Amid an unpredictable and evolving travel landscape, American Express Travel wanted to find a way to support, inspire, and educate Card Members around this new era of travel, while being tone-sensitive to international conflicts.
With the return and rise in travel, travelers wanted a trusted partner to help them navigate the travel process – and help book any type of trip. With over 7,000 global American Express Travel Consultants and more than 100 years of experience, trusted service is core to American Express’ travel business.
Our goal: position American Express Travel as an industry leader and resource to Card Members and partners during this uncertain travel environment.
To break through as a thought leader as well as generate earned coverage and social conversation in a time where the travel industry was in constant state of flux, we launched the American Express Travel: Global Travel Trends Report.
Key tactics included:
Differentiating Data: With rising competition among travel brands releasing reports and to ensure we were differentiating from our first Global Travel Trends Report, we analyzed American Express Travel booking data & spoke directly with American Express Travel Consultants to uncover unique trends and bring American Express’ distinctive take on upcoming travel trends to life.
Global Effort: While travel trends around cultural moments like Coachella Music & Arts Festival or family Spring Break vacations in March are relevant in the US, we needed to work closely with the global communications team across American Express, including markets in Japan, Australia, Mexico, India, United Kingdom, and Canada. Together, we created a compelling survey that would uncover the future of travel through the lens of themes that would resonate across the globe, as well as with the media and our social audience. We surveyed 8,000 consumers in the US, Japan, Australia, Mexico, India, UK, and Canada who have a household income of at least $70K and are defined as adults who typically travel by air at least once per year.
Visually-Led Data: We created a microsite to visually host the findings and prompted consumers to engage with visual assets of the data through American Express’ owned social channels to make the data more exciting and engaging for consumers passionate about travel.
We used the insights from the report to uncover unique travel trends that we were able to break into culture-worthy, timely conversations. Top insights from the report included:
Social Impact & Purpose Drive Booking Decisions: Consumers are traveling with a purpose and finding ways to give back to destinations and local communities
Evolution of Family Travel: Family travel is changing and the future looks bright
Dream Destinations Become a Reality: With over two years of limited travel, dream destinations are becoming a reality
What’s Next for Experiential Travel: As live experiences return, so do trips to in-person events
By anticipating trends that would be shaping the future of travel six months out ahead of launch, we earned nearly 3x more media coverage than we did in the previous year (700+ pieces of coverage), over 40k visits to our landing page at launch, and close to an average of 4 minutes spent on the page per visitor. We achieved success by reaching travelers across a variety of ways:
Positioned Amex Travel as a leader by leveraging Audrey Hendley, President of American Express Travel, to speak to Amex Travel’s expertise. Audrey penned thought-provoking bylines in outlets such as Fortune and Insider Travel Report and participated in podcast interviews including Travel Weekly, Skift, TravelPulse, and more. Audrey spoke about the unmatched benefits of booking with Amex Travel, giving her unique take on the trends to strengthen Amex Travel’s position.
Broke through in new verticals publications and mediums using our creative spin on travel data that haven’t typically covered travel or American Express data in the past to reach a wide global audience. From wellness and dining to fashion and business outlets, we found niche storytelling opportunities including broadcast segments with CBS Mornings, online placement Elle, GQ Mexico, Well + Good, CNN, Robb Report, PureWow, Forbes India, and more.
Strengthened industry relations and our voice by incorporating American Express Travel partners into the report, including pull-quotes from executives at Marriott International, Delta Vacations, Kensington Tours, and Celebrity.
