Millennials Offer Travel Agents the Best Opportunity for Client Vacation Social Media Posts
by Richard D’Ambrosio
Millennials are more likely than any other age group to document their travel on social media, with 58 percent looking to share photos in which they look their best. Photo: Shutterstock.com.
Travel agents looking to accelerate their client testimonials to reach new clients and encourage more bookings through their agencies may want to develop a strategy to engage their Millennial customers through social media.
That’s because more than one third (36 percent) of Millennials (ages 18-34) have “aimed to deceive their followers by posting social media vacation images that make trips look better than they are,” according to the 2018 Vacation Confidence Index, just released by Allianz Global Assistance. Only 15 percent of Gen Xers (ages 35–54) and five percent of Baby Boomers (ages 55+) have attempted to do the same.
In addition, Allianz found that Millennials are more likely than any other age group to document their travel on social media, with 58 percent looking to share photos in which they look their best, while 52 percent are posting photos in which their surroundings look best.
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More than a third (37 percent) of Millennials told Allianz they post because they want to make friends/family jealous, while 27 percent post to compete with other travelers who post vacation pictures.
Also, more than half (51 percent) of Millennials feel that social media posts influence their own travel planning choices, while three in ten Americans of all age groups admit their travel planning choices are somewhat or very influenced by social media posts.
This creates an opportunity for travel agents to market themselves through their Millennial clients. “Millennials have a different mindset than other demographics. It’s important that travel agents get into the conversation and promote the value they bring to the travel experience,” said Dan Durazo, director of communications, Allianz Global Assistance USA. “Agents need to figure out how to be a part of the conversation, to promote their services.
“Everyone likes to impress their friends and family with the great time they are having. They like to paint a positive picture,” added Durazo. “People don’t post the more mundane things, which is good for travel agents and the industry.”
Incentivize your customers
Durazo suggested offering Millennial clients custom, agency-branded hashtags for them to use in their posts that will highlight their agency’s work curating that vacation. For example, he advised, agents could offer clients using that hashtag the opportunity to be entered into a contest for a discount on a future booking or added benefits that might be donated by a preferred supplier.
“There are so many potential vehicles agents could use to encourage their clients to give them a shout out,” Durazo said. “Travel agents need to incentivize their customers to give them these third-party endorsements, since their clients are already talking about their vacations through social media. It could be a big win-win for travel agents.”
Allianz has a stable of Instagram influencers posting on their own accounts, using one or more Allianz travel insurance hashtags. “It’s our primary platform for social media,” Durazo said. “That’s where travel agents should be, as well.”
Half (49 percent) of Americans responding to the survey say Facebook is the social media platform that most inspires them to travel, followed by Instagram (35 percent), Pinterest (19 percent), Twitter (13 percent), and Snapchat (13 percent). But more than a third (34 percent) say that social media platforms do not inspire them to travel. Women are more likely to be inspired by Pinterest (25 percent of women compared to 12 percent of men) and men by Twitter (20 percent of men compared to seven percent of women).
Despite the prevalence of social media influencers working with destinations and brands, Allianz’ survey respondents said they are still most influenced by posts from friends and family (63 percent), versus posts from media and news organizations (11 percent), users they do not know personally (nine percent), or brands (eight percent).
Of those who confessed to what Allianz calls “social media deception,” 65 percent do so in an attempt to make others envious, while 51 percent use it as an opportunity to compete with others who do the same. Of all respondents, guilty of social media deception or not, men are slightly more likely than women to post vacation photos on social media to make friends/family jealous (28 percent of men and 16 percent of women) and compete with others (22 percent of men and eight percent of women).
The Vacation Confidence Index was produced for Allianz by Ipsos, using a sample of 1,005 Americans interviewed from May 2–5, 2018. The results are accurate to within +/- 3.5 percentage points.
