Catering to Millennial travellers is key for the travel trade

From left: From left: Razy Shash, Co-founder, 2Stallions Digital, a digital media agency, moderator, technology; Nabil El-Shafeay, Global Head of Partnerships, BeMyGuest; Mamoun Hmedan, MD, Wego Middle East, North Africa and India; Atikah Amalina, Educator, social activist and influencer and solo traveller, The Tudung Traveler; and Aliza Kim, TV and social media personality.

Millennial travellers will be responsible for a substantial amount of travel revenue in future, and the travel industry will need to prepare themselves for always-connected customers who share their views online. The clout of the Muslim Millennial was discussed at the launch of the Mastercard-HalalTrip Muslim Millennial Travel Report 2017 (MMTR2017), which projects that total expenditure from Muslim Millennial travellers alone to surpass US$100 billion by 2025.

Raudha Zaini, Marketing Manager, HalalTrip, a B2C platform for Muslim travellers, said Muslim Millennials are just like other Millennials except for their faith-based needs, such as for prayer and halal food. As with other Millennials, Muslim Millennials prefer to do their own research when planning trips, and rely on social media and online reviews when planning them. They will also share images and videos in real-time on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, she said.

"Having the necessary tools to find halal food online that's very important. They have to be connected to the Internet when they travel," she noted in a panel after the announcement.

In a panel discussing the research, Mamoun Hmedan, MD, Wego Middle East, North Africa and India, said that the company had shifted to focus on the needs of Muslim Millennials in the last year. "Muslim travellers are looking for new destinations that can cater to their needs," he said, calling the trend "beyond shawarma".

"They need interaction, they're adventure seekers as well. We are adding filters in the product (so visitors can) look for hotels with mosques nearby."

Mamoun also shared that his company is looking at virtual reality as a marketing tool and spoke highly of using influencers as a marketing strategy. "People are obsessed about social media generally," he said. "Influencers are 4x better than any other digital marketing channel we had used before. (They're promoting Wego) through experiences versus us talking about Wego," he said.

Kayak Chief Commercial Officer Debby Soo profiles the Millennial traveller in the region at the Millennial 20/20 Asia Summit: 54% will check flight prices before they book, and 65% are frustrated seeing lower flight prices after they have booked.

Aliza Kim, a TV and social media personality who was on the same panel, said that the industry should look earlier in the sales funnel. Her plans for a destination begin with looking at Instagram feeds and sending direct messages through Instagram, looking for example for places where she can pray. "By the time I get to the AirBnB I am just like a normal traveller," she said. "I don't need you to go out of your way, I just want to be normal and have amazing experiences."

In another panel on how the travel trade can respond, Aisha Islam, VP, Consumer Products, South East Asia, Mastercard, said the experience must be mobile. "When we look at the experience of being online, it's all about digital. Most of the research is not on a laptop, it's on their phone," she said.
Aisha also concurred with Aliza in that the end-to-end customer journey starts long before the customer has come to the airport.

"We are now seeing providers trying to provide global Wi-fi access as a product service for their consumers," she said. "It's a pre-travel journey, a during-travel journey and even a post-travel journey."

Q Akashah, Executive Director, Ogilvy Noor, said in the same panel that AirBnB has an advantage over other accommodation providers for Muslim Millennials. "AirBnB provides that local experience, for example (they may have) a Muslim owner, who can give advice on where to eat, and where to buy groceries so you can cook for yourself," she said.

Nisha Abu Bakar, Founder, Elevated Consultancy & Training, advised hoteliers to shift to online social platforms to attract Millennials. "How do you communicate with and engage with this market, share so that they become your advocates? There's no need for third-party influencers. Use Muslim Millennials as influencers for their own market," she suggested.

Simple ways to start addressing the Muslim Millennial market include:

Making Muslim-friendly services easily discoverable online, and support instant communication such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. "Halaltrip implemented a chatbot recently," Raudha said, sharing that almost 90% of queries today are answered through it.

Encourage sharing and online reviews.

"Do you have accessibility for them, do you have the digital platforms to connect to them before they travel? Start looking at your supply side very carefully," Nisha said. "You have to work with your tourism board, you have to work with your hotels."

Explore:

Read the Mastercard-HalalTrip Muslim Millennial Travel Report 2017
 
Read the Suroor Asia blog posts on the Muslim Millennial Travel Report and on the Muslim Millennial travel dollar

Hashtags: #MuslimMillennialTravel, #HalalinTravel