AccuBook Bulletin Nr 33 - Staycations - Fact or Fiction

The word 'Staycation' has been around for years, but started to become more common terminology at the start of the recession in 2008 based on the idea of 'Stay At Home Vacations'. But do the facts really show that more people are holidaying at home?

The graph above shows revenue earned for a selection of AccuBook hotels during 2009. In the current economic climate we were expecting to see flat or weak demand, and this was indeed the case, until the months of July and August when demand was up 14% compared with 2008. It took us a while to appreciate what was happening, but research into the type of packages being booked and the search terms being used on Google to  find the hotels confirmed that it was Family Orientated packages that were being searched for and booked.

It does indeed seem that people are avoding airport nightmares and cancelling that holiday in 'Majorca' in favour of a family break at home. 

Understanding this trend could be very useful to hotels, if they want to attract a slice of the 'family holiday pie'. There are a number of things they can do 'offline' to attract family orientated customers, but below is a quick checklist of concrete items that could be used to attract family business online.

1. Ensure 'Family Rooms' are set up on the booking engines used (This room type is very often ignored).
2. Ensure Family Packages are set up on the hotel website and booking engines used.
3. Modify website text and metatags to include 'family vacation' keywords.
4. Set up a Google Adwords Campaign just for Fammily Breaks.
5. Create a page of content on the website specifically for 'Family Holidays'.
6. Change images to focus on 'family holidays'.
7. Modify e mail campaigns to focus on 'Family Breaks'.
8. Use 'empty rooms' for competitions with 'Family Breaks' as the reward.
9. Give to 'Family Orientated' Online Websites/Businesses free 'Family Breaks' (again using excess inventory) to use them in their own competitions and promotions to promote your hotel.

Basically its all about making visitors aware on as many websites as possible that you offer packages that suit guests looking for a 'Stay at Home Vacation'.