Here’s why Better Homes & Gardens is entering travel
Allow us to brighten your Wednesday with yet another report from Travel DAZE!
And the promise that we’re halfway to the weekend.
At the only TED talk style conference for the travel industry, we heard from media trailblazer, the editor in chief of Better Homes & Gardens, Julia Zaetta, about why the industry shouldn’t neglect the baby boomer market.
As you may have heard, Better Homes & Gardens has been getting involved with travel in a big way.
That’s probably why they’re presenting our inaugural Australian Travel Awards! To enter, find out more, or buy tickets, go here.
Having just recently celebrated 40 years of magazines and 1,000 TV episodes, Better Homes plan on making travel their third landmark.
Why? Zaetta told Travel DAZE attendees that research showed her audience were travelling. And they wanted Better Homes to tell them how and where to go.
“The good thing about our readers is that they are doers and not dreamers,” she said.
“Our magazine tells you how to do something, it’s not just a picture book.
“We work on three words, which are ideas, inspiration and information. They are great for travel.”
The Better Homes audience is, of course, baby boomers.
“Here’s the great thing about boomers: they’ve got time, they have money, they have edge, they’ve got drive, they have humour, they have experience and they want to go places.
“When I ask my fellow boomers where they want to be in ten years 8 out of 10 say we want to be travelling.”
Zaetta said Ipsos Research told her that travel and schools were the new social markets.
“Where you go and where you send your kids to school are now much more important than the size of the house you live in or the car you drive. So where they go, how often they go and how they go is what gives them status,” she said.
Zaetta told attendees she has been frustrated by the perception people have of the baby boomer market.
“People perceive baby boomers as the older generation and yes in years, they are, which often gives a preconceived notion,” Zaetta said.
“We’re all concerned with millennials, and we tend to forget the baby boomers at our peril.
“They’re the ones with the money. They are the sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll generation and we forget that. The boomers are buying the Mustangs, the boomers are guying the Harleys.
“Ask a boomer this question: if you didn’t know how old you were, how old would you say you are? Boomers will say 35 and younger.”
So it only makes sense for Better Homes to dip into the travel market.
“Our mission generally is to make people happy, through their homes and home life, where they do everything that matters. And now where they are planning their travel.
“We will add to where and how they travel, why they would go, what they will do, and when is the best time.
“As a brand, it’s our mantra to show them and to tell them how to do it. We give them the tools to make it happen. We’re loaded with tips, hints, instructions, listicles, boxes of expert information, step by step pics, and heaps more.
“And we will do it with the great headspace of these young, fun, excitable, ambitious, active, curious, optimistic and wonderful over 55s.”
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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