A lot of hotel marketing efforts is focused on millenials, a group of customers reaching young adulthood around the year 2000.

As hotels, you want to lure them in, attract them with exciting features of hotel rooms, adapt our interiors to what might suit this group of 18-32 year olds. The question arises, however, if all of this is worth it.

Do millennials really appreciate all the fancy changes made in hotels to match their supposed needs? The answer seems to be ‘no’. Gruppo La Meridiana presents to you the results of a recent study about millennials’ needs.

Millenials are a very precious consumer group. They travel a lot, spend a lot, are very flexible and adaptable, they spend a lot of time in the hotels.

The hotel industry tried to answer their needs and created a lot of adaptations in the hotels that is supposed to attract this young type of traveler. Among well-known changes you can find omnipresent wifi, power outlets everywhere, even at the side of the couches and in bedside tables. Some of those changes are highly appreciated.

As we know from studies, millennials cannot imagine their stay at a hotel without wifi, so it’s impossible to try to economize on that. But sometimes the marketing efforts of hotels go a step too far.

Young travelers report hotel gym being called a “health studio” or conference rooms called “creative meeting spaces”. These names sound like they came directly from some well-meaning focus group but have little to do with millennial’s reality.

Some hotel executives go as far as calling their lobby an “open-concept lounge where your experience begins” and a bar a “barman’s table”.

Those changes seem not to directly address the consumer needs, but are a mare representation of what senior executives believe millennials want.

As it turns out, 18-32 year olds are no-nonsense people. Sure they appreciate a bedside power outlet because they can charge their phone without living bed, sure they cannot imagine their stay without wifi, but they can easily do without fancy names for commonly known facilities and they surely don’t need an in-room acoustic guitar or a record player, as offered by many properties in a desperate attempt to attract millenials.

As recent consumer study shows, if you are a hotel targeting your offer at millennials just don’t overdo it! If millennials had one thing to say to you it would be: “Thank you, stop trying so hard!”

Gruppo La Meridiana traces the trends in the hotel industry. If you would like to find out more about what marketing efforts work and what don’t for your property, contact us. We are happy to serve you with our latest findings.