The travel industry has a targeting problem. And it starts with the way many marketers still think about who is traveling and why.
Step into the media planning process of many hotels, airlines, or cruise lines and you’ll hear the same overreliance on demographic data. Household income is above a certain threshold. 25 to 54 years. Dual income, maybe no kids. The logic makes sense. People with money and time travel a lot. Find those people, serve them ads, measure bookings.
But it’s also a dangerously incomplete idea because the decision to book a trip is rarely driven by a person’s age or income. It is driven by what is happening in their life. Marriage. A career change that opens a gap between careers. Retirement, divorce. These times occur across all ages and income levels. And they are the reason for someone to open their phone and start scrolling.
The Demographic Trap
Demographics are persistent because they are easy to buy against. You can attract an audience of adults aged 25 to 54 with a household income of over $100K quickly on any major platform. Pointing feels directly.
But accuracy is not the same as accuracy. A 28-year-old woman who makes $120,000 is newly engaged and looking for honeymoon destinations. A 28-year-old man making $120,000 who just started a tough new job isn’t thinking about leaving today, but that might be when that paycheck starts. Demographics treat them as the same person. Targeting based on their lifetime treats them for what they are: one hot lead that won’t convert today no matter how many ideas you give. Multiply that disparity by millions of views and you’re looking at a gap in revenue, not to mention wasted media consumption.
Purpose Drives Life Times
Consider two women, ages 35-54 with an HHI of $150K+. They both get ads showing pictures of couples on the beach. One of the two women is planning for her family, including two small children. Not only does the ad miss the mark from a message perspective, but it also shows that this product is not his. Instead, he needs to know if there are direct flights, available in-room accommodations, and pool access. Meanwhile, the empty nester who just left the little one for college is drawn to something completely different: rediscovery, permission to prioritize themselves again, a trip they put off for “someday”.
Same demographic direction. A completely different intent, mood, and buying criteria.
The difference between conversion rates often comes down to this type of specification. And it goes beyond aiming to stop. “A luxury beachfront resort with world-class dining” describes the hotel. “The place where you finally take the trip you’ve been putting off for fifteen years” describes the transition. The second frame commands higher average booking rates because it links the purchase to something the customer considers more than the room rate.
Why This Violates Reliability and Lifetime Value Models
Traditional loyalty programs assume stable behavior. Fly this airline enough, stay at this hotel chain enough, earn rewards that keep you coming back. And in an ideal world, you probably do. However, the times of life can make or break that assumption. A business traveler who has been loyal to your hotel for years becomes a parent and suddenly his consistent weekday bookings drop. Their preferences, booking patterns, and price sensitivities all change overnight, and most systems aren’t built to adapt to them.
Young travelers show this even more clearly. About 60 percent of Gen Z travelers are not enrolled in any travel loyalty program. That is not negligent. It is a logical response to programs designed for stable, repeatable behaviors that are used in a generation that moves through episodes, in life periods, with different needs each time.
Income is important. Done right, the couple you find on their honeymoon can be your family travel customers five years later, and your empty nester customers fifteen years after that. One acquisition, three decades of income. Those calculations only work if you’re ready to see those lifestyle changes and adapt your offer before you go to a competitor. You miss those conversion points and get the same customers back at full cost every time.
What You Should Do Instead
The event lifecycle points to your target. Winning strategies today will shift to real-time context and behavioral signals. Google and Meta both offer categories of life events, but the real power comes from combining those attributes with behavioral data. Someone who recently changed their relationship status, moved to a new city, or started searching for family travel content tells you where they are in life. Build an audience around those characteristics instead of age and income bracket.
Build art now, not personality. Even when the destination is reached, the art often does not match the traveler’s mind. Stop writing ads for the “wealthy millennial” and instead write for someone who has just become an empty nester, or someone who is planning their first trip as a new family of three.
And it’s a relationship measure, not a job. The cost of each reservation tells you what happened today. Lifetime value at every stage of life tells you the true value of a customer. Single view optimizes campaigns. One is building a business.
