PHOTO: Millennials enjoy group activities like this run on an Austin Adventures Reebok Fitness Vacation.

How quickly time flies. It doesn’t seem so long ago that tour operators were concerned about how to get Baby Boomers to take escorted tours. The escorted tour model was well adapted to the World War II generation, but when Baby Boomers started to reach their peak travel years, tour operators worried that they would not go for escorted touring.

The fears were not ungrounded. To back up their instincts and apprehensions, their market research showed that the Baby Boomers were not interested in the same types of tours as their parents. Baby Boomers were more experienced travelers. They had been around more on their own and did not need as much support. They were more independent, more confident on the road. They wanted more involvement, more activity, more in-depth exploration, more encounters with locals, more unstructured time to explore independently, more behind-the-scenes access, more authentic experiences representative of the destination.

Baby Boomers saw the old style of touring as too regimented, too much time on a bus looking out the windows.

Tour operators got busy and rebuilt their products from the ground up. Over time, they addressed the concerns of the Boomers, and today’s tours are modeled on those changes. They are now more active, more interactive, with more independent time, more behind-the-scenes access, more face-to-face encounters with indigenous people, more authentic experiences, more cultural immersion and local cuisine.

Today the Boomers have moved into the center of the travel market, gradually displacing their parents’ generation. And now the concern shifts to those following them: Generation X and then Generation Y, or the Millennials.

Defining Terms

The plural noun “Millennials” is thrown around a lot these days, but it actually goes back to the late 1980s, when the Millennials were first entering school.

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe are credited with coining the term “Millennials.” They discussed Millennials in the book “Generations: The History of America’s Future” in 1991 and also wrote an entire book about them, called “Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation.” Strauss and Howe defined Millennials as people born between 1982 and 2004.

The generation has also been referred to as Generation Y and as the Echo Boomers, the latter referring to the fact that it is a large generation, like the Baby Boomers and, to a large degree, Generation Y includes the children of the Baby Boomers.

Generational Traits

The idea that generations differ in character from one another is widely accepted. But the specific traits of Millennials are more controversial.

Strauss and Howe predicted that Millennials will become more civic minded as they matured, similar to the World War II generation. But others have different theories.

Jean Twenge published a book in 2006 called “Generation Me,” which was yet another name for the Millennials. Twenge found Millennials to be confident and tolerant, but also narcissistic and having a sense of entitlement.

A Pew Research Center paper on Millennials said they are “detached from institutions” and instead “networked with friends.” They are more optimistic about the future than preceding generations, with 49 percent saying they believe the country’s best days are ahead.

No one needs a sociological study to see that technological changes have profoundly changed the environment in which people grow up. Starting with the PC at the beginning of the Millennials’ lifespan, and evolving to the Internet and smart phones, technology has created a new environment in which human behavior is molded.

The University of Michigan’s “Monitoring the Future” study, which interviewed succeeding generations since 1966, found that the Millennials consider wealth important at a much higher rate than the Baby Boomers, 75 percent to 45 percent, with Gen-Xers at 70 percent. The importance of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” fell from 73 percent to 45 percent from the Boomers to the Millennials.

Educational sociologist Andy Furlong in his book “Youth Studies: An Introduction” described Millennials as team players, optimistic and engaged.

David Burstein, in his book “Fast Future” says the Millennials are “pragmatic idealists,” who care about making the world a better place, and understand that doing so requires working with institutions or building new ones.

Defining the millennials

Different studies estimate the number of Millennials at about 80 million. It’s a big market, and it is now moving swiftly into the mainstream of society, gradually taking the places of the Boomers and the Xers. So whether or not social scientists can definitively determine the behaviors of the generation, tour operators and travel agents, like everyone else in business, must nevertheless learn to market to them.

To move from sociology to marketing, Agent@Home contacted Brent Green, a writer and social commentator focused on generational marketing and transformation of industries. Green is the author of “Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers” and “Generation Reinvention.”

Luckily for tour operators, the direction in which they have been evolving their products for the Baby Boom generation is primarily the right direction for the Millennials. Many of the traits that started to emerge in the Baby Boom generation are coming to full flower with the Millennials. But there are also important distinctions.

“Millennials have fully embraced the experience economy,” says Green. “They seek opportunities to immerse themselves in locales and foreign cultures. They are well traveled when compared to older generations, so they have sophisticated sensibilities about what is authentic versus fake, and they prefer the former.”

According to Green, travel experiences for the Millennium generation “need to be richly multisensory, with an effective balance of adventure and relaxation (or chilling out). They value and need online engagement with social networks because their travel experiences must be shared with peers in real time whenever possible. Limited online engagement can be a real turn-off, even in remote places.”

Green adds, “They yearn to make a difference, having adopted the philanthropic values of Boomers,” says Green. “So many like their travel experiences to be imbued with service to others — maybe not an entire trip but, for example, one meaningful day of giving within a trip.”

And they are tolerant. “They have quite liberal views on social issues and have been much more willing to accept alternative lifestyles such as GLBT,” says Green. “They are very effective team players, so they enjoy group activities that are engaging and require teamwork.”

But, he adds, “They remain relatively unattached to political ideologies and religious faiths when compared with older generations.”

While Millennials are following trails of the Baby Boomers farther, they also have traits that are theirs alone. Ashish Sanghrajka, president of Big Five Tours, warns against trying to sell Baby Boomer products to Millennials.

“Millennials are seeking authenticity,” said Sanghrajka. “Sadly, this word is getting as over-used as ‘eco-tourism,’ with tours meant for a different generation being repackaged for Millennials. Most Millennial travelers are aware of this and won’t even give a second chance to anyone repackaging. They are not looking for voluntourism or to be involved in a foundation, they are looking to have their travel be part of a larger solution.”

According to Sanghrajka, we have been witnessing the effect of the Millennials in the marketplace for years. “The Millennial generation has been influencing the buying habits of their parents more than ever over the past few years. So you are not only seeing a new product for this generation, you see the prior generation starting to embrace these changes for themselves as well. The best advice I ever received was from one of my mentors who is outside the travel business. He said, yesterday’s elation is today’s expectation.”

Focus your message

Marian Lavilla, marketing specialist for SITA World Tours, says that because Millennials are Internet savvy and research online, it is important to focus your Internet message.

“Since testimonials, reviews and recommendations from friends are very important to Millennials when making decisions on where and when to travel, it is important that the messages about the company on the Internet are relevant to what they are looking for,” says Lavilla. “With all the research they do via technology, this makes them quick to book a trip, but it also means that they are more likely to book closer to their departure dates than other generations.’

Lavilla adds, “Due to this, SITA offers special price advantages to book early. Other services that Millennials look for are customization and authenticity. They like the idea of authenticity and having experiences that are different than any of their peers.”

Millennials, says Phil Cappelli, president of Insight Vacations, said, “want to touch, smell, feel and appreciate the uniqueness of every destination. As a result, we focus on promoting our interactive local experiences, like our strudel-making demonstration in Budapest and the intimate flamenco performance in Seville. Insight’s Signature Experiences, and the charming individuals who conduct them, really resonate with our Millennial guests.”

“Millennials have redefined travel!” says Sabina Osorio, marketing manager for Sceptre Tours. “They want to see the world, experience it in a unique way and tell all of their friends along the way via social networks. They are interested in diversity and authenticity, especially when it comes to travel. When targeting Millennials with escorted tours, we have found that boutique tours that offer value without compromising on the personal touch is the way to go. Small things like Wi-Fi-enabled coaches and genuine encounters with locals and artisans can make a big difference for this market.”