GENERATIONAL APPEAL
Marketing expert shares tips on capturing millennial tourist dollars
Offering an authentic experience is the way to capture tourism dollars of the largest generation today, according to millennial marketing expert David Coletto. “Authenticity. Think about what southwest Ontario is about, your unique culture, landscape and people,” Coletto said. “This is what you have to sell.”
Coletto, who has been studying Canadian millennials — people aged 20 to 36 — for the past seven years, shared his insights via an hour-long presentation laced with humour at the seventh annual Ontario Southwest Tourism Conference Tuesday in Leamington. A millennial himself at age 36, Coletto told the approximately 220 delegates that the way to catch the eye of the generation that now outnumbers baby boomers is as simple as a click of a button. But the adventure offered has to be unique to appeal to young adults who value experiences over possessions. “(Millennials) are far more likely to care about doing things than having things,” he said. “We’re a generation looking for authentic, real, honest experience. It’s not enough to say we have beautiful vistas. It’s what do I do if I come to your destination?” Tourism is big business in Ontario, generating $32 billion last year, according to Carol Greenwood, a director with the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario. Greenwood said it also generates employment, especially for young people, with more than 40 per cent of tourism workers under the age of 35.
Southwest Ontario Tourism Corporation executive director Jim Hudson pointed to the area’s growing tourism market, citing statistics showing Windsor had the highest revenue per available room in the region in 2017 at $73. That figure is up from $44 in 2012.
But Coletto said to attract millennials, social media is the best platform.
“If you’re not online, you don’t exist to my generation,” Coletto said. “You don’t have to have the best website or the most expensive social media reach out there but if I can’t find you and find other people experiencing you online, it’s going to be a signal to me that maybe you’re not a great experience or you don’t exist even. “You have to remember we are the digital-first generation. Everything we do starts on a device of some sort and that journey is really important.” Coletto said young consumers determine the value of the products they buy, the restaurants they eat at and the places where they travel based on online feedback. “No one anymore makes a decision … unless they’ve confirmed with some kind of (online) rating,” he said. “We no longer rely on experts, we no longer rely on critics because instead we look to what the masses care about.” County Warden Tom Bain, who is also a member of the Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island board, said the tourism industry is growing in importance, alongside agriculture and the automotive industry, in the region and focus needs to be put on the increasing clout of the millennial generation. “I thought he had some great ideas and really revealed to us a lot of information about just how powerful his group is now and how much more powerful it’s going to be,” Bain said. “They’re the group we’re going to have to go after to continue with our successes economically.”
if I can’t find you and find other people experiencing you online, it’s going to be a signal to me that maybe you’re not a great experience…