Portrait of a Millennial Travel Agency

Millennials’ perception of travel—and for that matter, travel agents—differs from what Baby Boomers and other older generational groups think, according to Andrey Zakharenko, owner of San Francisco-based Always Travel. The 37-year-old Millennial acquired the agency six years ago, after working there part-time while pursuing degrees in business and entrepreneurship at San Francisco State University.

They are new to using travel agents, Zakharenko said of Millennials, who make up about 40 percent of the agency’s business. “Millennials are a lot less anxious about what will happen while traveling than other generations. And they are a lot more spontaneous. They want the option of doing their own thing.”

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Zakharenko was no stranger to travel before he became an advisor. A native of Moscow, he traveled frequently—his father worked for the Russian airline Aeroflot—before moving to San Francisco to study. “Travel is the number-one joy that people yearn for and look forward to,” he said.

Three travel advisors staff the agency’s office, and it also works with four independent contractors. Sixty-five to 75 percent of its business is generated from the leisure market, with the remainder coming from the corporate sector. (A sister company, Russian Connections, assists both leisure and business clients traveling to Russia with visas, flights, private tours and more.)

Zakharenko charges his clients service fees, a business model that works especially well with Millennials, he said. “They want a clear breakdown of what everything costs.”

For example, with certain types of travel like tours, prices are bundled “and I can’t unbundle those prices. But if I’m planning an FIT, I can deliver prices for everything,” he said. “They know I’m getting paid not for the prices I’m delivering, but for my service and my time,” Zakharenko said. “I’m not hiding anything; it’s a true partnership with everything out in the open.”

Knowing the types of trips Millennials are interested in, meanwhile, is key to serving them, he said, adding that they are not traditional travelers. “Some of them hate all-inclusives and cruises. What they do like is to use miles to fly to, say, Costa Rica, find an apartment or an Airbnb there and then, for the last two or so days of their trip, stay in a five-star property.”

While the agency’s Baby Boomer clientele has a preconceived notion of what a travel professional is, “in this tech age with so many resources and websites, some Millennials don’t even know that it’s possible that you will be there for them,” Zakharenko said.

Millennials tend to travel more often than Baby Boomers and other older generational groups, but the difference doesn’t stop there. “Baby Boomers plan for it, Millennials don’t,” Zakharenko said, adding that if they find an airline sale to Iceland they’re likely to buy a ticket “not because the trip was planned for, but because an opportunity presented itself.”

Typically, Millennials make their travel plans about three months in advance—unless it’s for a special occasion like an anniversary—while older generations plan their trips six months in advance, Zakharenko said.

When it comes to communication, there are also differences in dealing with Millennial versus other clients. “With Millennials it’s more a matter of texting and sending links versus calling older clients, or, if they’re local, having them come into the office,” he said.

Millennials also use different methods to reach out to him. “I’ve had people send me trip requests on Facebook and Instagram or through a WhatsApp message,” he said. “When inspiration hits you, that’s when you should be able to reach out to clients. That’s sometimes lacking with traditional methods of communication.”

In the end, Zakharenko believes that keeping Millennials engaged is key to capturing their business. “For Millennials, I’m always thinking, how do I keep the interest going? You have to be more on your feet because they can get easily distracted—or something else comes up and life changes,” he said.