The dig­i­tal era has rev­o­lu­tion­ized the con­sumer pur­chase jour­ney. The 2009 McK­in­sey mod­el demon­strat­ed that the old “fun­nel” con­cept has been over­come by the advent of the dig­i­tal empow­ered con­sumer.

Since 2009 things have evolved fur­ther, espe­cial­ly for the new gen­er­a­tion of con­sumers, mil­len­ni­als. Most of the pur­chase stages, from con­sid­er­a­tion to feed­back – and some­times all of them – hap­pen online.

Who are mil­len­ni­als and what makes them dif­fer­ent from the past gen­er­a­tions?

There’s not a stan­dard def­i­n­i­tion for mil­len­ni­als (yet) but there are some char­ac­ter­is­tics that are unique to this gen­er­a­tion.

Born between 1980 and the mid-2000s, mil­len­ni­als are the largest gen­er­a­tion in the U.S.

Mil­len­ni­als are more con­nect­ed to tech­nol­o­gy than any oth­er pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. They tend to be con­nect­ed vir­tu­al­ly via social net­works and they val­ue the role that they play in their com­mu­ni­ties.

They pre­fer to buy from brands that add val­ue to their lives, from those brands that sell by pro­vid­ing rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion or that sup­port good caus­es.

Mil­len­ni­als have high­er lev­els of edu­ca­tion in com­par­i­son to pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, and they tend to be more tol­er­ant and open to cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. They also val­ue unique­ness more.

Their pur­chase jour­neys are dif­fer­ent because, unlike the old­er gen­er­a­tions, they are famil­iar with tech­nol­o­gy and they see it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Unlike old­er gen­er­a­tions, they appre­ci­ate the impact it has in their lives . Many of their pur­chase jour­neys begin and fin­ish online.

This arti­cle will ana­lyze the mil­len­ni­al pur­chase jour­ney in a spe­cif­ic indus­try: trav­el.

The trav­el indus­try has been heav­i­ly dis­rupt­ed by dig­i­tal­iza­tion and we have rea­sons to believe it’s not yet ready to ful­fill the needs of the new dig­i­tal con­sumer. The lack of inspir­ing con­tent is prob­a­bly one of the biggest issues.

Let’s fol­low the online pur­chase jour­ney of a typ­i­cal mil­len­ni­al con­sumer from the moment when she starts think­ing about trav­el­ing to the final feed­back stage to under­stand how the trav­el indus­try has changed and what is still miss­ing.

Meet Julia, The Typical Millennial Traveller

Julia is a woman in her late 20s who lives in Lon­don. She’s a dig­i­tal account man­ag­er for an inte­grat­ed cre­ative agency, where she helps brands be more vis­i­ble and engag­ing online.

Julia grew up in the tech­nol­o­gy era. As a con­se­quence, she’s com­put­er savvy and she can’t imag­ine life with­out the Inter­net, and, as is the case with many of her peers, she feels lost with­out her mobile phone. She relies on the web for almost every­thing: research­ing infor­ma­tion, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with fam­i­ly and friends, and mak­ing the most of her pur­chas­es and book­ings.

She is active on social media and loves to share her thoughts and the things she likes with her friends/followers.

Julia loves to trav­el but doesn’t like to buy all-inclu­sive hol­i­days or to stay in resorts. She wants a cus­tomized and authen­tic expe­ri­ence and she wants to be in con­trol. That’s why she research­es all the infor­ma­tion and makes all the book­ings on her own, online.

Accord­ing to a Google’s research from 2012, the Trav­el Pur­chase Jour­ney is made up of five steps:

We believe there’s one more step between Book­ing and Expe­ri­enc­ing: research­ing. And we also believe that Expe­ri­enc­ing and Shar­ing are not two sep­a­rate steps any­more for mil­len­ni­als: they take place at the same time.

The Millennial Stages Of Travel

Dreaming

It’s a spring morn­ing and Julia is on a train. As every morn­ing, she is read­ing the news on her tablet when she finds an arti­cle “Hot Sum­mer Des­ti­na­tions 2015” and she real­izes that it’s time to start think­ing about her sum­mer hol­i­day. She wants to book in advance because she knows she’ll find cheap­er flights and more accom­mo­da­tions avail­able.

Julia starts think­ing about the kind of vaca­tion she wants to expe­ri­ence. She wants to relax on a nat­ur­al unspoiled beach and to dis­cov­er local cul­ture and land­scapes. She’s on bud­get so she decides to stay in Europe and starts con­sid­er­ing three coun­tries since that meet her require­ments: France, Greece, and Italy.

She starts her research on Google and she begins read­ing arti­cles about those coun­tries. After read­ing sev­er­al arti­cles she makes her mind and decides to go to the south of Italy, to Salen­to more exact­ly, the “heel” of Italy.

Les­son For Brands

Be a source of inspi­ra­tion for your cus­tomers. Cre­ate con­tent that’s as good as that pro­duced by trav­el mag­a­zines.

Dur­ing the dream­ing step, your cus­tomers will be active­ly look­ing for arti­cles or videos that inspire them. Some smart brands are already doing it. Amer­i­can Air­lines, Mar­riott, and BA have cre­at­ed their pub­lish­er web­sites where cus­tomer or poten­tial cus­tomers can find inter­est­ing arti­cles and stun­ning visu­als – the best tools to inspire read­ers.

Planning

Now that Julia has cho­sen her des­ti­na­tion, she needs to decide when to go, how to get there, and where to stay.

First, she looks for a cheap flight. She already knows where to find the best deals. She opens the Sky­Scan­ner app and she looks for flights depart­ing from any Lon­don air­ports to Brin­disi, Salento’s air­port, in July. Check­ing the month­ly view gives her an under­stand­ing of the best time when to fly.

She has decid­ed on the dates so she now starts eval­u­at­ing the accom­mo­da­tions. She’s think­ing about which is the best option for her: hotel or apart­ment?

She decides to stay in an apart­ment because she thinks that spend­ing time in a house, maybe in the his­tor­i­cal cen­ter of a nice town, will make her feel like a local. A more authen­tic expe­ri­ence. So, while head­ing home from the office, she opens her Airbnb app and she starts look­ing for a nice apart­ment.

After spend­ing some time check­ing the hous­es and the reviews she finds a nice apart­ment in the his­tor­i­cal cen­ter of Lec­ce. The house looks love­ly and the owner’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty gath­ered great reviews.

Les­son For Brands

Smart mar­keters are already aware of impor­tance of mobile search: 80 per­cent of Inter­net users use smart­phones to search the Web. A study con­duct­ed by Yahoo shows that 74 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als research trav­el plans on a mobile device. A mobile-friend­ly site is a must, but hav­ing a well-designed and usable brand­ed app can still make the dif­fer­ence, mak­ing you stand out from your com­peti­tors.

Accord­ing to mobile ana­lyt­ics firm Flur­ry, the over­all app usage has grown by 76 per­cent in 2014. Devel­op­ing an app that is easy to use and that pro­vides val­ue to the users, with­out annoy­ing them with unwant­ed noti­fi­ca­tion, allows brands to increase the cus­tomer engage­ment and enhances the brand sen­ti­ment.

Booking

Now that Julia has done her research and found the best oppor­tu­ni­ties for her require­ments she is ready to book. She books her flights, her hol­i­day apart­ment, and after quick­ly check­ing the prices online she also rents a car.

Of course, she does every­thing online with her lap­top, instant­ly. She doesn’t need to phone any of the com­pa­nies and she’s con­fi­dent about her choic­es because she has read many online reviews about those brands. She wouldn’t feel com­fort­able buy­ing from a com­pa­ny that doesn’t have any online reviews.

Les­son For Brands 

Online reviews are more impor­tant than ever. They’re a must to attract mil­len­ni­al con­sumers. At the begin­ning of the year, Hub­Spot pub­lished an info­graph­ic, which shows that 93 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als usu­al­ly read reviews pri­or to mak­ing a pur­chase. If you want to attract mil­len­ni­al con­sumers, mak­ing your hotel, apart­ment, or restau­rant the best kept secret in town wouldn’t be a smart move.

Encour­age your cus­tomers to leave reviews but don’t expect them to be always pos­i­tive. Make sure you reply polite­ly to the neg­a­tive ones and pro­pose to the unsat­is­fied cus­tomers to give you anoth­er chance to make things right, when pos­si­ble. Neg­a­tive reviews give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve your prod­uct or ser­vice and reply­ing to them demon­strates to your cus­tomers, or pos­si­ble future cus­tomers, that you val­ue their opin­ions and that you want to pro­vide great cus­tomer ser­vice.

Researching – The Missing Step

After choos­ing the loca­tion and book­ing, Julia wants to know every­thing about the place she is vis­it­ing. She starts search­ing for arti­cles about Salen­to, hol­i­day reviews and guides about the towns and vil­lages she wants to vis­it.

She reads about the local cui­sine and about the fes­ti­vals and cel­e­bra­tions tak­ing place dur­ing her stay. She wants to learn as much as pos­si­ble about the des­ti­na­tion.

Les­son For Brands

Brands aren’t tap­ping into that oppor­tu­ni­ty. After book­ing flights and accom­mo­da­tions con­sumers don’t receive emails from their “providers” that con­tain inter­est­ing con­tent about the loca­tion they are going to vis­it. They have to research every­thing on their own.

Com­pa­nies are always try­ing to under­stand what con­tent would engage more with their cus­tomers. There’s no need to rack your brains to find the solu­tion: it’s obvi­ous that, after a book­ing a hol­i­day, the con­sumer wants to read des­ti­na­tion relat­ed con­tent.

It’s impor­tant to cre­ate con­tent for your web­site that address­es user/searcher needs. Opti­mize it and also pro­mote it social­ly for max­i­mum impact. Once cus­tomers have made a book­ing, why don’t you send them emails with loca­tion relat­ed con­tent? If you don’t have the resources to pro­duce your own con­tent, the inter­net is your resource. The web is full of qual­i­ty trav­el arti­cles from trust­ed pub­lish­ers. You can research and curate the best ones and send your cus­tomers emails link­ing to them.

Experiencing & Sharing, Combined

As with many of her peers, Julia loves to share her expe­ri­ences instant­ly. That hap­pens on hol­i­day as well. A hol­i­day used to be con­sid­ered the right time to switch off, to be dis­con­nect­ed from the world, but things have changed for the new gen­er­a­tions. Mil­len­ni­als want to be con­nect­ed, always.

Dur­ing her stay, Julia takes pic­tures of the places she sees, and the foods she eats. She needs to be con­nect­ed to research the restau­rants for her din­ners, she needs to check Google Maps to find reach the places she wants to vis­it, and she wants to be able to share her pic­tures with her friends and fam­i­ly right after tak­ing them.

Les­son For Brands

Mil­len­ni­al con­sumers want to stay con­nect­ed on hol­i­day and they active­ly look for inspi­ra­tion on where to go, what to see, and where to eat. Fur­ther­more, they want to share those moments while they’re expe­ri­enc­ing them. Be there for them.

Be their source of inspi­ra­tion. Email them about the best restau­rants in the area or links to arti­cle about the most beau­ti­ful loca­tion they need to vis­it. Encour­age them to share those moments on social media. Try pro­vid­ing them with a hash­tag so you can actu­al­ly see what they share and engage with them.