Touring With Teens

Dec 18, 2011

There are plenty of ways a family vacation can be ruined. Weather, illness, natural disasters and political uprisings have all caused immeasurable grief to families over the years. There’s one factor, however, that can truly devastate a vacation and, even worse, it destroys from within. I’m referring to the bane of fun-seeking parents everywhere: an unhappy teenager.

A cranky, bored, miserable teen has the ability to suck the fun out of just about any experience — making parents regret wasting their time and hard-earned cash on travel in the first place.

Fortunately, however, unlike other vacation-killing factors, there are ways to prevent your clients from having to travel with an unhappy teen (really, there are). Throughout the travel industry, companies are paying more attention to this demographic than ever before and are designing travel experiences with teens in mind. Teen programs and teen-only lounges have become commonplace at resorts and on cruise ships and, likewise, tour operators have woken up to the fact that, if they can help make a teen happy on vacation, they have come a long way to guaranteeing a happy client.

Why an Escorted Tour?
There are a lot of choices when it comes to family vacations, but escorted tours combine many benefits of other forms of travel in order to please everyone in the family — even teenagers. For one thing, family travel is hard enough, so why wouldn’t a parent prefer to have someone else handle the logistics, said Steve Born, vice president of marketing for the Globus Family of Brands.

“Traveling as a family on an escorted tour removes all the logistics hassles from that vacation so that mom, dad and the family can actually relax and enjoy one another’s company and their destination,” said Born, the parent of a teenager himself. “Because a tour artfully organizes all the components of the trip, travel becomes effortless for a family rather than stressful. Just imagine the intensity of a car ride with the kids in Rome with dad navigating the traffic while mom is trying to decipher an Italian map. No family needs that sort of stress.”

Sharon Bell, brand manager for Tauck Bridges, suggested that misery may enjoy company as well.

“One of the great benefits of traveling with a group is that there are other kids to enjoy the experience with,” said Bell. “We find that a wide range of ages bond together on Tauck Bridges trips. It’s not uncommon to see 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds and 16-year-olds all playing a rousing game of Uno on the riverboat or playing soccer on the green at Zion National Park. The group becomes one big extended family by the end of the trip. This is particularly helpful to grandparents of teens who might feel a bit uncomfortable with how to best engage with their grandchild for a whole week.”

Carol Austin, a family travel expert with Austin-Lehman Adventures, has personally experienced this communal aspect of an escorted tour when she took her 15-year-old nephew to the Galapagos this past June.

“On our boat, he got to meet seven other teens ranging in age from 13 to 19 and they all hit it off from day one,” she said.

Josh D’Amaro, vice president for Adventures by Disney, emphasized the importance of group bonding as well.

“Our Adventure Guides on an Adventures by Disney tour often talk about how incredible it is to watch teens drop their devices — iPads, iPhones and game consoles — and hang out with new friends and learn new things,” he said. “And by having teens engaged in their age group keeps the pressure off of parents from worrying about planning activities specifically for their teenage kids.”

Another benefit of escorted touring — and one that should be an easy sell with agents’ clients these days — is value. According to Born, families can save up to 40 percent on an escorted tour versus putting the trip components together themselves. Adam Leavitt, vice president of marketing for Trafalgar, said the leverage of a big tour operator is a definite plus to the consumer as well.

“With Trafalgar’s buying power, we’re able to offer a package at a price that the average family could not get if they were booking all of the components on their own,” said Leavitt. “As teens tend to eat a lot, the included breakfast buffets every morning, as well as the other meals that are included in the price, definitely increase the value proposition alone.”

According to Melissa McKee, public relations specialist for Collette Vacations, at her company “children ages 14 and under enjoy rates of at least 30 to 45 percent less than adult rates.” This value doesn’t even take into consideration some of the hidden costs.

“Having just gone through our first summer season of Collette Family Vacations, one of the things we heard praised over and over was the value of Collette’s complimentary roundtrip home-to-airport sedan service on all air-inclusive family tours,” said McKee. “This added value can save a family up to $300 when you factor in gas and parking fees at the airport for a week or more.”

Offerings for Teens
As multigenerational travel continues to become an increasingly important travel market, suppliers throughout the industry have added focused programs and activities for specific ages. Tour operators are part of this trend as well, and have made sure to tweak programs with their teenage customers in mind.

All of the tour programs at Adventures by Disney emphasize storytelling and unique ways to experience a destination. For instance, guests see the pyramids in Egypt while riding a camel, learn about the architecture of Versailles from the seat of a bicycle or discover the natural history of Costa Rica from the harness of a zipline. This approach is especially popular with active teens.

“Our teen guests have told us that they enjoy playing the role of a cowboy and cowgirl during our stay at a Dude Ranch on the Quest for the West itinerary in Wyoming. We’ve had teenagers say they loved their experience snorkeling with sea lions, penguins and sea turtles in the Galapagos Islands. They also rave about white-water rafting down the Urubamba River in the Sacred Valley of Peru,” said D’Amaro.

At Trafalgar, Leavitt said that the company makes sure all vacations include activities such as biking along the California coast in Monterey, rafting in Yosemite National Park or ziplining in Costa Rica, as well as experiences they might not be able to arrange on their own, such as learning the basics of sword fighting at a gladiator school in Rome.

According to Austin, at Austin-Lehman Adventures, the tour guides go out of their way to excite and challenge their teen guests by adding an extra few miles to a bike ride or taking them all the way to the peak of a mountain on a group hike.

“They will even point them toward other fun stuff to do — a rodeo, a coffeehouse or an outdoor music concert, for instance — in various towns that they visit,” said Austin. “They will even try to give them an extra hour of sleep if needed in the morning.”

Collette Vacations also includes hands-on activities — such as assisting a local farmer with the morning milking in Ecuador on its Galapagos Family Adventure — and the company also realizes that teens want to share these experiences with friends back home.

“We know activities such as rafting, ziplining and nature walks appeal to teens’ sense of adventure. And they will love sharing photos of these experiences using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter,” said McKee.

Born cautioned travel agents to take a close look at the offerings of a tour operator before booking to make sure the company’s tours are really designed for families or if families were thrown in as an after-thought.

“With Globus Family Vacations, we only allow families on our family-themed departures,” said Born. “That may seem like a no-brainer, but agents may be surprised that there are other so-called ‘family tours’ that allow non-families to participate.”

Big Rewards
Without a doubt, traveling with a teenager can be a challenge. But a travel agent who can assist families and help them make good choices so that everyone has a great vacation has the potential to win over a client for life. Traveling with teens is a big risk with an even bigger reward for everyone involved.

“The opportunity to travel with your teen is a special one. Having a teenager myself, I know firsthand how crazy schedules can get, and a vacation may be the only time a family has to slow down and take the time to truly be together — not just ‘in the car on the way to practice together,’ but actually laugh together, have fun together and have real memories together,” said Born. “It’s also very possible that this family vacation may be the last before that teen moves on with college and such. Because this time is so valuable, it’s got to be just right, and ultimately that’s what makes touring perfect for families.”