Original Story Published by: Dr. Carlos Martin-Rios and Veronique Pelouard for International Meetings Review | Photography courtesy of: Monkey Business Images/Stock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
With the ever-growing influence of Millennials on the hotel industry, luxury hotel groups have started to consider them as the future’s most affluent customer segment.
Yet, a recent research carried out at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne shows that luxury hotels, unlike their less upscale counterparts, have yet to unleash the full potential of innovation needed to attract and retain Millennials.
The simple fact that traditional luxury hotels and Millennials appear at odds raises a straightforward question:
How can luxury incumbents attract and maintain affluent young travelers?
Millennials are often associated with Airbnb. How about Millennials and Hilton or Ritz-Carlton or Fairmont? Does something seem a bit off? And what about the relationship between Millennials and innovation or technology? Is that an obvious pair to you? Then chances are, Millennials will make the same associations. And if true, then this might become a long-term problem.
Luxury hotels need to develop innovative strategies to become attractive to the younger, affluent generation – and younger consumers in general. Nevertheless there is a dearth of substantive and reliable academic research on the topic. After undergoing a six-month study on the relationship between Millennials and innovation in traditional and distinctive luxury hotels, we came away with the following conclusions.
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