Has The Global Financial Crisis Changed Your Priorities?
In a week that Hilton Hotels announce its latest brand name, Denizen, the UK charity, Comic Relief, raises more than £59,000,000. This is the most ever raised in its 21 year history and will go towards fighting poverty in the UK and Africa. That is an incredible achievement and congratulations to everyone involved.
Denizen joins the company’s existing 9 brands and, for those that do not know (I didn’t), according to the marketing hype the word means ‘citizen of the world’. I am going to skirt around the discussion concerning the true meaning of the word because that would ruin my thread. Bear with me.
Denizen is a so-called lifestyle brand, it is aimed at the luxury end of the market. It is for those who “desire and deserve the best hotel experiences, both on an emotional and a functional level”. It is reportedly for “globally-conscious modern travelers.”
It might seem an odd time to launch a luxury brand, and obviously I do not know whether there was the option to hold-off, but the point here for me is the recognition that today’s traveller is changing.
The current Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has accelerated the change. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, for example, has introduced free WIFI and wired Internet for every guest. We all have this ‘need’ to keep in touch 24/7.
Hilton Hotels will not have come up with their concept on a whim and there must be a market for it. At the moment though, those who are travelling are staying for shorter periods and, probably, downgrading their accommodation either within a category or from one level to another.
The majority of us are being far more cautious in the way we spend our money and what used to be important to us – brand names in the bathroom and spas – is perhaps not so much.
Yet, with money so tight, right in the middle of the worst recession in 60 years, how is it that the citizens of Great Britain donate more money en masse to Comic Relief than ever before?
Well, call me romantic but I think it is because we have an innate sense of community which, during these difficult times, is drawing us closer together : we are even more sensitive to the pain of others. We might have to forego some luxuries as our disposable incomes shrink but that is nothing compared to losing a child to malaria or a loved-one in child-birth.
I think perhaps many of us were reassessing what is important to us even before the GFC (I know I was but that might just be an age thing): the GFC has simply accelerated that trend. I am convinced that those who can afford to travel will continue to do so but priorities will be different. The travel industry will have to change accordingly; and change quickly.
I am sure there will always be the luxury traveller (well who doesn’t like a bit of pampering?) but will we have to redefine what that means?
We all know there is much doom and gloom around at the moment but I am convinced that we citizens of the world, acting together, can pull ourselves out of this quagmire far faster than pundits are currently predicting. The trick is not to rely too much on governments and financial institutions: just look at the phenomenon that is Comic Relief and believe in people power.
So, fellow citizens, let’s tell the travel industry what we want from it today and let’s get travelling again.
