NEWS SPECIAL REPORT


Engaging with mature customers was the theme at T


ravel W eekly’s


latest Executive Lunch, held in partnership with Silver Travel Advisor and Accord. Amie Keeley reports


Judith Holder, keynote speaker


Sally Winfield, Accord


Industry urged to avoid patronising the over-50s


The over-50s are “tearing up the road map” when it comes to growing older and hate to be “pigeon-holed and patronised”.


That was the overwhelming


message from attendees at Travel Weekly’s Executive Lunch on the theme of mature travel. Judith Holder, author of The


Secret Diary of a Grumpy Old Woman and Grumpy Old Holidays, said growing old now was very different from how it was for her parents’ generation. “We’re tearing up the road map,”


she said. “Baby Boomers invented sex, drugs and rock and roll. We are re-inventing old age and we’re not going down quietly. “There’s no real name for us, as


it’s a new life phase and finding a name for us is part of the problem when it comes to marketing to us. “We are not old and we are not


young. We are teenagers with liver spots. We feel young but have a sense we are getting old.” Holder said her generation is “no pushover” and a “stickler


“We are not old and we are not young. We are teenagers with liver spots”


for good customer service”. “We’ve been there and done that and got the T-shirt and can’t stand being patronised,” she added. “We are up for stuff and getting


out of our comfort zone. We are still the same fun-loving people we always were.” Sally Winfield, chief executive of


marketing agency Accord, said: “The way you market [to mature travellers] is important. They don’t want to be patronised, they want to be inspired and engaged.” She said imagery used in mature


marketing was often overly airbrushed or “old looking”. Maria Payne, head of travel at


Accord, said the mature sector could not be lumped together and marketing to the over-60s was


20 travelweekly.co.uk 14 December 2017


very different to the over-80s. Ted Wake, sales and marketing


director of Kirker Holidays, said: “The older generation think in a different way, not because they are old fashioned, but they are less tolerant of imperfections and don’t like to be pigeon-holed. “We focus on trying to tease out of them what experiences they enjoy on holiday.” Maria Whiteman, managing


director of Saga Travel, said research by the company showed mature people “hated any label”. She said Saga’s policy to include


free travel insurance on all their holidays was both a unique selling point, but also a “constraint”. “If you shout about it people


start to feel old,” she said. Holder, who has worked with


Billy Connolly, Dame Edna Everage and Victoria Wood, said humour was “very powerful” in marketing if well executed, citing a Specsavers advert that made light of older people losing their eyesight, as it was affectionate and truthful.


‘Ageing is privilege, don’t resist it’


Silver Travel Advisor’s Debbie Marshall said ageing was becoming less of a stigma and should be embraced. She said US magazine Allure had banned the phrase ‘anti- ageing’. “Ageing is a privilege; we should remember that and not resist,” she said. But mature travellers also had a sense of a “lack of time” and a “while I still can” attitude, she added. “If I want to go to Antarctica or on a world cruise, for example, there is a finite time.” Figures from the 2018 Silver


Travel Report found 20% of mature travellers plan to take more holidays next year than last year.


Debbie Marshall, Silver Travel Advisor


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