When vacation time rolls around, families often have to consider avariety of factors in order to plan a smooth trip. The goal is to make everyone happy, have fun and still stay within the budget.
Above all, they’re looking for familiar destinations where everyone in the family can find something he or she likes to do. And families may want to return to the same destination year after year for the sake of simplicity and good value.
Families are therefore an important but complex market for the tourism industry. Family members have different expectations, from adolescents looking for fun, interactive activities to parents who want to discover new things and relax.
using new technologies to enhance family trips
The development of new technologies for all family members has created new uses and profoundly transformed the vacation experience.
- a more fluid experience: near field communication technologies and m-banking make payments easy, and tourists can take advantage of personalized services via their smartphones
- added security for watching children: using new smartphone features (geo-fences, etc), parents can keep an eye on their children remotely and make sure they come home safely
- more interactive cultural discoveries: thanks to quick response codes and augmented reality, cultural visits are becoming more interactive and fun, providing visitors of all ages with the information they want
families as a profit source with many faces: children, adolescents, parents
Faced with these new uses, tourism professionals have developed new ways to approach families using innovative services and tailored business models. New opportunities on the horizon:
- appeal to the whole family by offering services tailored to each age group and using different platforms (multi-subject/multi-device)
- offer all-inclusive services such as packages including daycare in order to better meet family member needs and keep parents relaxed
- develop specific business models to target children, who wield enormous indirect purchasing power (eg, restaurants with children’s menus, which aim to attract adults through their kids)
- generate additional revenue by offering new 2.0 products and services for discovering a city or country using new technologies
For more information, download our white paper, "A fully digital tourist’s journey”.
Clément
