60 – Marketing Your Hotel To Gen Z Post-COVID-19

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

In this episode of the Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree is joined by Travel Media Group’s Marketing Coordinator, Marissa Kinzel, to discuss marketing your hotel to Generation Z post-COVID-19. Ryan and Marissa break down key characteristics and traits of Generation Z and explore how hoteliers can appeal to them by using online communication channels like websites and social media. Marissa shares her thoughts on how Gen Z will adapt to the “new normal” in regards to the hotel experience, and how they will shape the industry in the next 5-10 years. As more members of this young generation start traveling again, this episode serves as a great guide to help attract and capture more of their business. To get more information about reaching Generation Z online or submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Suite Spot Podcast · 60 - Marketing Your Hotel To Gen Z Post-COVID-19 Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, this is Ryan Embree, your host of the Suite Spot. Thank you all for listening. We've got a great episode, episode number 60. Can't believe I'm actually saying that. It's been a heck of a ride, but happy and hope you are enjoying it out there. We are having a lot of fun on our end producing these. So with me today, even though we've had 60 episodes, this is actually her first time joining us today, that is Travel Media Group's Marketing Coordinator, Marissa Kinzel. Marissa, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot today. Marissa Kinzel: Of course, I'm glad to be here. Ryan Embree: So we've got some very important topics to discuss, over the past couple several episodes we've been talking about post-pandemic recovery, but today what we're going to do is actually hone in on Generation Z and how we can market our hotel to Generation Z in this post-COVID era. So I wanted to start today's episode Marissa, just by defining Generation Z and sharing some of their characteristics and traits. Marissa Kinzel: Sure thing, as someone who is on the line between younger millennial and Gen Z myself, I think this definition is a really important one to make since businesses will often conflate millennials and Gen Z into one like conglomerate entity. So for Gen Z, we're looking at a group of people who were born as early as 1995, Pew research will say 1997 and as late as 2012 or 2014, depending on where you look. So for the most part, Gen Z refers to those who are currently around 14 to 25 years old and surprisingly, they make up 40% of the consumer population. One of their most significant characteristics is that they're considered digital natives. This is a term that means most Gen Zer's will have had either the internet, a computer, or a smartphone for the majority of their living memory. These individuals also value truth and honesty, and they have an incredible capacity for filtering information shown to them as they grew up in the information age. Ryan Embree: Yeah, that's very true. Like you said, they've had those smartphones, computers ,and internet all at the palm of their hands. So they've had so much information given to them, that they are better than maybe other Generations and deciphering and filtering that information like you said. So when we're marketing to them, it's really, really important that we're strategic with our marketing and advertising for them. You know, what we're talking about is kind of, again, how COVID-19 will impact the way they use technology in their everyday lives. Can you kind of talk to that a little bit? Marissa Kinzel: Sure. Gen Z is already really used to integrating technology into their...