• More than 500 travel industry delegates set to attend
• Event will focus on shift towards experience-led travel industry in APAC and Oceania

  Arival – the global leader of events, insights and community for the travel experiences industry – is returning to Bangkok this summer to host the Arival | Activate conference.   Arival | Activate, which takes place from June 12-14, 2023, will gather leaders from the experiences industry – tours, activities and attractions – to delve into the major trends shaping travel’s third-largest and fastest-growing sector.   Arival’s June event aims to help experience creators and sellers re-activate their businesses after the pandemic.  It will highlight shifts in consumer behavior that are shaping travel experiences across APAC and Oceania in 2023 and beyond.   “Experiences are now a primary driver of travel, with three in five Gen-Z and Millennial travelers prioritizing experiences over things*,” said Douglas Quinby, co-founder and CEO of Arival. “But traveler expectations and behavior have changed dramatically as the Asia and Oceania regions have emerged from the pandemic. The Arival | Activate Bangkok conference will deliver the insights, tools and connections that tour, activity and attraction businesses need to gain a competitive edge in this dynamic new landscape.”   More than 500 attendees from across the tours, activities, attractions and experiences sectors are expected to walk through the doors of the 2023 Arival | Activate Bangkok event.  The conference – which has secured Klook, Viator, Go City, TUI Musement, BeMyGuest and Headout as partners – will feature an impressive speaker roster spanning many of the experience sector’s most well-known brands.   “Post-pandemic, travelers are prioritizing memorable activities that connect them with local cultures, history and people,” continued Quinby.  “They are prepared to pay more for meaningful experiences, and areas such as outdoor pursuits, sightseeing and small group or private tours have grown significantly in popularity since the pandemic.  This puts the experiences sector in the limelight, creating a golden opportunity for companies that can give their customers what they want.”   At Arival | Activate, delegates can expect to gain an in-depth understanding of the entire online ecosystem, alongside the most pertinent trends that are shaping travel in the APAC region.  Topics that will be of specific relevance at this year’s conference include tapping into revenue opportunities from pent-up travel demand, how new technologies can help enable growth, and how food tourism continues to gain traction in the dynamic new experience-focused travel industry.   Delegates at this year’s Arival | Activate can expect to make connections with a variety of OTAs, DMCs and various other travel companies from across the experiences ecosystem.  The event will take place at the Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park.

  The gift of a tour, activity and experience is one that most people say that they would prefer. Virgin Experience Gifts’ Melanie White walked Arival 360 attendees through how operators can grow their business with gifting.   Experience gifting is one of the hot trends coming out of the pandemic. The uncertainty of the supply chain crisis has pushed people away from physical presents towards giving memories. There are also demographic changes. Gen Z wants experiences more than they want stuff.   “According to the 2021 Sitecore Holiday Trend Report, 71% of people surveyed responded that they would prefer to receive an experience based gift for the holiday,” Melanie White, executive vice president of Virgin Experience Gifts, told Arival 360 San Diego.  

The full talk is available on-demand for Arival Pro Access Members and Arival 360 Online attendees

  An Eventbrite survey from 2018 suggested “that 85% of US adults agree that an experienced gift is a great way for both the gift giver and the recipient to enjoy something together. And that number jumps to 93% when looking just at millennial women,” she said.  

FLEXIBILITY IS ESSENTIAL

Recipients must be able to redeem their gift whenever they wish — Kamil Pietrzak / Unsplash   Flexibility is a must to sell tours, activities and attractions as gifts. The guest must be able to use it whenever they wish. White said that a potential customer will be put off and not buy a product simply because they are asked to choose a date.   “Arguably the most important [piece of the sales process] is flexibility,” White said. Guests need to be convinced that buying an experience gift is just as easy as buying a physical product.   “The gift giver wants a simple purchasing process and the confidence that when their recipient is going to be able to To redeem their gift whenever they’re ready.  

BE CREATIVE WITH GIFT PRODUCTS

Create packages to build meaning for givers and recipients — Matt Bowden / Unsplash   Gifts are always meant to be special, even if they are not always well-received. That means if operators put in a little bit of extra effort to differentiate and package their products as gifts, they should see greater rewards.   White says that operators should “think outside the box with your offerings” to create packages and products that will help build meaning for the person receiving the gift. “Something as simple as a souvenir water bottle or a t shirt could make all the difference,” she said.  

ENSURE CAPACITY IS AVAILABLE

Create packages to build meaning for givers and recipients — Matt Bowden / Unsplash   While operators need to be flexible with the options that they provide for gift vouchers, it can cause issues with capacity planning. This may be more of a concern in a period of timed ticketing and capacity restraints.   Operators should consider creating unique products, White said, that allow them to manage visitors. That will allow operators to manage numbers and help experience recipients to redeem their tours without bother.   “One of the biggest challenges to a voucher base model for operators is capacity planning,” White said. “You may sell a high volume of vouchers during peak gifting times and it’s very important that the recipients of those gifts are able to easily redeem them whenever they’re ready.   “You may not want to offer your best selling tour that sells out daily. Instead, consider offering a unique gifting package for another tour with more availability.”   To access more interviews and watch curated content from the Arival conference, join us online   Arival 360 San Diego attendees have full access to Arival 360 Online. Tickets are $299 for non-members and Pro Access members can attend for free   Become a Pro Access member and get easy access to all of Arival’s online events, including Arival 360 San Diego, and our complete library of premium research and Arival guides for operators for a full year, starting at just $119 for small operators

Gen Z — 18–25-year-olds — are the first digital native cohort to begin exploring the world. How do you reach them, what do they want, and who even are they? Stephen Joyce explains

Times they are a-changing, and with it everything that we know about marketing. The generation in their late teens and early twenties — Gen Z, or zoomers — are the first to live their whole lives with the internet in their pocket rather than tied to a desk. That has changed how they consume content and how they travel.

  While words work best when trying to sell to boomers, generation X and millennials online, it is pictures and video that inspire the youngest cohort. They are also to be found in different places online. Boomers and generation X are most likely to be found on Facebook, Instagram has a mix of mostly millennials and Gen X, and zoomers, with a handful of millennials, on TikTok and Snapchat. Everyone’s on YouTube.  

The full talk is available on-demand for Arival Pro Access Members and Arival 360 Online attendees

  Stephen Joyce, in-destination industry veteran and TikTok aficionado (94.9 thousand followers and counting) took to the stage at Arival 360 San Diego to educate the three older age groups on how to reach Gen Z.  

“IF YOU ARE USING FACEBOOK, YOU ARE NOT REACHING THE GEN Z AUDIENCE”

Gen Z do not spend their time online using Facebook — Alexander Shatov / Unsplash   “It’s pretty clear that if you’re targeting millennials, Gen X and boomers on Facebook, you are not reaching the Gen Z audience,” Joyce said. “That is how different those two audiences are right now. Marketing and advertising campaigns that worked for those older generations simply won’t work for Gen Z.   “The reason is because, according to Snap in a survey, pretty much all of Gen Z has smartphones, and that’s the way that they’re researching and booking their travel. They are not talking to travel agents in real life or on the phone. They simply aren’t. They are moving online, they are shopping online, and surprisingly, they are using OTAs.”   That means operators need to reach them before the OTAs do — or rely on the OTAs performance marketing departments — and allow them to pay online using the methods they prefer.  

WHAT ARE GEN Z LOOKING FOR?

Unique experiences are what Gen Z travel for — Braden Collum / Unsplash   Research on Gen Z often shows that they are just not that interested in doing what everyone else has done before them. Like everyone before them, they want to be unique and authentic in their own way.   That means they are rejecting the fakery of Instagram and the (sorry boomers) sheer boredom of Facebook, its Minions and the memes that have appeared on all the other networks six months beforehand (Instagram is only a month behind).   This search for uniqueness extends to travel — they do not want to do what everyone else is doing. Gen Z wants a fuller and richer experience of their location than millennials, whose pictures from the 10 Most Instagrammable Places in Cancún they’ve seen a thousand times. Zoomers want to go big.   “80% of Gen Z’s are looking for unique, interesting, once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list experiences — that’s what they’re looking for,” Joyce said.  

“They’re not going to these sites to just book a flight somewhere and hang out in the hotel. They want to do cool stuff. And they want that cool stuff to be the inspiration for them to travel.   “Who has that stuff? You have that stuff, right? So this is where you get to be part of that experience for them.”   Zoomers are also looking for a seamless online experience, which many operators do not provide. They are not used to websites that do not work, or that are heavy, clunky and don’t display properly on mobile.   “They’re digital natives,” Joyce said. “They did not grow up with a crappy user experience. We grew up with slow internet, terrible software, terrible hardware, and we had to deal with that.   “Our generations are much more forgiving. Gen Z doesn’t even know about this.   “You, as owners, need to make sure that your mobile-first websites, your apps, and your booking engines are designed for the best possible user experience for this very, very discriminating generation.”  

WHO ARE GEN Z?

Gen Z are the most diverse and inclusive cohort, and they care a lot — Denys Nevozhai / Unsplash  

Largely, Gen Z seem to be good kids. Many — but not all — have the advantages that the generations before them have fought for, and they are fighting their own battles for the future. Most seem to be able to be who they want and are accepted.   They care about others and themselves. Much of the information on the generation suggests they are less likely to smoke, drink or do drugs than those who came before them, and they enjoy exercise and staying healthy, particularly in the mind.   “The other thing to keep in mind,” Joyce said. “Is that they care a lot. 60% of Gen Z care about DEI — they care about diversity, they care about equality and inclusion.   “That needs to be part of the framework. So what do you do? Create once in a lifetime experiences, change up the offerings that you’ve got — if you want to target this generation — make sure that you build in sustainability.   “54% of Gen Z say that they want to stay in green or environmentally-friendly hotels. 60% of them want to use environmentally-friendly methods of transport when they’re in destination and 54% of them will pay more to use those services.   “You need to walk the walk on your diversity, equity and inclusion policies. They are looking for companies that support this because they are diverse.   “They are hardworking, they are creative and they are flexible. And they value mental health over materialism.”   They would probably also hate to be defined, just as we do.   To access more interviews and watch curated content from the Arival conference, join us online   Arival 360 San Diego attendees have full access to Arival 360 Online. Tickets are $299 for non-members and Pro Access members can attend for free   Become a Pro Access member and get easy access to all of Arival’s online events, including Arival 360 San Diego, and our complete library of premium research and Arival guides for operators for a full year, starting at just $119 for small operators