Millennials and River Cruising – Who Knew?

A running theme among brands and marketing agencies (including this agency) over the past couple of years has been “how can we capture Millennials?” As the largest generation and growing, this group has tremendous buying power and yet seems to be a rather difficult one to harness. We know Millennials are multitaskers, like convenience and have a tendency to make purchasing decisions based on more than just price, and so it really should not be a surprise that a recent AAA survey indicates Millennials are increasingly interested in river cruising (a leisure travel activity that has generally appealed to an older audience).

A recent article by Travel Market Report delves into the study. According to Bryan Shilling of AAA, river cruising provides the ability to visit multiple cities with the convenience of staying in one place the whole time. He says “Millennials tend to place great value on experiential travel opportunities and are looking to river cruising as an increasingly viable option for their future vacations.” While only 14% of those surveyed said that they have ever taken a river cruise, 40% said they would consider a river cruise for future travel. Survey respondents indicated that river cruising is appealing because of its all-inclusive nature, ability to visit cities that can’t be reached from the ocean, convenience of docking in the middle of a city, and ability to have an “authentic travel experience.”