{"id":17574,"date":"2013-10-14T20:43:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T20:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.expedia.com\/stories\/?p=17574"},"modified":"2013-10-14T20:43:33","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T20:43:33","slug":"future-of-travel-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expedia.com\/stories\/future-of-travel-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of travel report"},"content":{"rendered":"

We love to study travelers and their behavior. We have the lucky jobs of helping millions of travelers all around the world find their perfect trip and, with our corporate travel brand Egencia<\/a>, a lot of times, those trips are for business travel.\u00a0 One of the things that fascinates us most these days is the role of millennials in shaping travelers. Increasingly, they will have more and more decision-making power within organizations to shape travel policy and, as their careers progress, they\u2019ll have more power to shape leisure travel as well. So we set out to study how millennial travels differ from their older counterparts with our Future of Travel study<\/a>. The study was conducted across five continents, asking 8,535 employed adults in 24 countries about how they conduct business and leisure travel \u2013 their likes, dislikes, preferences, and pet peeves. The study aims to discover how millennials will impact the travel landscape as they gain decision-making power at work and purchase power in their personal lives.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Sharp differences emerged in the Future of Travel analysis, particularly the differing value that younger travelers place on mobile and on loyalty. Millennials are far likelier to embrace loyalty programs while en route; half of millennials find loyalty programs important when booking flights (48%) or hotels (51%), versus only three in ten of travelers aged 46-65 (31% & 30% respectively). Mobile and other form factors are clearly important to the future of travel. In fact, for booking business travel, 32% of those 30 and under report using a smartphone and 20% report booking on a tablet.\u00a0That\u2019s compared to just 12% for smartphone and 9% for tablet for those over 45.\u00a0And 18-30 year-olds are far likelier than 46-65 year-olds to use mobile devices to enhance their travel experience.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The study found that younger travelers were freer with their company\u2019s money when traveling.<\/strong>\u00a0Globally, business travelers aged 18-30 more frequently report that they will spend more of their company\u2019s money on high-end meals (42%) than they would their own money compared to those aged 46-65 (26%). Millennials are also fans of room service: 37% would spend more of their company\u2019s money on room service, versus only 21% of 46-65 year-olds.\u00a0Younger Americans (34 and under) are slightly more likely to spend company money on a flight upgrade to business- or first-class than are their older peers (35 and older). They are also slightly more likely to spend company money on high-end meals, room service, and wine\/alcohol, although not significant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Millennials have more opportunities to order room service than any other age demographic, because they travel slightly more on business.<\/strong>\u00a0Worldwide, 30-and-unders report traveling 4.7 times per year on business, versus 3.6 times per year among 30-45 year-olds, and 4.2 times per year among 46-65 year-olds. Millennials take more leisure trips as well, at 4.2 trips a year, versus 2.9 for 31-45 year-olds and 3.2 for 46-65 year-olds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Among Americans, 45% of respondents aged 34 and younger claim to work fewer hours when they travel than they do at the office, versus 24% of Americans aged 35 and older.\u00a0American and Canadian millennials travel more frequently of any age group across any nation, reporting that they take a full 7.8 leisure trips per year. On the contrary, European respondents aged 31-45 take 2.7 leisure trips per year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On the whole, the study found that:<\/p>\n