The generation game

Oscar Wilde said the old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything. There’s a nugget of truth in this today: My research into how different age groups use travel websites found that the old are easily sidetracked by affiliate sites, the middle-aged wanted to phone to check the site was legitimate, and the young soaked up all the information you threw at them.

The Travolution Generations project asked users to perform tasks on travel websites under the scrutiny of eye-tracking technology.

Young surfers (aged 16-24) mainly used search engines to find travel websites. They used short generic keyword strings (such as “UK holiday” and “18-30 break”) which returned a lot of search results. This was a price sensitive audience that found it easy to compare prices and research other offers offline. Young people were very trusting of peer reviews and trip advisor reports. They read almost all the text on a page to ensure that they had fully understood.

The next group (aged 25-34) also used search engines, with Google having prominence. They tended to type in specific brand names (such as “Virgin holidays” or “Sandals”) rather than generic keywords. Possibly more aware of URL spoofing and re-directions, users in this age group did notice the URLs in the search results. These users were distrustful of peer reviews but they did trust destination guides provided by the vendors themselves.

Middle aged surfers (aged 35-54) used search engines and entered generic keywords but these users were more cautious than the other age groups when reviewing results. Upon arriving at websites, many of these users were keen to find contact information. Being newer to the internet, they tended to use the website for research, but liked the idea of speaking to a “real person” to make their booking. These users were less tolerant of online advertising than the other groups, and tended to leave sites where too much advertising was pushed upon them.

Senior surfers (aged 55+) had the highest amount of disposable income, and were often looking for luxury holidays to book. They tended to type very long search strings into search engines, somehow expecting that the longer the list of words they typed in, the more exact their results would be. This “non-pinpoint” approach would often return a high number of affiliate websites and users often visited these “by mistake” when they were trying to get to a vendor’s main website. This age group does notice advertising and will often follow special offers from it. Silver surfers will use online booking tools, but need hand-holding throughout the process. If a confirmation of booking is not immediately shown at the process conclusion, senior surfers will look for a phone number to call so they can confirm their booking.

So what do these findings indicate? While there are differences in usage between the generations, all users would be catered for by a travel website which offers clear navigation across the site; easy to follow landing pages relevant to search engine results; a compelling mix of vendor provided destination guides and user-generated content; limited push advertising; and contact information clearly available from all pages and throughout the booking process.