Jamie Biesiada
Want more referrals? Try incentivizing your clients, especially millennials, to post on social media about you and the trips you've planned. That's the advice of Steve Cohen, vice president of travel and hospitality marketing firm MMGY Global.
But why millennials specifically? MMGY last week released research from its annual Portrait of American Travelers survey, which found that millennials lead all other generations in terms of past usage and future intent to use agents.
While year-to-year agent use is flat among the four generations surveyed (millennials, Generation X, boomers and matures), millennials have a greater predisposition to use an agent, Cohen said.
For instance, the survey found that 33% of millennials used a travel agent for at least one vacation in the past year, Cohen said, compared to 11% of generation Xers, 11% of boomers and 15% of matures.
Millennial survey-takers also reported that agents have helped them with more of their vacations (an average of 2.4) when compared to the other generations (Xers, 1.9; boomers, 1.5; and matures, 1.3).
"Travel agents have an influence on more millennials' vacations in general in terms of percentage, in terms of number of vacations, and millennials are much more likely to have used an agent in the past 12 months," Cohen said.
Millennials were also in the lead when it comes to the future. Of that group, 33% said they planned on using an agent in the next two years, compared with 17% of Xers, 18% of boomers and 26% of matures.
So given the numbers, it makes sense that agents would want capitalize on millennials' likelihood to use a travel professional. This is where social media comes into play.
MMGY's survey found that 25% of respondents overall said they go online to post vacation photos for the purpose of making their friends jealous. That number increases to over 40% within the millennial generation, Cohen said.
"So if an agent can incent their millennial clients, in particular, to post about their positive experience with their agent, there's an opportunity to build the goodwill among the community where my friend posts they had a good experience with an agent, and I'm traveling," he said.
It's "the best sort of testimonial" an agent can get.
"But I believe agents can't rely on their customers to do it," Cohen said. "They need to incent them to do it."
So instead of merely asking a client to post about them on social media, he said agents should give them the right incentive. "If you've booked me a cruise, figure out a way to get me a discount on a shore excursion," he said as an example. "Give me something that's tangible."
If possible, agents should try to market to one particular group: millennial families, or those with younger children, even if they are slightly older than the cutoff to be a "millennial" (this year that age is 37).
"It's almost looking at families with kids school-aged and younger regardless of the age of the parents, and marketing to that group that's who is traveling," Cohen said. "That's who is telling us they're going to travel more."
MMGY's survey found that millennials are expected to take more vacations and spend more money than others in the next 12 months. They are especially more likely to travel internationally.
The survey is given to those who have traveled at least 75 miles from home with an overnight accommodation, and have an annual household income over $50,000. There were nearly 3,000 respondents this year. Cohen said the group is meant to represent a group of Americans who have both the predisposition and the means to travel.