I quite often give presentations explaining the characteristics of our future consumers – Generations Y and Z when actually, they are just about all grown up now.  Gen Y were born around 1977 to 1995 and are referred to as the Millennials.  Generation Z were born roughly from 1996 onwards to 2012.  After them comes the current newbies, Generation Alpha.

A recent survey I have seen looks at multigenerational travel.  It’s not something I have given much thought to before other than family holidays, which more often than not imply parents and younger children who are not yet earning and spending their own money.  However, I am going multigenerational over Christmas with three generations and a separate trip over the New Year with two generations, so I was intrigued to see what we might learn from this survey.  It is called Generations On The Move and was commissioned by GroupAccommodation.com.  It is an interesting insight into some of the factors that govern the selection and booking of multigenerational trips.

These are family holidays and for the purposes of the survey, multigenerational trips were defined as leisure trips with at least three generations of the same family such as a grandparent, parent and child travelling together.  Here are some of the more interesting findings.

Fast becoming a ‘universal truth’ is the importance of social media in influencing the decision on where to take a holiday.  However, the survey respondents reported that social media was the least important factor. The top four in order of importance were:

1. Ease of getting there
2. Weather
3. Ease of getting around once there
4. Affordability

Once on holiday, 51% of the baby boomers (age 55+) thought that the task of researching what to do was evenly split whilst 49% of Millennials thought it was actually them dong the work (the highest of any group).  Perhaps this is because Millennials feel they are old enough to take responsibility but also are as adept at online research as their younger Gen Y and Z fellow travellers.

Not surprisingly it was the younger generations who reported that they most dread multigenerational holidays:

• 23% of Gen Z
• 21% of Millennials
• 18% of Gen X

Compared to just 6% of Baby Boomers.  In particular, Gen Z (35%) and Millennials (26%) would rather be on holiday with their friends.  It was also these two generations who most stated that it can be hard juggling different wants and needs within the group (over 60%).

Overall, though, the survey respondents found multigenerational holidays to be an OK experience with a good proportion saying they were fun, catered for a range of different needs and were special family time, and 50% of respondents are planning another multigenerational trip for 2019.

Google multigenerational travel and you will see that the trend of three generations going on a trip together is on the rise.  I will be doing it over the festive period, will you?