NEW YORK—To get a better sense of today’s millennial traveler, Resonance Consultancy—a real estate, tourism, and economic development advisor for countries, cities, and communities—surveyed more than 1,500 traveling millennials.
Rather than clichés—like a young couch-surfer or a 30-something tacking on a few extra vacation days to a business trip—the report found that more than half (58 percent) of U.S. millennials who traveled overnight last year have children under 18 years of age in the household. What’s more, 44 percent of all millennials are traveling with their kids in tow.
In its 2018 Future of Millennial Travel Report on America’s fastest growing tourism demographic, Resonance Consultancy found that millennial travelers are more likely to be young families of three or four visiting a faraway beach resort, exploring an Asian capital, or checking into an all-inclusive hotel, strollers and pool toys weighing them down.
Today, a bulk of travelers aged 20 to 36 are entering the realm of parenthood and making quality family time a top priority. Destinations that look past the Instagram-obsessed clichés can tap this ever-growing market.
“Once kids enter the picture, U.S. millennial parents continue to travel,” says Resonance Consultancy President Chris Fair. “In fact, our research shows that in the next two years, close to half of millennial travelers plan to take family vacations. Family travel is the most popular type of vacation among this travel segment. Given that U.S. millennials will spend $200 billion in 2018 alone, this is a massive opportunity for destinations and travel operators.”
Where are these millennials with children traveling to? Resonance research shows that 41 percent of millennial parents with kids are visiting beach resorts, followed closely by the 36 percent of young families choosing major metropolitan cities as primary destinations. Millennial families are not shying away from visiting foreign countries, either. In fact, that’s where more than a quarter of parents choose to vacation.
