused on the traditional fly and flop beach vacations, but are rapidly expanding in the areas of Adventure Travel and Travel with a purpose. Researching travel online has become one of their top uses of the Internet.

Marketing Travel Online to Boomer Women

Boomer Women and Women in general are relatively ignored by the travel industry. Travel websites have now begun to categorize vacations by experience such as spa or cruise, reacting to the new kind of online consumer. Marketers have started to engage consumers in purchasing experiences instead of simply hotel rooms or other travel products.

Marketers have also started embracing the social media environment – understanding that their audiences have changed the way they research travel. These channels have helped to identify for the marketer the type of vacation a traveler is researching or planning, but they have not dug down further to market to specific demographics within the experiences.

Where the travel industry has left money on the table is in neglecting, or misunderstanding the complexity and power of the Boomer Women market segment specifically as a target demographic.

I researched over a dozen top hotel brand sites (including Marriott, Hilton, Fairmont and Starwood) and nowhere on the home page, or even within their packages pages, was anything easily identifiable that spoke directly to women - of any age. Kimpton Hotels was the only good example I could find of a hotel company clearly identifying right on their navigation bar that women in general are a unique segment.

Quoted from their website they state, “At Kimpton, we feel it’s important, now more than ever, to define what it means to be a woman traveler. Thus, our “Women In Touch” program was born.” Kimpton’s Wine, Women and Fun” features an innovative experience developed by Boomer Woman Leslie Sbrocco, based on her book “Wine for Women”, the first wine book written exclusively for women.

This is a great example of incorporating the four critical elements of website strategy to capture your share of this growing market. Amber Hayes, CEO of Adventure Engine states, “When marketing online to this demographic you need to Engage, Relate, Inform and Convert.”

Boomer Woman are looking for vacation ideas that speak directly to them. Hoteliers are missing the mark on “Milestone Marketing” creating experiences and packages that celebrate significant turning points in boomer women’s lives. Imagine an “I am turning 50, girlfriends getaway” – one that that helps you plan this important right of passage for yourself or your girlfriends?

This could include makeovers for the group, a “live your fantasy weekend” along with unexpected surprises such as a pre arranged “nail taxi” to take you to VIP section at a live theatrical show!

It is time for Marketer’s to engage unique audiences such as Boomer Women for instance, and to speak directly to them in order to carve out a piece of the increasingly saturated and cluttered online travel space.

Want to connect with Boomer Women as Marketers?
Create an area for Boomer Woman on your site, and engage your consumer with interesting packages or experiences. Then provide the information they need to easily make their buying decision simple. Boomer Women are obsessed by the details. They have to see, feel and understand what the whole vacation experience is about. This is extremely important as they feel it is their primary responsibility to make each trip count, and become a memorable experience for their girlfriends, nieces, grandchildren or spouse that they are traveling with.

Conversions will easily follow if you market directly to Boomer Woman, and show you understand what they are all about. Boomer woman are computer savvy, complex and not only do they own 75% of the nation’s wealth - they purchase 80% of luxury travel!

Don’t you think it is about time the Travel industry put some thought into marketing to them? Isn’t it about time to determine the “purse-onality” of such an engaged group of consumers?

Sources:
• “Primetime Women” by Marti Barletta
• National Association Of Boomer Women http://www.nabbw.com/
• Boomer Women Speak.com http://www.boomerwomenspeak.com
• Fifty is the New Forty http://www.fiftyisthenewforty.net/travel.html
• Center for Woman’s Business Research
• “Eight Things you don’t know about Boomer Women ( But Should)” by Mary Brown

Patricia Brusha
E-Analyst & Co-Founder
Patricia Brusha is the co-founder of www.acoupleofchicks.com - an Internet Marketing Company focused on travel and tourism, and www.onlinerevealed.com [Online Revealed Canada] – the Canadian Tourism e-Marketing Conference produced in association with Yahoo! Canada. She has spent 26 years working in the Hospitality Industry in the United States and Canada in the fields of Sales, Hotel Marketing, Internet Distribution and Revenue Management. Together, the “Chicks” have published over 25 articles, produced a successful online marketing Blog; www.ideahatching.com , launched www.chicksaway.com – a new social media portal for women who travel, and have worked with such notable brands as Marriott International, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and Yahoo! Their popular e-marketing workshops have also lead to the upcoming book focused on the “Chicks” non-intimidating approach to marketing online.

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Brave New World
By Scott Gardner

Most major hospitality companies, hotel properties and resort destinations have had an online presence for at least a decade, so with e-marketing licked, it’s time to move on to the next challenge, right? Maybe not. With big changes like interactivity and Web 2.0 coming, some hotels have yet to master Web 1.0. In fact, many marketing experts are shocked by the number of companies still pushing clunky, poorly crafted e-initiatives.

“It is horrifying what we see out there,” says Patricia Brusha, co-founder of A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing, which specializes in hospitality and tourism. Pet peeves that especially irk Brusha and her partner, Chicks co-founder Alicia Whalen, include sites lacking the title tags that attract search engines, hard-to-find phone numbers, and video interludes that leave consumers twiddling their thumbs instead of clicking with them.

“People use hospitality websites for foraging. They’re trying to accomplish something — find a phone number, gather information,” says Whalen. “When you force users to listen to music and watch pretty images, you’re stopping [that] process and frustrating them.” People interact differently with a website than with traditional media, say the Mississauga, Ont.-based Chicks, and by forcing the user down a set path you’re telling them how to use your site and often sending them on an unwanted detour.

“The first step is to understand the point of a web presence,” says Whalen. “Is it to book rooms? Generate phone calls?” Basically, before you build the thing, you’ve got to identify concrete goals. Brusha even suggests having “WebMax” brainstorming sessions, the same way properties already have RevMax meetings. And invite everyone — sales, marketing, operations and revenue need to be just as involved as technical people and the creative agency.

One example of a highly focused web presence is “Disney’s Passport to Dreams” (disneyparks.ca), which launched in early November. Intended to clarify passport requirements for Canadian travellers, it also links to general resort info and online booking applications. “We did a printed version last year, [but] if any of the requirements change you’re stuck with it,” says Marlie Morrison, Toronto-based director, Marketing & Sales for Disney Parks (Canada). “Online we’re able to react much quicker and stay up to date. It’s also a lot more interactive.”

The site was created in response to a Disney-commissioned survey that found Canadians were still confused about new requirements for travel. The survey was in turn reported on by the media, driving traffic to the site. Disney also attracted eyeballs by offering free passport photos at CAA locations to the first 10,000 visitors to print out a coupon, and a Canadians-only vacation contest.

Although she wouldn’t divulge exact figures, Morrison says she’s pleased with the number of hits and, ultimately, resort bookings the passport site has attracted, and it’s a bellwether of things to come. “A majority of our spending is still print, TV and radio, but online — especially this year — is becoming more prominent,” she says, particularly at the expense of print.

Using a website to react to changing market conditions highlights another key point Whalen makes about a property or chain’s web presence. “It can’t be an online brochure,” she says. “Your web presence is a living, breathing, eating machine. It needs to be constantly fed — and not with the latest technology, but the basics.”

As marketing and communications manager at W Hotel in Montreal, Sabine Kadyss is responsible for feeding the online beast weekly, if not more often. As a Starwood chain, the overall W brand and website architecture are managed at head office in New York. However, each hotel promotes itself in the local market and manages its own property-specific pages. “I have a reduced budget in print advertising, so it’s a huge tool for us,” says Kadyss, whose local page promotes everything from packages to new menus to seasonal hours at the spa. “I’m careful about having an updated and accurate site, including taking down older offers,” she says. “There are certain changes that I have to send to our head office — resizing photos and so on. But I’m trained to manage the special offers in French and English — that’s my baby.”

Kadyss also says W conducted focus groups on the site, and ended up tweaking some applications. “You have to check how it lands with people,” she says. “Even though our guests want a lot of information, they don’t want to click 55 times to book a room. It has to be easy, and in the end it has to generate revenue.”
Although some companies still aren’t exploiting the full e-marketing potential of their websites, at least they understand the medium and recognize its importance. But technology being technology, there’s a whole new online world coming: Web 2.0. And like always, your kids and youngest employees understand it, but marketers are still trying to figure out. Not exactly a technological upgrade, Web 2.0 actually refers to the perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social media like Facebook — where the common thread is simply that users can both upload and download content.

“Social media are, once again, changing the way people communicate through online channels,” says Whalen. “Within the next few years there will be no stand-alone static websites — consumers will expect some sort of interactive features. That’s why we talk about ‘web presence’ — something beyond the site.”

Dr. David Martin, Director of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Ryerson University in Toronto says, “All of this is moving very quickly and we’re just starting to talk about Web 2.0 in marketing classes.” In fact, he says the first case studies are just being written now. But based on these early days, Martin says, “Web 2.0 has become a platform for a lot of people to do things fairly inexpensively. Initially it’s going to be an advantage to the smaller chains or the one-off restaurants and hotels, but even the big chains are seeing it as a way of getting traffic to their site.”

Of these social media, blogs (short for “web log,” essentially an online journal) have been around longest and display the most marketing potential. If you’re not ready to host a guest blog on your own site, you can still advertise on other blogs, many of which appeal to attractive niche audiences. For example, Disney Parks’ Morrison says their research suggests moms typically do most of a family’s vacation planning, so they’re looking at sites where moms connect. “Right now we’re sponsoring a blog on (family-oriented site) Kaboose. But it’s their blog — by no means are we adding anything to it.”

Blogs have been successful partly because they mimic word-of-mouth recommendations. Satisfied customers can get the word out everywhere instantly, but what about the dreaded bad review or anemic score on TripAdvisor? “There’s no way to control social media, and coming from an on-premises background, I understand how it’s a thorn in so many hotelier’s sides,” says Brusha. “But don’t try to control the conversation — join in with them. Think of it as a consumer test group — a way to look at and react to actual users of your product. So many people are afraid, but whether you put something on your site to encourage user-generated content or not, they’re going to talk about you anyway.”

While keeping up with this stuff can feel like shoveling back the ocean, remember it’s a new world, and it will take time to sort out what works. After all, it was a good few centuries after Gutenberg before anyone got the hang of print advertising, and even without the misogyny and smoking, the first decade of TV ads were laughably crude. “We advise people to take it in bite-sized pieces,” says Brusha. “You can test the waters without moving from a static one-dimensional site to a totally interactive social media platform. You can start with a blog. You can add the photo-sharing application Flickr. Don’t feel like you have to take on the whole 2.0 world at once.”

Well after minor delays and much anticipation, we have just launched our 2nd annual student contest My Home…Revealed! Students can add video clips showing why their home is a great place to visit!

This year we have two prize categories, over 18 and under 18! The winner of the over 18 will win an all expense paid trip to the 3rd Annual Online Revealed Conference this May in Calgary…Along with $1000 cash!

Special thanks to our partner Yahoo! Canada for Co-Sponsoring this contest. We need your help in promoting the contest, so please pass along to friends, family or students you may know!

This is a great opportunity to get young people involved…we really appreciate your support!

Yahoo! Canada, Travelocity, Orbitz, Travelzoo, Marriott Canada, and more to speak in addition to internationally known keynote, Kyle McDonald to kick off the third annual Online Marketing Conference, May 12-14 at Calgary’s Hyatt Regency

Toronto, On – 5 March 2008 – Canadian online travel and tourism conference, Online Revealed Canada, is pleased to announce the keynote speaker for the 2008 event will be Kyle MacDonald, sharing his inspiring social media experiment that started with one red paper clip, and resulted in a house. MacDonald has garnered international fame for the online experiment that took him through a series of 14 trades occurring over the course of only one year. The much anticipated internet marketing conference brings together Canadian tourism professionals and online marketing best practices taking place this May 12-14, 2008 in Calgary, Alberta.

“MacDonald’s story highlights the kind of buzz that is possible when taking an innovative approach to online marketing and new mediums such as social media,” said Patricia Brusha, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Online Revealed Canada. “It reflects how powerful new media and the Internet has become.”

MacDonald’s online trading phenomenon was inspired by “Bigger and Better,” a game he played as a child. He posted a red paperclip on the website “Craig’s List” and waited for offers. One year later, after 14 trades involving a fish pen, a keg of beer, a cube van, a recording contract, a snow globe, MacDonald made his final trade for a house. Along the way, he traded a KISS snow globe for a speaking part in a Corbin Bernsen film. Then, the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan offered up a house in exchange for the movie role. MacDonald and his paperclip caught worldwide attention from the likes of ABC, 20/20 and Hollywood.

The agenda for Online Revealed Canada has been announced and includes over 25 speakers, workshop leaders, and Canadian travel professionals. With speakers from Yahoo! Canada, The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), Travelocity, Marriott Canada, Travelzoo and many more, this innovative search marketing event will cover a variety of topics including, search engine optimization, paid search marketing, social media marketing, website analytics, new media technology and other trends in marketing tourism online.

Special Early Bird registration rates are only available through March 14, 2008, and space for this year’s Online Revealed Canada is limited due to a city-wide event in Calgary. Members of the media are invited to attend the Conference - please inquire for further information. For Conference Registration or Sponsorship information, visit www.onlinerevealed.com.

About Online Revealed Canada
The Online Revealed tourism marketing conference provides Canadian tourism professionals with unique and innovative online marketing education, with an innovative agenda including educational workshops, keynotes, panel discussions and a new technology showcase. Produced by A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing, www.acoupleofchicks.com and Yahoo! Canada, Online Revealed is an annual conference event with a mission to educate the travel industry to be successful on the World Wide Web through collaboration with leading industry professionals.

About Yahoo! Canada
Yahoo! Canada Co. is a leading Internet destination that provides online products and services to meet the needs of Canadians and offers a range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users. Yahoo! Canada services Canadians in both English and in French through its sites, www.yahoo.ca and http://francais.yahoo.ca. Yahoo! Canada is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario