Travel firms have been urged to focus their marketing efforts on holidaymakers in their 40s because they provide a “lucrative but underserved market”.
Silver Marketing Association managing director Debbie Marshall said customers who were in the younger Generation X category or older millennials often felt neglected by marketing campaigns.
She said: “This is a lucrative market, but underserved. Take a good look at it. These people are really accumulating wealth in their 40s.
“They might not have a final salary pension which the ‘boomers’ have but they have a lot and they are spending a lot of money. They are the only age group that reported the most consistent rise in disposal income over the last five years.”
But she warned: “They a very different beast [to previous generations]. We need to understand them to reach them successfully. They were the ‘wherever, whatever group’ in their twenties; they were building careers in the shadow of the dot.com boom and were the first to access mobile phones and have 24 hour access throughout their working lives.”
They also tended to be ignored by advertisers, she said, adding: “Most people who work in advertising are aged 25 to 34; they do not employ people old enough to understand the market they are serving.”
Marshall told travel firms that this market of customers did “not have much time” and had a “short attention span”.
“Use short messages, strong imagery, make it easy, aid their decision-making,” she said.