Baby Boomers or Empty nesters hold the key to the travel industries future. Or do other Baby Boomers or empty nesters skilled in travel like us, start giving like minded people exactly what THEY want?

To the travel industry at large – Baby Boomers are your future.

Yes, we baby boomers/empty nesters do hold a lot of potential power. We are kid free, mortgage free and have the money to spend, and we want to spend it. On ourselves! We are fit enough and adventurous enough to do anything we want to do. We are also very tech savvy and can easily enough organize our bespoke holidays should we choose.

If you don’t offer us what we want, we will go elsewhere. This is where sites such as ours can help empty nesters get exactly what they want, not what they are told they think might be a good fit.

Don’t stick us on a cruise where we are hitting zimmer (walking) frames as we go to dinner. Offer us something that we empty nesters want and can relate to. My sister is currently on a cruise to New Zealand, and they are the youngest by a long way. They are empty nesters and this is not what the cruise had promoted. One man in his 90’s and a wheelchair refuses to take his life jacket off. But nor do they want lots of little kids screaming around the place, because to be quite honest “we have been there and done that”.

Cruise lines need to do their homework and offer what empty nesters want and need. Probably there are some out there that do, but when I read the brief on my sister’s cruise, it was smoke and mirrors.

Are travel agents and tourist authorities too scared to say: look we know you have the money, have the freedom and have the desire to do unusual things – what do you want?

Why Baby Boomers/Empty Nesters are your future.

Let’s be super pragmatic about this. Where does the most lucrative money pit lie? Yes, nice to get the high rollers but that is a small field to tap into. The budget backpacker is great, but you need a huge amount of them to show a slight profit. They like to couch surf and get mates deals, and you do not turn a very good profit here. The market that you are not meeting is we, the empty nesters, the baby boomers. We are the financially viable, educated and the kid free demographic who grew up in the time where we didn’t accept second best.

Empty nesters are the emerging field to be wooed, and I am talking wooed big time. You need to offer us something that we cannot attain for ourselves. Do we want to backpack through Middle Eastern countries staying in hostels or yurts? Maybe we do; maybe we don’t. Do we want to stay in 6-star luxury resorts because we can and have all of the trappings of the private butler and everything else? Maybe we do, may we don’t? Do we want to ski in Europe, trek in the jungles, laze by a pool on Bora Bora or Lizard Island? Maybe we want to take an expedition to the Antarctic, see the Northern lights, stay on a houseboat on a canal in Amsterdam.

The answer is: YES, we want all of those things, and we want more.

We are “now” able to be selfish, self-centred and in a real position of power should tourist associations, travel agents or entrepreneurs choose to get on board and really tap into a very lucrative market.

Then again, you can come to people like us here at Contented Traveller, where I am not time poor who can help you. We are baby boomers and empty nester who retired early and can financially afford to sustain myself for a long time, and can organize a bespoke trip just for you. You want to drive in an open convertible Mustang, across Route 66 listening to Ry Cooder blaring, got you covered. Can’t decide which resort to stay in Kitzbuhel or Zermatt – all over that. Do you want to meet more of the locals and understand more about the culture of say Sri Lanka? Perhaps you want to do a cooking school in Chiang Mai, Thailand or drink saki with an ex-Olympic skier in Japan – yes, we can do that as well.

So, this is a message to travel agents, tourists bureaus and anyone else in the travel industry. Get it right, or people like us will do it better ourselves, and give “us” exactly what we want. We are your competition.

We will come to you later in life maybe if you don’t start giving us exactly what we want – now. Just polish up my walking frame – a red one would be really good. So, to the travel industry at large, think about it.