By Devorah Goldman and David A. Kalmar

As the travel industry continues to cope with sluggish economic recovery and continued weak business travel, there is an impossibly bright spot on the horizon, visible on luxury cruise ships, at major hotels and even in the print ads of major tourism companies.

What's the next big driver in the tourism and travel markets? Actually, it is pint-sized travelers, and their parents and grandparents, but the major industry players' commitment to them is anything but small.

And any diligent hotel and tourism marketer engaged in even a modest competitive intelligence analysis would realize the serious opportunities contained in this market.

Today, opportunities often lie outside of the traditional hospitality markets. Unless a competitive intelligence mindset has been incorporated into traditional marketing and research activities - that is, the discipline of systematically examining what your competitors are doing as well as what trends are impacting the industry as a whole - a marketer could easily miss a trend the size of a cruise ship passing by the office window.

Of course, it is not only identifying what a particular hospitality competitor is doing, but also understanding the dynamics of the trends that prompted a competitor to commit to a particular marketing strategy in the first place.

In a recent competitive intelligence project for a tourism client, we found evidence of travel and hospitality companies embracing the creation of new products and services in order to cater to kids and their families.

Disney recently announced in a 12-page industry magazine insert targeting travel agents that it "finds new magic in [this] emerging market." Disney has creating an entirely new line of products and services targeting families that travel together en masse, sometimes multigenerationally - a post 9/11 response, perhaps, that will continue to drive this new market indefinitely.

Similarly, Nickelodeon is partnering with Holiday Inn to develop the first Nick-themed hotel slated to open in early 2005 in Florida. The company will merge its media presence into the hotel with Nickelodeon-themed rooms and wake-up calls from Nick stars and daily character breakfasts.

And while one would expect Disney and Nickelodeon to be at the forefront of trends with respect to families, one can imagine hoteliers wondering how they could possibly be expected to understand a market quite possibly far from its origins or even current clientele. But the same could be said for a kids' entertainment entity. Nickelodeon's foray into a hotel partnership is far afield from its original product roots - and only diligent market intelligence and an enlightened understanding of how to apply their core competencies elsewhere took them there.

Within the travel and tourism industry, there is ample evidence of marketers on board with the family travel trend.

Celebrity Cruise Lines are kicking off "Celebrity Science Journeys" on board every ship, targeting kids ages 3 to 12, featuring various science themed hour-long programs. Crystal Cruises announced in September a new promotion that lets kids 12 and under sail free on its upcoming 14-day Caribbean Christmas-New Year's itineraries. And Royal Caribbean International is introducing a new program, Royal Reunions, designed to enhance family gatherings as the "new" vacation.

Families are being wooed in print ads as well. As part of a recent comprehensive competitive intelligence-oriented print advertising audit of eleven major U.S.-based travel and lifestyle magazines targeting travelers to the Caribbean in the third quarter of this year, almost all of the campaigns prominently featured children - or sometimes featured them in prints ads to the exclusion of adults.

This should raise many questions and a call to action for hotel and tourism marketers. Do you know who selects the family's vacation destination? Have you looked around your properties lately and quantified your pint-sized guests? Can you recall a single ad run recently by one of your competitors? Do you know who they are targeting?

If you answered "no" to even one of these questions, then you've got some homework to do before you'll be able to ride the wave of this robust market.

Customer Strategy Consulting, Inc. () is a market research/strategic market optimization consultancy based in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company's core expertise includes conducting market research studies in brand equity, customer loyalty, key driver modeling, market segmentation and pricing and product optimization. Travel and transportation clients have included American Express Travel Related Services, Delta, United, Marriott, and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.

Devorah Goldman ([email protected]) is Director of Competitive Intelligence at CSCI.
David A. Kalmar, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is CSCI president and founder.

David Kalmar
(201)333-7500