On Wednesday, News Corp lifted the lid on its latest Travel Trend Forecast, giving an insight into the 11.9 million Australian travellers who engage with News Corp Australia’s brands every month.
The data, powered by The Growth D-Stillery, showed that Australians are casting aside cost of living pressures to continue travelling – but are doing so with an eye on price, gaining the best deals and flexibility.
See Also: Behind The Growth D_Stillery: News Corp’s newest research and intelligence offering
After the presentation, Mediaweek caught up with Liz Glover, general manager travel industry product and partnerships to chat about what the Travel Trends Forecast means for brands, and how important travel is to News Corp’s offering.
With the sheer amount of info that the Travel Trend Forecast presents, Glover says that the first job for the team now is to get the word out.
“The first thing is just to share it as widely as we possibly can. I’ve already had messages via email, LinkedIn, and text saying, ‘That was great, the relevant trend to my business is such and such, can I have a deep dive?’
“What is great about Travel Trends is the relevancy to so many travel category clients. The travel category is full of clients that are so broad – their customer, their intent, and the way that they operate is so individual and unique. To be able to identify trends that are relevant to the vast majority of them is fantastic, it’s a testament to the people who pulled it all together.”
The Travel Trends Forecast is broken up into five key travel consumer trends, including Intimate, Screen Lust (“I certainly got through my Covid infection because of Emily and Paris!” laughs Glover), and Extended Work / Play.
There are two trends that have caught Glover’s attention as trends she believes will stand out as particularly useful to brands looking to reach travellers.
“I think the most widely relevant will be Off Season, because whether you’re air, cruise, tour, or fly and flop, the seasonality of travel is completely relevant to you in every possible way.
“I also think that with all travel, Sustainable Intention & Action is something that everybody works at consistently and continuously. All brands do that, but it shows that the consumer does find it important, and everyone needs to better their sustainability with their product.”
For brands and partners working with News Corp, Glover says that the Forecast offers insight into all parts of their marketing funnel.
“Looking at the content side of what they do – the communications, the PR that they provide editorial teams, native content, or creative. Which of these trends do they actually pull out and amplify to the customer more?
“The trends resonate with all elements of the marketing and advertising strategy, it’s not just one piece of a massive puzzle.”
In a company as large as News Corp, travel brands and the partnerships that come with them play a major role in the overall offering.
Glover has a particularly unique insight into how “extraordinarily significant” the travel vertical is to News Corp’s business. She returned to News Corp after leaving in 2008 to work in the travel industry, and for the past 15 years, has been a client of News Corp.
“I’ve been at News Corp for four months, and as a travel client – I was in the cruise category – News Corp was the strongest continual supporter of the travel industry during Covid when no one was giving any money. News Corp was not getting revenue, and yet they backed the industry above and beyond.
“It was during Covid that they launched Travel + Luxury Magazine, which is the big glossy insert in The Australian on a Friday. They continued to produce Escape every single weekend, and there was no reduction in quality or quantity.”
Glover says that this commitment to the travel industry extends behind the scenes as well.
“Another thing that they did, which has become apparent with our most recent digital stats, is they took that time when the advertising demand dropped, and they used that time to really build all of their digital platforms. In digital, it takes a long time to get your traction, to get dwell time, visitors, and everything like that.
“They continue to invest not only the money to do it, but the skill set to get escape.com.au and all the other digital platforms to where they are today.
“Covid wasn’t easy for the majority of industries and businesses, but it just shows the commitment that News Corp under Michael Miller has to the travel industry.”
Escape
Speaking of the Escape brand, last month News Corp unveiled a new look insert magazine format, featuring new content and a new look design.
See Also: News Corp Australia announces the launch of the new look Escape
“The response has been absolutely fantastic,” Glover says of the refresh. “Escape was already a quality product, but what this has done is lifted the aesthetics of it, it’s made it a lot more premium.
“The increase in editorial content has been critical to its success, it’s allowed more editorial sections. Plus, the imagery of travel is visual, and with the stitch and trim we’ve rolled out, we can now have full bleed images which is just so highly impactful. It’s a really beautiful product.”
