Feature: Upmarket Travel

ACNielsen figures for 2000 showed that total travel adspend was just over £200m. Of this, Press took 60%, with the top destinations for travel advertisers’ money being the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

With the exception of the Mail titles, newspapers carrying travel supplements are broadsheets. These titles claim a readership for the paper as a whole, and therefore, logically, for their supplements, of around 40% ‘B’ category consumers and 10% ‘A’ category. It follows that the destinations featured tend to cater for the interests of this demographic- long haul rather than bucket shop.

Recent research from VIPer suggests that targeting those in the higher consumer categories, the ABs, is a good move, as they are more likely to look up travel online than any other website category. In 1999, the same project found that 9 out of 10 of the AB consumers had taken a holiday within the past year, with the average “VIPer” taking 9 breaks a year, of which just under half would be abroad. The biggest source of influence on choosing a holiday was the traditional media, cited by 59% of respondents.

Best known of the magazines for this market is Condé Nast Traveller, whose circulation is 80,804. Meanwhile Harpers & Queen publishes a supplement, Harpers & Queen Abroad, while BA’s contract magazine High Life, circulates to 234,736 top end consumers. Despite a smaller circulation than newspapers, these titles are likely to be read by travel-minded consumers, whereas travel supplements bought as part of a main newspaper risk being ignored if the reader has interests elsewhere.

Until last year, travel adspend was increasing steadily each year. The boom time for travel advertising is January, encouraging consumers to plan their summer holidays in the sun. However, the creeping possibility of recession, both in the advertising and wider world context this year, combined with the implications of 11 September for the travel industry, means that 2001 and the coming year seems unlikely to prove a growth period for this market.

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