The Millennial Client

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock.

Since I’ve focused many of my columns on how millennials can work with travel agents, I suppose it’s time to explore what it means to have millennials as clients. I’d estimate that millennials make up about half of my book of business, largely because I began by specializing in the honeymoon market. But that fact still surprises me when I consider it.

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When I think of the words “luxury travel,” the same image that most likely pops into your mind comes into mine. It’s that couple in their mid-50s who have aged very well, are dressed in their nautical whites, leaning over the bow of any high-end ship with a glass of champagne in their hand. I feel like we’ve all seen this quintessential affluent traveler featured in every magazine and marketing piece out there.

Isn’t it amazing that the generation focused more on travel than any other that preceeds it doesn’t look at all like that couple? On average, the millennial generation is planning to take more trips in the next calendar year than are any Xers, boomers or members of any other generation. For them, travel is not just a hobby or a reward after a long-tended career. Instead, it is a way of life and they are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that at least once or twice a year their Instagram will be peppered with photos of them in some exotic location.

Of course, it’s not just about the number of likes they get on their selfies from posting a photo of a beach in St. Barths; it’s about the memories they get to take back with them long after the social media hype has worn off.

All About the Experience
These memories are not the fancy dinners, although they do appreciate you name-dropping a notable Michelin-starred chef (how many millennials do you know who wouldn’t describe themselves as foodies?). Instead, these memories are all about the experience.

This seems like a no-brainer since all well-planned luxury travel caters to an experience and creating those indelible memories that last a lifetime, no matter what generation your clients were born in. The difference here is that millennials probably won’t be booking the top-end suites because spending one night in those might cost as much as an entire month’s rent.

Instead, they want to see that their dollars are going toward their dreams. You need to customize a trip based their wishes and desires, whether it’s experiencing the local hospitality of an off-the-beaten-path winery in Tuscany or exploring the Croatian landscape where “Game of Thrones” is filmed.

By no means does this suggest that millennials are unwilling to pay to be treated like luxury-travel VIPs. Millennials feel they deserve a reward for the grind of work. From what I can tell, they are following two generations that didn’t know how to shut off from work. After all, wasn’t it the baby boomers and gen Xers who created 80-hour workweeks?

There’s a certain skill required to treat yourself to anything considered to be luxury. Fortunately, millennials have mastered that skill. Whether or not it comes from a sense of entitlement is an entirely different question.

Take the strong emphasis on a sense of place for hotels, because no luxury traveler wants to stay somewhere that could be anywhere, and apply that same concept to a millennial’s itinerary. Millennials don’t want to be handed a vacation that could belong to anyone. They want a customized trip that resonates with their sense of self. If you can capture that quality in the trip you plan, then you can capture a millennial client.

Millennials come with the reputation that they can’t ever commit to one thing. They are notorious for changing careers, changing styles and living a nearly intangible life. Often they own neither a home nor a car, and they don’t have cable television (because we only need Netflix and HBO Go!).

But millennials will commit their loyalty to someone who really “gets” them and their travel preferences. The best part is that no matter what career or city that millennial travelers decide to focus on or live in — and they will change, believe me — as long as you are only an email or a text away, you can be their travel agent for life.