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Your vacation could be like this!

As a Gen X-er, I’ll be the first to admit I was a little late to jump on “The Hangover” bandwagon, having just seen it earlier this week.  But then yesterday, a fellow Twitterer posted a link about a Las Vegas vacation based around the film.  However, it’s actually old news - the promotion - has already ended as of August 1. 

But the promotion alone - and the fact that a 33-year-old male sports blogger - tweeted about it got me to thinking about the target audience for promotions like this.  Traditionally, marketers focus travel outreach on moms or women, as they are usually the ones making the travel - and other spending - decisions for a household.  This holds true not only for family vacations - for which it’d be more obvious - but also for long-haul destinations that traditionally cost more. 

This trend, however, seems to be switching.  One of the main travel trends this year is to still travel on “once-in-a-lifetime” trips for a birthday, anniversary, wedding, etc.  It seems bachelor parties can now also be added to that list.  And what sets these events apart from other “usual” vacations is that there’s more of a commitment - both from a time and financial perspective.  For marketers, we’ve had to notice and realize that that means MEN are now as much a part of the decision-making process.

Another trend both men and Gen Y are jumping on is couchsurfing.  The organization has actually been around since 2004 and it has members in more than 230 countries and territories.  However, in the last year, it has grown to more than 1 million members and has become more mainstream - with stories appearing recently in the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.  This is another non-traditional way of people making sure, even in a down economy, that they are experiencing the world around them. 

While some of us Gen X marketers may find it a little strange or off-putting to offer to share our home - or our couch - with perfect strangers, we are realizing that, even as the economy starts picking up again, this generation of travelers - younger and more gender balanced - will be the ones spending in our clients’ hotels and at their destinations.  Like the night in the Hangover, this audience may have a tendency to be forgotten, but we really should not.

Perhaps it’s just because it’s summer, but I seem to be noticing many more “destination” songs on the radio and got to thinking if there’s ever been one that’s actually encouraged me to travel somewhere.  

There are many I can think of that have encouraged me *not* to travel to a location - Bruce Springsteen alone has made Nebraska and Atlantic City drop notches lower on my list of “must sees.”  Certainly Duran Duran’s “Rio” did that city no favors and “One Night in Bankok” from Chess was just too scary of a song to make me jump a flight to Thailand.  “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn” is great, but not a provocative sell of the borough. 

However, location songs have played a role in many of my road trips - especially while driving through Tennessee singing both “Last Train to Clarksville” and “Rocky Top.”  

Does the last train lead here?

Springsteen’s “Fourth of July - Asbury Park” and the mystique around Bruce’s early career playing in Asbury Park bars actually led a colleague and me to drive through half of New Jersey to check out the Stone Pony while in New Jersey on business.  So, in that case, I was inspired to travel (albeit a New Jersey road trip) because of a song.

The blogosphere has many people weighing in on this: Travel Guide John Kremer has created a blog listing of all the songs he knows of that include state or city names.   There have also been articles  that chronicle top 10 cities in song.   Some blogs actually use songs as reasons why people should check out locations, but there’s little I could find showing songs have encouraged people to go places.  We’d love to hear from you - have you traveled anywhere because of a song?  

In the interest of full disclosure, Brazilian Tourism is one of our clients.  But even if that were not the case, I would say this - the Parintins Festival is unlike I have ever experienced in my life.  This festival, held at the end of each June in the Amazon region of Brazil, puts all other summer festivals to shame.  A well-known travel photojournalist, Peter Guttman, who was traveling with us, even marveled that “this festival is bigger than the Macy’s Day Parade.” 

The festival takes place in Parintins, a small city of 100,000 that is in the Amazon state.  The indigenous Brazilians work for several months creating floats, dances and costumes for this festival that splits the city into two - the Caprichoso (blue team) and the Guarantido (red team).  Coca-Cola is a major sponsor and, as seen in the photo below, they support both teams, so the only time you’ll ever see a BLUE Coca-Cola logo is at this festival - something that really blew the mind of this marketer!

The festival only became known in the U.S. in recent years and is still relatively unknown and inaccessible, potentially because it is all in Portuguese.  However, in traveling to another country, the language barrier will always play a part.  With this festival, the music and scenes are definitely the experience. 

The Caprichoso team for the Parintins Festival

New York Times illustration

My son turns three years old today and he has yet to fly on a plane.  As someone who flies at least three times a month - albeit, mostly for business - and who works with travel clients, you would assume I’ve taken him everywhere.  However, flying for me is an oasis in the sky - despite the proliferance of mid-air Wi-Fi  - a time when I can relax and not be reached.  Why on Earth would I ruin that by taking my son along?

I recently read that I may not be alone in this sentiment and that many people have even toyed with the idea of banning children from flights.  I’m all for people flying with their children - heck, how else are you supposed to get to Disney? - but for me, I think I’ll wait until at least age five, even if these tips could be infinitely helpful.

Our clients range from international destinations to hotels and travel content providers, many of whom provide advice and tips on how to best travel to their locations with children.  To these experts, even a road trip with the family can be challenging and they’ve devised products that will help make it more enjoyable.  We will be trying those out this summer and I’ll be sure to report back on our road - not yet plane - trip fun! 

When I traveled through the Caribbean and New Orleans on my honeymoon five years ago, I did not give leaving my Blackberry at home a second thought. It wasn’t so much that it was my honeymoon, it was because technology was not as pervasive or accessible. It was just the start of the Web 2.0 world — for example, I was one of the few in my circle to have a Blackberry — at the time, many were taking baby steps (usually taught by their younger siblings or co-workers) of texting, so there was less of a need to plug in.

As we all acknowledge, though, today’s world is different. Airlines are fighting for your dollars by vying to be the first to have wi-fi access and now many will have it this summer . Many of us lament how it would be possible to leave our technology behind, even for a few days. And many a blog discussion has been had about the pros and cons of disconnecting or connecting.

Part of the beauty of a vacation for me, at least, is not only the getting away, but the feeling of getting away with something. When I’m lounging at a pool on a Wednesday at 2 p.m. and am truly relaxed, I feel I’m getting away with something. If I were to have my laptop or Blackberry poolside and anyone could ping me about a work deadline, question, or even a neighbor asking if we wanted our mail picked up, it would interrupt that zen quality that comes only from vacation and travel. Stories can always be captured and shared while traveling, but it’s the interruptive nature of technology that is what people should really disconnect from. Otherwise, you might as well have stayed home.

Thank you for visiting the blog of the Travel and Economic Development (TED) speciality of Ogilvy Public Relations. We fondly call ourselves TED for short because, as travelers used to going from LAX to JFK or ORD to ORY, we are used to thinking - and working - in acronyms. 

Beyond the acronym, though, we are a global group of PR professionals with a passion and focus for travel we hope you’ll see comes through in our writing.  Many of us have, and continue to, work with travel clients on a day-to-day basis. From airlines, car rental, rail and cruise lines; destinations and attractions; lodging providers; online travel planning and ticketing resources; and countries, visitor services and trade boards, we are immersed in the business of tourism.

Our blog is a way for us to share our insights and perspectives from this work.  We are an active group, so make sure you visit often, or grab the RSS feed.  We truly value your feedback in the form of comments on our posts.  Finally, if there are any topics you would like us to cover, drop us a note.