Marketing Review - Spring 2008 - (Page 28)

seat-back computers to help people connect with fellow passengers. Internet savants also are starting to talk about the “semantic Web,” a natural-language interface to the Net’s vast stores of information. Picture a Web site where you can ask for “a week for two in South America next February. We want to explore a rain forest but spend at least three days on the beach at a luxury resort. We can spend $2,500 each, including air fare from Miami.” By 2012, travel sites will be able to understand the question, search their databases, offer a choice of vacation plans, and make reservations as soon as the customers make their decision. 7) Consumers increasingly demand social responsibility from companies and each other. Companies increasingly are being judged on how they treat the environment, their workers, and their customers. Many are changing their business practices as a result. For example, home-improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe's have stopped buying wood from countries with endangered forests, while Nike now publishes its discoveries of worker abuse by offshore suppliers. Costco offers much better benefits than its competitors and has half the employee turnover rate as a result. In a 2005 survey of nearly 1,200 companies, 81 percent—and 98 percent of large firms—said corporate citizenship is a priority; 84 percent said that being socially responsible has improved profits. Once the business-friendly Bush administration leaves Washington, government intervention will rebound in sectors from finance to industrial chemicals. To avoid political backlash from the right, regulation is likely to be carefully targeted and limited, at least for a time. Implications for Airlines: This will bring still more pressure to minimize fuel consumption and cut air and noise pollution. The impact of jet exhaust on the ozone layer will continue to draw unwelcome publicity to air travel, but with little impact on seat-miles or the bottom line. Implications for Cruises: Any line that still dumps waste at sea can expect catastrophic publicity, with a risk of boycotts. The rest may profit from advertising their “green” credentials, especially if they donate to ocean-oriented environmental groups. Those whose itineraries permit may wish to add day trips to rain forests and other environmentally sensitive locations. Carefully 28 Members of each group—roughly the over-35s and the 20-somethings—have much more in common with their peers than with their parents. Their values and concerns are remarkably uniform throughout the world. Socially and in business, they are nearly color-blind and genderblind. Generation X is starting new businesses at an unprecedented rate, and the Millennial generation is proving to be even more business-oriented, caring for little but the bottom line. They will work for HSMAI MARKETING REVIEW • SPRING 2008 200371042-003/ADRIAN WEINBRECHT/GETTY IMAGES 8 managed excursions to poor areas are another possible option, if they can be structured to benefit the community. Implications for Hotels: “Green” furnishings and supplies are the trend here. Look for bamboo flooring in the rooms, eggs from free-range chickens in the kitchen, and a growing demand from guests for better worker benefits and pay. In all but extreme-luxury locations, hotels will save energy and water by providing fresh towels and linens only every other day, or when guests request them. Implications for Restaurants: Even simple measures, like saving water by providing it only at the customer’s request, can help to burnish one’s eco-reputation. However, many necessary—or at least unavoidable— measures will be harder to accept. Demands for nutritional information on the menu eventually will become impossible to resist. They will be accompanied by calls for eco-conscious sourcing of foods and other supplies, better pay and at least minimal benefits for restaurant workers, and American-style work rules in offshore subsidiaries. Look at the pressure put on Nike to improve working conditions at the plants of overseas suppliers, and you see the future of the restaurant industry. Implications for Travel: Trends such as eco-tourism and “pro-poor” tourism are just getting started. While tourists from China and India will still be eager to see Paris and Orlando, their more experienced peers from Europe and America will be looking for the last few elephants, coral reefs (before they are gone), and impoverished natives still living by the ways of their ancestors. However, they will want the people and sites they visit to benefit from their spending, not just the companies arranging their vacations. others, but only on their own terms. Generation X and the Millennials thrive on challenge, opportunity, and training—whatever will best prepare them for their next career move. Cash is just the beginning of what they expect. Employers will have to adjust their policies and practices to the values of these new and different generations, including finding new ways to motivate and reward them. Implications for Airlines: These generations have hard noses. Young business travelers may put up with delays when a massive snow storm arrives as they were supposed to leave. They won’t like waiting for hours because the airport’s departure schedule is overbooked. Scheduling problems, faulty service, and other downchecks that today’s consumers would accept with minor grumbling will have to be fixed, or tomorrow’s travelers will plaster their disgust all over the Internet. Millennials especially can be demanding. When they have a problem at an airline, they do not just bother the people at the airport ticket desk. They grab their cell phones and call or text the frequent flier department to apply pressure for a favorable resolution. Satisfying such customers will be a constant challenge. Implications for Cruises: These generations will have no problem spending online sums that would have stopped their parents cold. They will not accept obstacles to their habit of shopping online and clicking “Buy” the instant their decision is made. If one cruiseline is too stodgy to enable online booking—and stodgy, not exclusive, is how they will be perceived— then a more up-to-date operator will get their business. Implications for Hotels: Baby Boomers rebelled in the 1960s, then adopted their parents’ materialism and took it to whole new levels. Generation X, and particularly the Dot-coms and Millennials, have taken another path. They enjoy a Manhattan while surrounded by Rat-Pack retro elegance. Yet, they always pair indulgence with a self-deprecating humor that says it’s not taken seriously. The most successful hotels will find a way to match that sense of feet-on-the-ground fun while providing impeccable service to older guests. Again, Millennials can be difficult to cope with. We have seen them arrive without a reservation only to find that no rooms are available. Rather than accepting the situation, they call the chain’s frequent-visitor 8) Generation X and the Millennials are gaining social and organizational influence.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Marketing Review - Spring 2008

HSMAI Marketing Review - Spring 2008 Contents COLUMN: The Online Marketer COLUMN: Success Stories COLUMN: Guest Column Ten Trends Now Shaping the Future of Hospitality Turning the 2008 Consumer Tax Rebates into Hospitality and Travel Sales 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality and Travel Sales and Marketing The Lure of Lore: Connecting with Customers Through a Unique Brand Story A Careful Balancing Act A Meaningful Relationship: How Technology Affects the Connection Between Hospitality Marketers and Meeting Planners SPECIAL SECTION: The 2007 HSMAI Adrian Awards Building Five Star Imagery

Marketing Review - Spring 2008

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