Are older travelers more likely to fill out a survey or comment card?

photo of the author Gregg Blanchard

We’ve been asked this question a handful of times but didn’t have some of the tangential insights we figured would be at play in the results. Now we do. So, simply put, are older consumers more likely to fill out a survey than younger ones? Here’s what we found.

The Goods
The crux of the question comes down to how surveys are administered simply because the vast majority are handled online and promoted via email campaigns to prevent responses from being anonymous.

So being, we decided to take a step back and ask whether a survey-focused email campaign was more likely to be acted on by one age group than another. Here’s what we found.

Age vs. Survey

Now, before we assume what appears to be obvious, let’s remember what we saw a few months ago when we looked at all email activity compared to age in general.

What we see is that, yes, boomers are more likely to take an online survey but they’re also more likely to arrive at any online destination that starts with an email. What’s interesting is when you look at the gaps between these two charts there’s a suggestion that, relative to other age groups, millennials and gen x-ers may be slightly more likely to act on a survey email than another variety.

What This Means
In the end we have two simple takeaways. The first is that, by far, older guests are more likely to take surveys for a few reasons but mainly because of how surveys are administered. This will mean that responses by age likely won’t match the curve of travelers by age.

But, at the same time, hospitality’s younger crowd appear, relative to other ages and other messages, to be more likely to act on a message where they are given a voice and a chance to be heard. It’s a simple idea, but an important one that’s reflective of the behaviors we sometimes see within these generations.

Next Week, Another Insight
We’ve been publishing new marketing insights (like this one) using hospitality-specific data every Tuesday since 2012. If you’d like a reminder when the next round is published, stick your email below.