A Millennial Entrepreneur and Agent Targets Her Generation
by Barbara Peterson /The millennial generation is poised to post big gains in terms of travel spending in the near future– and at least one of its ranks is helping travel agents tap into this lucrative market with new booking tools.
Millennials—the 18-to 35-year-old age group—are embracing the benefits of using travel agents versus exclusively going the do-it-yourself route, according to Katelyn O’Shaughnessy, a California travel agent turned web entrepreneur.
Seeing the light
“I’m a millennial and growing up I took it for granted that you just booked travel online,” O’Shaughnessy said.
That is, until she became a travel agent herself and tapped into the younger market with a high-end wedding and honeymoon specialty.
Now with Coastline Travel Advisors in Garden Grove, Calif., she’s a national director of Millennials in Travel, a two-year-old networking organization that has 2,500 members working in the travel industry.
O’Shaughnessy is also founder and CEO of TripScope, a website for agents that combines itinerary planning with a mobile app for customers, so that agents and their clients can stay in close contact through all stages of the trip -- from planning, to support during the trip to post-travel evaluation.
For forward-thinking agents
Following three months in beta testing, the site has signed 67 independent travel agencies.
O’Shaughnessy said the product is aimed at forward-thinking agencies who want to appeal to tech-savvy clients while offering the sort of personal service OTAs or other online-only services lack.
In fact, the explosion in booking sites, apps and online resources could be driving younger consumers to agents, she said.
“Now, there’s a backlash,” O’Shaughnessy said. “There are so many options out there when it comes to booking travel and people don’t have 20 hours to spend in front of a screen.”
The new baby-boomers
O’Shaughnessy believes the value agents deliver will become increasingly important as millennials effectively become the new baby boomers in terms of travel spending potential.
There are 77 million millennials, according to a 2014 report from Nielsen, Millennials: Breaking The Myths. That accounts for a quarter of the total U.S. population, about equal to the baby-boom generation.
And while millennials are still climbing the income ladder, they make up the most educated generation: 23% have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Current incomes range from $25,000 to $48,000 for younger (18- to 27-year olds) and older (28- to 36-year-old) millennials, respectively, but that has to be considered against the backdrop of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Nielsen said.
Travel: a lifestyle priority
Research also shows that travel is a high priority for this generation.
Two-thirds of millennials surveyed by PhoCusWright last year said that travel is a very important component of their lifestyle.
Using data prepared for a webinar on the millennial traveler, PhoCusWright said that while this generation spent less on travel than boomers, they were also twice as likely to take trips of two weeks or more.
The spending gap is narrowing too. Older travelers spent an average of $3,381 on vacation trips in 2013 versus $3,217 for millennials.