A hotel market segmentation built upon demographics of hotel customers reveals a wealth of information about hotel customer segments.
I recently wrote an article about demographics for this target market that reveal hotel market segments. You can access that article below:
This post provides additional characteristics through hotel market segmentation.
Hotel Market Segmentation Reveals The Generation
And Life Stages Of
Hotel Customer Segments
Age reveals that the best target market for hotels is Baby Boomers in mid-life. So they make up the primary hotel customer segment.
Boomers are individualistic, sober, competitive, frugal, materialistic and stressed. They have spent most of their time on their careers and with their families. Their major concerns include their health, finances, the environment, and having an orderly world. Their information needs include overcoming stress and dealing with a changing world.
Mid-life Tasks
Tasks for people in mid-life include:
• Family tasks – accepting growing children, reassessing marriage, relating to teenage children and aging parents.
• Career tasks – reexamining work. Boomers comprise the greatest workaholics this nation has ever known. During middlescense many begin to question their dedication to their careers.
• Personal tasks – searching for personal values and meaning, reevaluating personal priorities and values, and adjusting to single life.
• Social tasks – reevaluating relationships and forming more committed ones.
Hotel Market Segmentation Reveals
Social Class and Lifestyles Of
Hotel Customer Segments
Middle class members are usually college-educated professionals who earn their income with their minds, often on keyboards. Their work involves high psychological demands, long work hours, but high levels of control and almost no physical demands or hazardous exposure.
This hotel customer segment spends much discretionary income on comfort, pleasure, time-savers, eating out and entertainment, their health, their homes, staying young, and aesthetic treats.
Hotel market segmentation provides insights to lifestyles of the primary hotel customer segment. Education and income indicate that the most common lifestyle among hotel customers is the Achievers lifestyle.
Achievers have high resources. They are primarily conventional, politically conservative, and committed professionals. Because they are status oriented, they buy good products that exemplify their success. They also seek social standing and security through their achievements.
Hotel Market Segmentation Reveals
The Most Important Hotel Customer Segments
Having determined generations, life stages, social classes and lifestyles, hotel market segmentation reveals characteristics that can help hotel managers acquire new and loyal customers.
At mid-life, people begin to reevaluate the way they have lived and want to do more of what they have missed. For Boomers this means less time working and more time having fun and building meaningful relationships with family and friends. Leisure travel provides both.
In addition, Boomers have lived with more stress than any other living American generation. They need the stress relief that leisure travel provides.
As mostly college-educated professionals, hotel customers also need to escape the high psychological demands of their careers, and they have the money to pay for pleasure and entertainment.
Hotel Market Segmentation
Conclusion
Hotel managers can improve activities and services for their best customers by considering characteristics revealed through hotel market segmentation and tailoring their marketing to the above hotel market segments.
You can also get loads of information about using the demographics in this post at Strategic Market Segmentation.
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Posted 5-5-08:
Hotel Market Segmentation &
Hotel Customer Segments













[...] Hotel Market Segmentation & Hotel Customer Segments [...]
Very nice article, helped greatly in my Marketing Assignment in University, thank you, Linda ;D
Hi Dan,
I’m glad you found this post helpful for your assignment.
You’ll find lots more helpful information in my ebook. You can access more information about it by clicking the link in the upper right corner.
Warmly,
Linda
OK, I liked the insights but the articles left me wanting to know what hoteliers need to do in terms of say amenities such as in-room computers?
Hi Jim,
My hotel customer segment post provides some good hints about amenities.
For example, business customers and younger leisure travelers will appreciate Internet connections, but most travel with their laptops. So in-room computers may not be the best amenity. Although having one computer for hotel guests will likely be appreciated in case of potential problems with personal computers.
If you look at the hotel customer segments’ characteristics, determine which segment most of your customers are in, and ask what they need, you’ll make much better decisions about amenities and other services for hotel customers. A combination of secondary research, like I’ve presented here, and primary research, like an exit survey of your guests, will answer many such questions.
Warmly,
Linda
Warmly,
Linda