Travel Megatrends 2019: Premium Mediocre Goes Mainstream
Photo Credit: Premium economy is a phrase fit for our sliced-and-diced times where companies are increasingly looking for new ways to sell us average products at luxury prices. Skift / Vanessa Branchi
Skift Take
Despite what the name might suggest, premium mediocre isn’t necessarily something bad. It’s just that after a while consumers are going to cotton on to the fact that simply adding avocado to every meal doesn’t always make it more luxurious.
When writer Venkatesh Rao coined the term “premium mediocre” in 2017, he probably didn’t realize how well it would end up describing the zeitgeist.
It’s a phrase fit for our sliced-and-diced times where companies are increasingly looking for new ways to sell us average products at luxury prices. It doesn’t matter which part of the sector you look at, airlines, hotels, and tour operators are all trying it.
Premium economy isn’t a new concept in the aviation industry. What is new is the way they have divided up regular old economy. Legacy carriers have copied the likes of Southwest, Ryanair, and most notably Norwegian and introduced new fare classes.
Sometimes they are offering customers an inferior product at the same price. At other times, they are trying to convince us to part with a bit more money for something that looks slightly fancier. It’s marketing 101 redefined for the Instagram generation.
In March 2018, Virgin Atlantic split its economy product into
