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QuestDIY is a versatile and intuitive survey tool, especially for brands looking to get a quick snapshot of consumer attitudes.
For instance, let’s say you’re a marketer working for Club Med, or the St. Croix Board of Tourism. It’s January 2025, and you’re eager to reach people who might be craving some R&R and sunshine in the coming months.
But with limited budgets, where should you focus your marketing outreach?
We used the AI-powered platform to survey a representative sample of 1,006 Americans, gleaning actionable info about which demographic cohorts would be most fruitful to brands in the travel or vacation space.
This allowed us to shed light on which age groups, for instance, are the most likely to be planning a vacation in 2025—and which are feeling the most financially optimistic about the year to come.
When asked (via multi-select) what major purchases they plan to make in 2025 across various categories, respondents were most likely to cite vacations or electronics (39% in both cases).
“It certainly looks like younger demographics are looking to make major purchases this year, particularly the 25-to-34-year old set, with a drop off in every category after that,” says Gary Topiol, managing director of QuestDIY. “Older demographics are perhaps more focused on essentials, like the day-to-day costs of raising a family.”
Zooming in on travel, specifically: when prompted, 72% of all respondents said they were planning, considering, or had already booked a vacation for 2025.
Where are they headed? In response to a multi-select, 36% of the 722 respondents anticipating a 2025 vacation said they were planning for a beach destination, while 34% are anticipating a road trip. Only 19% have plans to travel internationally.
“When we’re talking about vacations, younger demographics also seem generally less discerning when it comes to practical considerations like cost, safety, cultural attractions, and accommodation quality,” adds Topiol.
This, of course, begs the difficult question of what factors are compelling the younger generation to travel. That picture is a bit clearer in older cohorts, where things like the safety of a travel destination and climate become more important for vacationers 45 years and older.
There’s no easy answer as to where your travel brand’s marketing team should focus your ad spend in the coming months.
But this data is a helpful snapshot in terms of which demographics might be the most receptive to vacation marketing, and it offers clues that can shape messaging.
A follow-up survey with more open-end responses could easily excavate the elusive motivating factors that 25-to-34-year-olds have in mind when planning a vacation. (Could it have something to do with Instagram-ready scenery?).
This age group seems especially fruitful for targeted outreach, considering that they’re also the demographic that’s the most financially bullish for the coming year—68% anticipate their economic/financial situation to improve as compared to 2024.
Harris QuestDIY is a self-serve survey platform that allows users to deploy surveys in over 100 countries. You can easily build an audience to target and begin receiving responses within minutes.
Haven’t written surveys before? Lean on QuestDIY’s embedded AI Assistant, which can suggest questions and answers, and can even generate an entire survey draft from a focused prompt. Here’s how it works.
