Images of rotating globes floated emptily across a black screen. Then the words flashed up: “The world will never be the same again.”
This wasn’t a cheap flick about judgement day. It was the opening gambit from the Association of British Travel Agents’ annual conference in November 2001. It reflected the grim mood of the industry during the aftermath of 11 September. Within a month, almost 3,000 tour operators and travel agents had lost their jobs. Winter bookings had dropped 30% and summer bookings halved from the previous year.
Desperate to try and rouse the industry, Airtours boss Richard Carrick urged attendees that the industry needed “a coordinated effort to get British people back on holiday”.
Whatever bedraggled conference delegates thought then, the story seen among newspapers and media planners three years on is an entirely different one. Amid a boom of travel supplements and magazines, it is the premium end of the travel market that is flourishing.
Bill Barker, media strategist at Naked, asserts that a growing demand for adventure holidays is pertinent to this upmarket trend.
Companies such as First Choice, which bought a series of specialist adventure holiday tour operators three years ago, have reaped a return on investment on their advertising efforts.
“Consumers now want excitement and escapism and premium-sector holiday advertisers are keen to capitalise on the current growth in this area,” says Barker.
“Even some of the traditional high-street brands are now looking to extend their offering from just “fly and flop” to “frill and chill” packages such as water-skiing, windsurfing and scuba diving,” he adds.
Learning from experience
The Guardian’s head of display advertising, Chris Pelekanou, agrees. “It’s about the experience, rather than the destination.
“People have become far more defined in what they want from their holidays and companies that advertise specific offerings, as opposed to just destinations, tend to do well.”
The upmarket shift and appetite for adventure puts travelling back in the limelight. As a result, travel supplements have become a standard offering among broadsheet titles. The challenge now for media owners is to differentiate content to attract readership and pull in new advertisers.
Last month, The Daily Telegraph was the latest of the broadsheet titles, after The Sunday Times and The Observer, to launch a glossy travel magazine. Billed as “your guide to heaven on earth”, the 68-page quarterly magazine, Ultratravel, comes after research that shows a 26% increase of people prepared to spend more than £2,500 per person on their holiday over the last three years.
Recent TGI research by Naked has also revealed a growth in this sector, with a 16% increase in premium-priced holidays – ie, those costing between £1,000 and £1,500 – over the past three years.
“We felt there was a niche right at the very top end of the market that hasn’t been covered by anyone else,” says Stephen Dunk, executive sales director of Ultratravel.
“We know our readers love travel and have a lot of money to spend on it, so there is a degree of fitting to our particular readership.”
The publication has already attracted a portfolio of advertisers including Emirates, Silversea Cruises, Shangri-La Hotels and Elegant Resorts. Such brands, previously associated exclusively with the business travel market, are becoming the luxury lifestyle choice among high earners.
“You find a whole host of airlines, hotels and upmarket tour operators that historically advertised to the business market,” Dunk says.
“With business facilities becoming increasingly available as standard, these brands are now having to target their product elsewhere.”
Nowhere is this more relevant than in the case of airline advertising. With the entrance of low-cost carriers in the mid-’90s, aggressive pricing and a new range of destinations has forced another dramatic change in the advertising landscape. “Confidence is returning,” says Matt Gill of ZenithOptimedia. “But with low-cost airlines having opened the market, traditional carriers have needed to compete on an equal footing. BA has re-priced a lot of its routes and ad spend has increased significantly from three years ago.”
More weight on planning
So, with more advertisers and titles, media planners have a larger responsibility than ever before. Magazines – such as The Observer’s monthly travel magazine and weekly supplement – see a wealth of brands keen to exploit the strengths of each medium.
The Guardian ’s head of display advertising, Chris Pelekanou, explains: “Tourist boards and luxurious holiday brands will generally use magazine supplements to build positive brand associations over a period of time – sometimes years.”
“Classified ads placed in weekly supplements, such as Kuoni’s, tend to have more of a call to action. You’ve already made your mind up and the content and advertising is more directive.
With more destinations, tour operators and advertisers keen to push messages in the numerous mediums available, it seems that travel advertising is not just here to stay, but to grow. As for the scepticism of the world’s uncertain future, portrayed at the ABTA Conference in 2001, the gems on offer may be just too tempting for either consumers or media owners to miss
The expert:Simon Calder
“As relative wealth increases, people are looking at the media for more upmarket experiences,” says Simon Calder.
“The old-style backpack has been dumped in favour of the wheel-along case – and we’ve realised our readers are more upmarket than ever.
It’s important to find the right balance between immediately accessible and aspirational. The classic analogy is ‘I want to read all about a very expensive car knowing full well that I can’t afford one’.
“Sometimes its nice to read about the beautiful spots and places knowing that, although I can’t afford it, it’s still luxurious and something to aspire to.”
Simon Calder is travel editor for The Independent
