Millennial Travelers Require a Different Travel Experience

Traditional advertising isn’t quite millennials cup of tea when it comes to travel and tourism. An outdoor billboard or a radio spot highlighting your city or town really won’t convince them to hop on board and visit your destination.

For these folks, recommendations from their friends and family are what convinces them to book flights and make accommodations. In fact, 84% said their friends’ or family’s Facebook posts influences them to make or change travel plans. That’s quite a large percentage.

So, for this segment, combining nontraditional advertising with user-generated content (UGC) is where the rubber will hit the road. If you’re not utilizing UGC, start today. Here’s how:

Embrace User-Generated Content

First step: Put down the camera. Stop with the stock photography or staged photos. UGC offers versatility and a possible bank with real photos that would be impossible for a professional photographer to capture. A photographer can’t be there for the first time a child catches a fish or that intimate moment at the dinner table with a significant other.

Millennials want to see these real moments. If their friends’ or family members’ photos are shared across your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, they’ll be even more persuaded to visit.

And the best part, UGC is free—most of the time. You just have to sift through the clutter of images, find the good ones, and ask in written form if you can use the photo. They may just be ecstatic that you’re even asking to showcase their photo and let you run with it, or they may happily agree but tack on a fee.

Be Mobile

After you legally acquire your UGC, before you run wild with it, you have to remember to be mobile friendly to these millennial travelers. You can read up and learn everything about millennial tourism trends, travel habits and travel destinations, but it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not getting down to the nitty and gritty of your online engagement via mobile devices.

A solid 86% of millennials are disappointed by company’s mobile experiences. Make sure your app or website looks stellar across all mobile devices—Apple, Android, Google and all the above. Millennials can love and relate to your UGC, but they won’t be coming back for seconds if your mobile content isn’t user-friendly.

Before you start implementing these tactics, remember today’s lesson to take home: Start searching for photos and focus on your mobile content.