Recently I heard that now or in the very near future more millionaires and billionaires will become so through inherited money, rather than self-made money.
For the rest of humanity, there is a cost-of-living crisis, but for the hotel industry it seems the flow of the river for the next few years is to be smooth and — in terms of money spent across the segmentation span of hotels — upstream.
At last week’s International Hotel Investment Forum, Elie Maalouf, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts, said there exists “the healthiest and wealthiest population of retirees we have ever seen, and they are wearing the T-shirt that says, ‘either travel first class, or your children will.’”
At the eye-watering rates charged by some hotels — sorry, at the market price determined by the simple forces of demand and supply — they might be spending their children’s inheritance faster than ever before.
Why not? They earned it.
Or did they?
There are some hints as to whether they did or not in the quieter corners of the BBC Sounds archive.
On the plane to Berlin for IHIF, I had just enough time to thoroughly enjoy a June 2023 radio documentary titled “A brief history of boomers” in which “American satirist Joe Queenan (born 1950) addresses the faults and failings of a generation.”
I recommend this heartily. It is excellent radio.
Hoteliers should definitely listen to it and might glean some hints as to where the market is going.
Yes, it is radio-friendly and elicits laughs at the expense of another generation. One that is not, apparently, leaving anything to those of us who had the misfortune to arrive later.
In one section, Queenan asks “How much money do [baby boomers] have? Imagine the figure, 70% has just flashed up in front of your mind. This is the percentage of disposable income controlled by baby boomers in [the U.S.] today. And with all that dough to throw around, they’re big spenders. And what does most of their money go on? Towards travel, health, wellness and pampering their pets.”
This is terrific news for our industry, though, well, for a handful more years.
Queenan adds baby boomers' “assets are expected to keep on growing. According to [business advisory] Deloitte, the money will not peak until 2029, and when they die, they tend to leave most of it to their dogs and cats.”
Start now a luxury hotel for adults with pets but get ready to pivot so that it in four years it caters only to pets.
Pets need less space, I think, and thus a 500-room hotel could easily be turned into one with four times that number. Think of the growth expectations for revenue per available room!
I was chuckling away at all of this when it occurred to me that there might be an outside chance I was one myself. A baby boomer, that is, not a cat or dog.
I can happily report that none of the above is my fault.
Generation X is my gang, although I think this term was only invented when the marketers had invented a name for a later generation and wanted to then find a term to use to fill the ugly gap between that new generation and the baby boomers.
I am right, that is, if I believe the internet, for it tells me that the term Generation X was first presented in either a 1983 book or a 1987 magazine article.
That means, those of us born between 1964, the last year of the Baby Boomers, and 1983, 20 whole years of us, are absolutely free of blemish.
Surely some budding entrepreneur is formulating a perfect hotel in some sylvan glade awaiting such people of untainted pedigree.
How about "Blameless Hotels & Resorts" or "NoEB Hotels," as in "No Emotional Baggage"?
I checked, and those two names have not already been taken.
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