Tours and Hotels Look for Innovative Ways to Cater to Luxury and Budget Road Trippers
Photo Credit: A diner along Route 66 just outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2017. Roadside hotel chains often target road trippers through nostalgic marketing campaigns. Skift / Sarah Enelow
Skift Take
While most American road trips are DIY, created piecemeal on a budget, the luxury set has options and smart travel brands know who to target.
Personalization is key in travel, fostering loyalty in unique ways. But most road trips aren’t being sold by a company — American road trips have long been DIY.
For so many American travelers, road trip personalization is easily done at little cost. Seventy-six percent of domestic trips in 2016 relied on the traveler’s own vehicle as the primary mode of transportation, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s 2017 Domestic Travel Market Report. Then drivers can hook up Pandora, bring Hulu on a tablet, log into Netflix on the hotel room’s Roku, rely on Waze for intel, and get Yelp reviews anywhere imaginable.
But companies are increasingly finding innovative ways to accomodate road trippers at both ends of the economic spectrum.
Mid-range travelers, who can upgrade from DIY but can't afford luxury, can turn to a tour operator like Auto Tours USA. Many options hover around $1,500–$3,000 per person, but unlike a more exclusive experience, these trips can be recreate
