The Gen Z and Millennial mindset: capturing the attention of these young and fast-growing generations

Generation Z and millennials are more than just buzz words. Today’s younger generations are redefining the rules of engagement and asserting their role in purchasing decisions—for themselves, and their families—and travel is no exception.

New global research from Expedia Group Media Solutions illustrates that there are real differences in what influences younger generations to book travel and extend business trips for leisure.

Especially as Generation Z is becoming the largest generation in many markets, and quickly gaining financial independence and traveling for business, the spending opportunity is not to be overlooked.

About a month ago, Angelique Miller, Director of Creative Partnerships at Expedia Group Media Solutions, and I joined Kevin May, editor in chief at PhocusWire, to discuss Generation Z.

Here I cover some of the highlights from our hour-long conversation which explores the preferences and behaviors of Gen Z – and compares and contrasts those behaviors with those of Millennials.

To hear the full discussion, watch the on-demand webinar here .

First, let’s understand our terms:

• Gen Z were born between 1995 and 2015. They are currently 3-23 years old
• Millennials, aka Gen Y, were born between 1980 and 1994. They are currently 24-38 years old

The behaviors of millennials get plenty of attention, but Gen Z is growing in importance for travel marketers. The oldest members of Gen Z are entering the workforce or early in their professional career.

By 2020, Gen Z will be the largest generation across the globe and, depending on how you calculate it, they already represent between $29 billion and $143 billion in global annual buying power.

Also, more than half of Gen Z-ers use their smartphones for an average of more than 5 hours per day . These highly digital and eager travelers are beginning to enter the workforce, and they want to travel the world right now.

Expedia Group Media Solutions, the global digital advertising arm of Expedia Group, creates, manages, and sells ad placements and ad programs across all of Expedia Group’s brands around the world. This includes Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Hotwire, Travelocity and more for a total of more than 200 websites across the world, in 75 countries, and in 35 languages. Those sites serve more than 144  million monthly unique visitors and generate more than 2.1 billion site page views per month across app, web, and mobile.

Given this data and our unique position as a global media publisher and e-commerce company, we have a complete view of the consumer journey and evolving travel trends.

Our data guides our product development and helps us deliver effective marketing programs to advertisers.

We know that shaping great experiences for advertisers is important but equally important is engaging travel shoppers; building trust with travel shoppers translates directly to high engagement rates across the platform.

We share studies like this one, our insights, and trends with the industry because we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats.

These findings draw from two different studies and were conducted in 11 different countries in March 2017 and March 2018.

The studies spanned frequency of travel, influences on booking decisions, booking windows, how travelers allocate spending, smartphone usage, bleisure travel and more.

The data revealed the trends that are shared by Millennials and Gen Z and those that differ. Note that, even though the youngest of Gen Z are still children, this study only surveyed ages 18 and up.

Overall, both Millennials and Gen Zers take about 3 leisure trips per year but where they are headed is up in the air.

More than two-thirds of both generations report being ‘destination indecisive.’ Specifically, European Gen Z travelers are even more undecided at 76%.

This is great news for marketers who are hoping to help them make those key travel decisions.

Even more good news for marketers: nearly three-quarters of younger generations are open to inspiration when it comes to deciding on a destination. North American Gen Z even more so at 80%.

The combination of being destination indecisive and open to inspiration means there is a lot of room for marketers to influence where these travelers go and what they do when they get there.

When it comes to the landscape of business and bleisure travel, we believe these younger travelers will be making a significant impact.

Not only are they already traveling for work, but they are taking the opportunity to extend for leisure when they do. More than 66% of Gen Z are adding leisure to business trips, compared to 61% of Millennials.

The key to understanding how Gen Z is extending work travel for leisure is putting yourself in their shoes. They are just starting out in their careers and they love to travel. When able, they extend those work trips and that decision is made in real-time.

Once they’ve booked, a marketer’s goal would be to rapidly get in front of them to inspire them to extend their stay, book with you, or leave their primary destination and come to you.

The good news is, younger generations are undecided and they are able to be influenced by a variety of channels.

Overall, we found the following:

• Younger travelers prioritize activities and experiences. Budget is part of their consideration process but it is not the primary driver of their decisions.
• Approximately two-thirds of younger travelers are undecided on a destination when they decide to take a trip, illustrating an opportunity to influence through relevant content and advertising.
• More than seventy percent of younger travelers are open to help and inspiration when planning a trip. Social media and advertising, especially appealing deals, photos and videos, can influence their decisions.
• Gen Z and Millennials are interested in trip types that are popular with older generations as well – like relaxing vacations and visiting family – but wherever they go they crave activities, events and adventures.
• Gen Z are starting to take business trips, following their millennial predecessors. Younger generations are saving for bleisure travel and capitalizing on opportunities to extend business trips for leisure.

To learn more about how younger travelers allocate their travel spending, the types of experiences they are drawn to, to what degree they are influenced by social media and ads, and more, listen to the full webinar here .