REPORT FROM THE U.S.—Once relegated to the back seat in family travel planning, children are quickly becoming a driving force in hotel booking decisions.
Various reports, both anecdotal and analytic, have underscored this trend. One recent example of note is the Holiday Inn Resort brand’s Kids Classified campaign, a survey of 1,500 parents and kids that found nearly 90% of parents say their kids’ preferences are influential when choosing a vacation destination.
The outreach was conducted as an ode to the brand’s heritage as a roadside haven for vacation goers young and old as well as a way to better understand what drives this decision making.
“We know that both families traveling on vacation as well as individuals who when they travel on business are looking for opportunities to spend time with their families is a huge segment of the market,” said Heather Balsley, senior VP of the Americas region for the Holiday Inn Brand Family.
“Targeting families is a big part of our marketing strategy for both the Holiday Inn brand and obviously even more so for the Holiday Inn Resort brand to give those families an opportunity to relax. … That was the foundation for why this Kids Classified research was so important. We really were looking to understand what motivates the decision making,” she said.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- six in 10 parents plan to stay at a hotel during the winter holidays;
- 74% of parents surveyed are excited to take a family vacation, and 64% say they unplug from work completely during the trip; and
- more than half of parents in the survey (52%) noted that saving enough money was the biggest challenge to planning a family vacation, more so than coordination of family schedules (19%) or taking time off of work (12%).
Catering to kids
The most important thing for parents when making a booking decision is ensuring their children are being cared for.
“As a parent myself, when you’re making a booking decision and thinking about vacation, the most important things for these families are that their kids feel cared for, that they’re finding experiences for their kids to learn and experience new things,” Balsley said.
Having the right amenities help. According to the Kids Classified survey, pools (85%) ranked as the No. 1 feature parents consider when choosing a hotel for their families, followed by kid’s suites (64%), kids-eat-free programs (62%) and special on-site children’s activities (61%).
The Holiday Inn Resort brand is particularly suited to fill those needs, Balsley said. Not only does each hotel honor the brand family’s kids-eat-free program, but they each have a kids club offering special activities tied into the local culture and destination.
At the Holiday Inn Resort Wilmington Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina, for instance, the property offers an on-land surf camp for kids. And at the Holiday Inn Resort, Panama City Beach, Florida, kids can learn the basics of Polynesian dance.
“Every one of our properties has experiences like this that cater to kids,” Balsley said.
The Holiday Inn brand family is not alone in these efforts. Several other chains and hotels offer similar programs catered specifically to kids.
The Mohonk Mountain House, which was listed as one of the top 10 most kid-friendly hotels in the world by Fodor’s Travel in 2012, has a kids buffet, game room and complimentary kids club for children aged 2 to 12, said Nina Smiley, director of marketing.
And at Wyndham Hotel Group’s Howard Johnson, brand executives have leveraged a partnership with the Harlem Globetrotters in a variety of kid-friendly ways.
“We’ve been able to incorporate a number of property-specific, Harlem Globetrotter-themed, ‘just for kids’ elements at our hotels—everything from free show tickets with a two-night stay to special giveaways at check-in like temporary tattoos, activity sheets and trivia games. One item that’s gone over really well is the opportunity to snap a photo in the hotel’s lobby with an official Harlem Globetrotter basketball,” John Valletta, the brand’s president, wrote in an email.
“Regardless of what we do, the ultimate goal is always creating a unique and memorable experience that makes the younger guests and their parents not only remember with fondness the Howard Johnson name, but has them wanting to come back again and again,” he added.
Marketing outreach
The Howard Johnson marketing team targets its offerings to families in general rather than specifically to kids.
“We target families—and all consumers really—with marketing across a variety of channels, everything from online and paid search to email, radio, social and more. We also engage heavily in the use of public relations to help get our message out,” Valletta said.
The same is true for Mohonk and Holiday Inn, a practice which adheres to advice from hotel sales and marketing consultant Brenda Fields of Fields & Company.
“Marketing should be directed to families and adults with kids and supported by the appropriate product offerings such as swimming pool, games, sports room, video games, children's foods,” she wrote in an email.
“The message should be kid-friendly and list the specific offerings,” Fields added.
Balsley said her team employs “multidimensional” marketing outreach.
“Television is a part of our marketing strategy for the Holiday Inn brand, but social is integral and mobile is all critically important for how today’s consumer researches travel and interacts with media. It has to be balanced across the board,” she said.
The goal is to reach parents, children and indeed the entire family unit on a variety of platforms and devices—many of which are an obstacle to family travel in the first place, Howard Johnson’s Valletta said.
“Think about today’s technology-driven and social media-focused world,” he said. “Young people are spending more and more time glued to their favorite electronic device and less and less time interacting face to face with others, family included. As a result, there’s a strong desire among parents to find opportunities to reconnect, to put down the devices and engage in quality time as a family unit.
“Travel is a great solution and one of the best ways to do just that.”