18 ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL Local breaking news: www.ocbj.com MAY 25, 2015

‘Generation Z’ Emerges As Local Travel Market

By PAUL HUGHES

Next Big Tourism Thing: Millennials’ Little Siblings?

� Teens 27

Today’s teens are following hard on the heelsof Millennials in terms of tourism.The “marketing to Millennials” mantra—re-

ferring most often to 20-something travelerswho want it all and want it all different and arewilling to pay for both—has been a hospitalitybusiness buzz phrase for several years.Hotels have come to the party in the form of

“lifestyle” properties with an experience focusand plenty of craft beer.Take Irvine-based Montage Hotels & Re-

sorts: It launched its Pendry Hotels division inOctober and broke ground on the first project, inSan Diego, specifically for the demographic.Now tourism-focused venues are starting to

look for the next big thing, and Millennials’ littlebrothers and sisters could be it.Teenage travelers are part of what’s being

called Generation Z, roughly ages 0 to 19,with a focus on the high end of the range.They may lack some of the financial heft oftheir Millennial elders—they can’t rent theirown hotel rooms, for instance—in other waysthey’re plenty powerful. “Reaching consumers at a young age is crucial

for brand retention and to get your product at thetop of their mind for years to come,” said ScottShaffstall, president of the Gen Now Agency inTrabuco Canyon.He cautioned against overstating the case—

“teens are a complement, not a stand-alone busi-ness model,” he said—and in some ways thenext wave of travelers is “still a group that isfinding its way.”Still, Shafftall said, “it’s not misguided” to

pursue them.

“It’s ROI for the future.”

Numbers Tell StoryU.S. census figures show there were 41.8 mil-

lion U.S. residents between ages 10 and 19 in2012, just below the 42.6 million Millennials,who are 20 to 29. One news report estimated that teens influ-

ence 93% of household spending decisions, andthose households—unlike the single or youngmarried Millennials who are starting families orbeginning to pay college debts—include parentsin the full flower of their earning years.Orange County drew 46.1 million visitors last

year, according to the Anaheim/Orange

County Visitor & Convention Bureau andSan Diego-based market researcher CIC Re-search Inc. Travelers ages 12 to 17 accountedfor about 6% of those numbers, or 3.6 millionpeople. Teens ages 18 to 19, who are countedas part of a different group, would increase thattotal slightly.Orange County is also a popular destination

for international travelers—4 million foreignvisitors came here last year (see chart on page20)—including teens.A May 11 news story by the Wall Street Jour-

nal said two of the fastest growing groups offoreign travelers—between 2011 and 2013compared with 2005 to 2007—are Chinese Mil-

lennials and Chinese teens.Teens, who typically have more time than

most pre-retirement people due to lengthy peri-ods off from school, tend to stay longer thanother travelers and spend more money.A 2011 report by the Netherlands-based

World Youth Student and Educational TravelConfederation said that about a third ofyounger international travelers’ trips are fundedby their families; the kids have the time to takelonger trips; while traveling, they more often getvisits from others who’ve come to the same lo-cation; and they spend about three times moreon travel than other tourists—$2,600 compared

Sea kayaking: teens participate in Resort at Pelican Hill outing

Resort at Pelican Hill

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MAY 25, 2015 Local breaking news: www.ocbj.com ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL 27

Teens� from page 18

with $950.About 60% of youths’ travel budgets are spent

at the destination, and more than half of suchtravelers return to places they visited whenyounger, the report found.

Anaheim Gets Big SliceMore than 21 million people visited Anaheim

last year, up 16% over 2013, with about 1 mil-lion teens in that city alone, according to the con-vention center.“Hotels and conventions are the biggest dollar

[draw]” for teen travel here, said Ed Fuller,chief executive of the Orange County VisitorsAssociation in Irvine. Fuller cited local efforts to land the Comic-

Con convention as an example of the push tobring events that are popular with younger au-diences to Orange County.A spokesperson for the Anaheim/OC Visitor

& Convention Bureau noted other “teen-centricconventions our sales team brings to Anaheim”this year include the YouTube- and online-enter-tainment focused VidCon from July 23 to 25,and BlizzCon, which runs Nov. 6 and 7.VidCon is reaching even younger—naming a

9-year-old to one of the show’s discussion pan-els. Columbus, Ohio-based Business Profession-

als of America, a youth group for business ed-ucation from middle school through college,held its national leadership conference in Ana-heim this month.A “Star Wars” movie event at the convention

center in mid-April had fans lining up the nightbefore the four-day event to get in, and organiz-ers of the D23 Expo expect 65,000 attendees ata three-day, all-things-Disney event in August.“Teens will be well-represented [because] so

much of Disney appeals to the teen market,” saidKristin Rodack, marketing director for D23,

which is Disney’s fanclub.The “Star Wars”

movie franchise andD23 are both part of theWalt Disney Co.The expo is held

every other year and at-tracts fans of the com-pany’s merchandise,media and memorabilia.Also big with teens

are three cheerleadingand dance competitionsand shows—American Showcase, United SpiritAssociation, and the JAMZ Cheer & DanceCompetition & Expo, the convention centersaid.Those half-dozen shows together bring more

than 150,000 people to the convention center.

Sports, Education EventsA second big draw for teens are the beach

areas from South County to Newport to Hunt-ington, and hotels and resorts along the coastoffer programs for teen guests.The Resort at Pelican Hill has Latitude for

Teens, said spokesperson Kate Starr.The fee-based program offers scavenger

hunts using mobile phones; beach sports; movienights; photography hikes; and other events.About 6,000 kids a year participate in it andCamp Pelican, which is geared to guests ages 4to 12.The St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point

runs “a phenomenal beach program” throughthe Monarch Bay Club that includes teens, saidChris White, the resort’s area director of salesand marketing. The Vans US Open of Surfing in Huntington

Beach draws thousands of spectators each sum-mer, many of them teens.“Teens like the surfing championship,” said

OCVA’s Fuller. “Some [destination marketingorganizations] are also pursuing sporting

events.” Other sporting events in Orange County this

year include the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse As-sociation national tournament, which was heldat University of California-Irvine and ChapmanUniversity in Orange two weeks ago. Local venues, including Chapman and Van-

guard University in Costa Mesa, will host ath-letes and coaches as part of the SpecialOlympics World Games in L.A. July 21 to 24.Other annual and one-time events also draw

teens to OC, several of them focused on education.Concordia University in Irvine holds an an-

nual Teen Entrepreneur Academy, which drawsabout 80 students to the campus for a week tolearn how to write business plans and pitchstartup ideas.Concordia Business School Dean Stephen

Christensen said that about 25% of the studentswho register are foreign-born and either live orattend high school locally or travel to Irvine forthe event.

Past academies have attracted students fromFrance, Brazil, Canada and the Dominican Re-public.Christensen spent about two weeks in China

this spring visiting high schools to recruit for theevent. “You work with agents in China, and they get

you students,” he said. The team that won last year’s events included

three Chinese students. A restaurant competition for high schools—

the National ProStart Invitational—was heldApril 18 to 20 at the Disneyland Hotel in Ana-heim. The event, hosted by the National Restau-

rant Association Educational Foundation,brought 382 high school students to the hotelfrom 45 states and several foreign countries, in-cluding two teams from California, one of whichwas from Newport Harbor High School in New-port Beach, to compete in cooking and restau-rant business categories. �

Shafftall: reachingteens “crucial forbrand retention”

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