January 6th, 2023, Clifton Mark
Despite a year of airline chaos, American wanderlust remains strong. According to YouGov Global Travel Profiles, half of Americans (51%) are planning to take an international or domestic vacation next year.
A new analysis reveals the types of people are looking for, the factors that influence their travel decisions and whether men and women are motivated by the same factors when it comes to travel.
To start with the overview, these are the types of vacations that Americans typically take, based on the answers of over 49000 respondents.
The most popular types of vacation in America are visiting friends and family, beach vacations, and some combination of relaxing and sightseeing activities. While the exact proportions of men and women who choose each option differ, they put the same types of leisure trips at the top of their preferences.
When asked about the factors that influence their decisions, men and women also broadly agree, with both genders choosing the same top five factors (other options have been excluded from the chart).
Value for money, family and friends, and the weather are the top factors influencing American vacation choices.
Differences between male and female vacationers
The overall most popular vacation types and decision factors are clearly important for any tourism operator. However, it’s also essential to understand the differences between audiences. This is especially important in more niche-oriented forms of travel.
One way of understanding what makes an audience distinctive is by finding the variables on which they stand out from other groups. For example, we know that men and women both like beach vacations. But what are the most characteristically male and female vacation types?
This chart shows where one group most significantly over-indexes the other. An index of 100 means that the two groups are equally likely to choose an answer. When the index is above 100, that indicates that they are more likely than the other group to choose an answer.
For example, this chart shows that men are more than twice as likely to choose a sports trip than women, whereas women are 1.43 times as likely to choose a spa vacation. The most distinctively male vacation types have to do with sports–either attending an event or participating in a sport. For women, it’s spas and shopping.
The same can be done with vacation decision factors. The chart below shows that nightlife is a much more important decision factor for men, with 1.4x as many men saying it influenced their choice of vacation. Safety is the most distinctive concern for women when choosing a vacation, though by a smaller factor.
This kind of analysis could be useful to marketers who are seeking to serve a certain audience as to those seeking to expand their customer-base.
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Photo by Link Hoang on Unsplash