Project 18-40: Understanding the Younger Traveller

For a while now, we’ve been noticing a bit of a gap in some of the established visitor segmentation models we often use in our client work – where are the youngsters in those models and how do they feel about travelling in the UK? So, in 2023, alongside our tourism consultancy partner, Blue Sail, we set out to understand more about the characteristics, motivations and behaviours of UK-based Gen Z and Millennial travellers (adults aged 18-40).

To begin with we ran a 15-minute online quantitative survey among 2,000 UK-based adults aged 18-40. 40% of them were Gen Z and 60% were Millennials, and they were representative of other key demographics including sex, lifestage and ethnicity. They were also representative of the whole of the UK with coverage across England, Scotland, Wales and NI.

Initial findings showed that big shifts in life priorities and attitudes – many of which happen between the ages of 18 and 40 - drive changing travel needs, and the appeal of the UK as a destination for holidays increases with age. 30 in particular is a key milestone where there is a significant shift in travel attitudes and behaviours with jobs, income, tenure and having kids all being driving factors.

Unsurprisingly, we also found that:

Climate change is high on their agenda with 74% seeing it as a major issue
The experience economy is important with 2/3 prizing experiences over possessions. But as many people see money as a signifier of success as those that don’t
Cost of living is seen as the biggest barrier to travel in next two years

But perhaps the more interesting and important finding is that these guys aren’t all the same when it comes to travel. In fact, as we suspected, there are some real differences in attitudes, behaviour and demographics within the 18-40 age range and within Gen Z and Millennials.

Now for the technical stuff….using a statistical approach called Latent Class Analysis, we’ve been able to use the findings from our research to create a segmentation solution with seven discrete segments which we have gone on to profile and size.

Here they are at a glance…