Culture | Owen Organization

The tip of the day

The Economist recently published an article about tipping in the USA. The main thrust was that we Americans are as confused about tipping as the rest of the world is confused about our tipping habits. It made me remember an incident that happened to me way back……

I’ve been in the travel industry since Methuselah was a boy, and have been fortunate to have traveled to a great many places, including here in the US. On this particular occasion I was the host to a group in a New York restaurant. A great meal, good service and an enjoyable if not spectacular experience. I left a tip of 15%, which would be considered very good in the UK. Imagine my surprise at being approached by the Maitre d’ who asked what had been wrong with the meal. I told him nothing was wrong, it had been a perfectly good evening. I was told in definite terms that I should be tipping at 20-25%.

In Europe, 10% is pretty much the norm. In some places in Scandinavia, and certainly in New Zealand, tipping is considered an insult, and may result in a tirade from the person tipped – just don’t do it!

It’s true that we should be aware that different cultures around the world expect different behaviors and we should be aware of that when traveling. But should we be as guarded traveling in our own country? Surely a tip is a tip, wherever we are in the USA?

I’ll let you read The Economist piece yourself (it’s at http://ow.ly/xStZ303ZhdX). It’s worth a look if only to add to your confusion.

This also let me to consider something that’s been happening here on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida, particularly the piece known as The Emerald Coast.

The area has traditionally drawn tourists from the whole of the South East, anywhere within a 10-15 hour drive to Destin, Pensacola and Panama City Beach. The tourists tend to peak during the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day – the ’90 Days of Summer’. This, due to schools breaking later and going back earlier, has been reduced to about ‘The 60 Days of Summer’, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, the market is mainly families who drive in. They are traditional in their approach and the families have in the main, been doing the same thing for up to 40 years. Things are changing though…

The shortening and concentration of the family travel period has opened up the rest of the year to new markets – people who can travel without kids, and at short notice. Primarily Millennials and Zoomers (Younger Boomers, Boomers with Zip!). These groups have different requirements than the families. They want experiences, great food, the ability have what they want when they want it – now. They also behave differently. Zoomers tend to have more disposable income, and Millennials tend to do more physically demanding experiences – although those are both very much generalizations.

The local Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs – Tourist Boards, CVBs etc.) have been consciously aiming their marketing up market. Going after more affluent sector of tourists. Their efforts appear to have worked. For the 30A area (South Walton) this has certainly worked. Their area has been inundated with high spending customers. In fact, let’s face it, they’ve been inundated with all types of customers!

The same appears to be true of all the areas along the Gulf Coast. Tourist Development Tax (Bed Tax) is up across the region, and Okaloosa in the center of the region, appears to have had bigger tax growth than other neighboring DMOs. However, many local restaurants, particularly in the Destin area are complaining that tourists are not spending like they used to. Is this a justifiable view?

I’ve spoken to a number of restauranteurs and to accommodation providers. The later have said that their occupancy has been up, and their ADR (Average Daily Rate) is also up. One hotelier told be he goes out into his parking lot on Memorial Day and checks out the kind of vehicles that are there. He said that this year, there were far fewer trucks and many more upscale SUVs. That would surely show that the income group is probably rising. He also said that on the beach there were far fewer cut-off T-shirts and many more upscale bathing suits. There’s no real science in this approach, but he’s been doing this for many years an he can see a distinct correlation to the amount spent.

Pushing the restauranteurs on if they are actually seeing a decrease or stagnation in the amounts visitors are spending led to a revelation. It’s not the amount of the bill that’s declining, but the amount of the tips.

Tips in Florida generally (in restaurants) have been around 14% for some years. That’s a marked difference from other parts of the US. The North East is closer to 25%. The reason for this is possibly due to the number of overseas guests visiting Orlando, Miami and the other internationally visited areas. Remember that overseas visitors are used to tipping less. Up here in the Panhandle though, tipping has been closer to 20% traditionally. Not too many international guests up here, so what’s going on?

Digging further and doing some research I’ve found that there are other factors in play. It appears that Millennials tend not to tip at the same rate – check out the following articles (http://ow.ly/Xd9u303Zprh. http://ow.ly/26Vo303ZpBs) and try Googling ‘Tipping and Millennials’ and see how much confirmation you get.

It also appears that Zoomers will not just tip at 20% regardless. They modify the tip depending on the service received.

…and it’s not just those groups who are modifying their tipping habits. Locals, family groups and The Military are all reviewingtheir habits, subtly and subconsciously.

It’s not as simple as ‘we’re attracting the wrong people’. It appears we’re attracting the right people, but those visitors are not behaving in the way they used to. Another indicator that the tourism market is changing and it’s changing rapidly.

There’s a tip for you!

How to save a generation – from itself

Having been in the workplace for a long time and having always been in the travel and tourism industry, I consider it necessary – no, a duty – to take vacations. To travel to new and exciting places and have a good time. For me, the new experiences added to my professional knowledge. They gave me more ammunition to use in persuading my customers to spend money on travel, or allowed me to help my business travelers.

Now back in pre history, without the ever-on email, global communications and such, taking break always meant coming back to uncompleted work, piles of letter, lists of folks to be called back. That was the downside. The upside was the comments about the suntan, and the ‘Don’t you look rested’ remarks. Again, being in the industry helped and most folks I worked with and for looked on travel as an educational experience.

Indeed, one company insisted that in addition to vacation time, all our employees, from the front line staff to back office specialists like accountants and maintenance people took a long haul trip once a year – we were a long haul tour operator. We provide the ticket and the time. The idea proved its worth over and over. The people we worked with were motivated, knowledgeable, rested, and loyal.

A recent report by ‘Project:Time Off’ is called The Work Martyr’s Cautionary Tale – How the Millennial Experience will Define America’s Vacation Culture. It’s available to download for free.
http://ow.ly/gsDi303tDQb

It’s a fascinating and, to be frank, depressing work. It’s worrying from the point of view of a fellow human being, but frightening for our tourism industry. Although the report studies American attitudes, I have a feeling it applies to many nations.

Apparently the definition is based on belief that:

No one else at my company can do the work while I’m away
I want to show complete dedication to my company and my job
I don’t want others to think I’m replaceable
I feel guilty for using my paid time off

The workers who fit that definition tend to be slightly more female (52%), slightly less likely to be married (55% are married, compared to 62% overall), but what is most alarming is that they are overwhelmingly Millennials. More than 43% of work martyrs are Millennial, compared to just 29% of overall respondents.

I find all this strange given that this demographic have all the tools to take vacations, yet remain ‘in touch’ if they want to. Ubiquitous internet connectivity provides the means to avoid the backlog when you get back, or the ‘not being available’ worry – if you feel unable to cut the ties for a few days.

I’ll leave you to read the report, which if you’re in any sort of supervisory position you should. The future health of your employees and your organization depends on you being the change agent to modify this crazy mentality!

I mentioned this report to my researcher-in-chief (my wife!) who lead me to a Washington Post article (http://ow.ly/VHpX303tBEr) about why Millennials apparently eat cereal. Long story short, although it’s simple to pour the

Breakfast at the Ashford Manor in Watkinsville GA. Definitely worth leaving for!

cereal out of the box, and add milk, you have to clean up the bowl and spoon afterwards! No comment on the apparent laziness of this, it’s more to do with needing to be working rather than cleaning. This also gives a reason for the massive increase in the sales of coffee pods which grew by 138,325% (yes, you read that correctly) between 2004 and 2014. I actually do approve of coffee pods, as the alternative to me was a fancy coffee machine which I felt I had to use. That resulted in way too many espressos a day….but I digress.

So the need to concentrate on work appears to be the reason for not taking vacations and not eating cereal. Interesting sociological points.

However, let me address my fellow travel and tourism professionals……

What are WE going to do about it? (The lack of vacations, not the breakfast choice)

Hopefully as they age, the Millennials will chill out and start to consider their position. They’ll realize that there’s more to life than always working, and that dedication to work and vacationing are not mutually exclusive. In the meantime we have the Boomers and Generation X to rely on. Although not for long. If this mindset continues, it could spread both up and down the generations.

How does the Industry react and how do we – who depend on people visiting our hotels, resorts, attractions, locales and areas; on using our airlines, car rentals, trains, buses etc – make the vacation experience compulsive?

It appears that Millennials only listen to their boss, with 30% saying the boss is their most powerful influencer. Boomers on the other hand list their families (25%) and their doctor (21%) as the most powerful. Only 13% of Millennials consider their doctor – which is not surprising given their age. Perhaps the Tourism Industry need to deal with the boss. Making deals with companies to persuade their employees to travel for leisure? Allowing employees to tack leisure trips on the end of business trips? Using leisure travel as a reward for good work?

I don’t have all the answers (call me for some of them!), but it is a question that our industry needs to address – maybe while you’re relaxing on vacation….

Exploit the ancestors!

Many years ago, I was involved in tourism from the United Kingdom to Australia and New Zealand. The main demographic was UK folks who had family and friends ‘down under’, due to migration (not to mention enforced transportation of convicts in days gone by!) virtually everyone had a relative in Oz. Not surprisingly this sector was called VFR – Visit Friends and Relations. Rapidly this changed as potential travelers wanted an exotic vacation, but needed to justify the expense. Enter EFR – Exploit Friends and Relations! The premise being that an afternoon visit to Aunt Gladys in Perth would justify a four-week tour around the Barrier Reef and Uluru.

These days there are many reasons people travel, and one the biggest niche markets is heritage tourism. This takes a few forms from ‘cultural heritage tourism’ to ‘diaspora tourism’, both of which have links to my old friend EFR.

An example of this is that in the past 500 years, the vast majority of the population of the USA came from somewhere else. No matter that the descendants of those immigrants feel wholly American, there is a need for many to find out where their roots came from and this drives them to use the investigation of cultural links to justify travel. It’s a good reason.

Not only is this driving huge numbers of visits to Asia, Africa and Europe by the descendants of the original immigrants, but it’s prompting domestic tourism too. Investigations of where the family originally entered the US, where they travelled, where they fought and where other relatives spread.

The proliferation of the genealogy series on television – ‘Who do you think you are?’, plus the on-line family tree services (ancestry.com etc.) are fueling the interest.

So, it’s a good opportunity for Destination Marketing Organizations to bring tourists into their areas – particularly in out of high season periods – to search for their history. Get a genealogist on call, plus the local historians. There’s always a local history buff who wants to share their knowledge.

Tourism is becoming more specialized by the moment and it gives huge opportunities for DMOs, tour companies and hospitality organizations to expand their offerings and get some of those folks looking for something new.