A Sense of Place

One thing I’ve noticed from my personal travels, as well as from the requests of my clients, is the rising demand for a sense of a place. While this might not be a characteristic of only millennial customers, it is certainly one of the most important factors in travel planning their. Millennials have a strong desire to feel the heart of a destination.

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I’m thrilled to see hotel brands embracing this concept, maintaining their standards of service and luxury while creating a holistic experience for guests. For my own travel, I want to stay in a hotel that speaks to the destination without sacrificing the luxury of a five-star property. I don’t want to stay in a property in Tokyo that makes me feel like I’m in New York, and neither do any of my counterparts.

This is an important concept to grasp when planning travel for millennials — the old focus on “location, location, location” has changed to “experience, experience, experience.”

In addition, that experience needs to extend well beyond the walls of the property. Millennial travelers today want to bring home an indelible memory that touches them in a spiritual and emotional way. Statistically, they are more community-driven and committed to a level of social justice than the generations before them. They also have a deep desire to collect stories from their travels that reflect these values.

From a hotel perspective, one of the best embodiments of this mindset that I’ve personally encountered has been at Singita Lebombo Lodge in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The hotel itself appeals to that sense of place, from the individual villas with sweeping views of the valley below to the brand’s commitment to bettering the world.

Helping the Community
Every Singita property has a project that benefits its community. At Lebombo, a cooking school hand selects a number of villagers to learn under a Relais & Chateaux-trained chef. The students begin by cooking for their peers and co-workers on the compound and eventually they graduate with enough knowledge to be hired by a five-star kitchen. This provides them with an income that they and their families could never have received otherwise.

Singita Lebombo’s program benefits the entire village in a way that doesn’t just throw money at it, but actually invests time and energy to make an impact. It illustrates the concept “don’t just give a man a fish, teach a man to fish,” and shows guests exactly how that happens. For me, it provided an even better experience than any game drive I could have gone on.

For millennials, gone are the days when walking through a museum on a tour is enough of a travel experience. We want something that stays with us well beyond framed photos and a highlight reel of historical events. I recently visited Prague with Exeter International, which truly understands this need. Not only did Exeter take us to see the Terazín concentration camp, but it also arranged for a Holocaust survivor to accompany us throughout the day.

Over time, I may forget the painted walls of the Secret Synagogue, the haunting images from the video we watched and the statistics of just how many people suffered.

But I will never forget the name or the story of the one person who shared her account of survival with such candid emotion that it forever changed my understanding of the Holocaust. Her name was Eva. Her story was gut wrenching. And it is this experience with her that I will share from this trip with anyone who will listen.

Millennials cannot grasp history simply by reading about it in a textbook or listening to an audio tour of a historic site. We need to feel the emotions that are so deeply attached to the site. We need to read excerpts of poetry or hear pieces of music that have been inspired by the destination. We need to hear a testimonial from someone else who was deeply moved by the experience.

In an age where people are so focused on their smartphone screens, millennials are longing for their travel experiences to transport them beyond just another pretty picture.

Give us something that we will never forget!