MANILA, Philippines — Recent studies of an international travel service provider show that millennials nowadays are not only looking for the usual theme park or attraction tours, but for more cultural experiences.
In an interview with Philstar.com, Marcus Yong, Regional Marketing Head for travel mobile app Klook, said that their research shows millennial travelers are going beyond the usual travel experience.
“Increasingly, nowadays, we see that young millennial travelers are looking for very local experiences, which means they want to go on walking tours to discover the culture of the place. They go to cooking classes. They want to go beyond normal attractions and theme parks,” Marcus said.
“While attractions and theme parks have the volumes, now, we see people more than just that. There are some into walking tours in the cultural district to introduce the history of the place and why it had evolved today. You can also go to a pottery farm and they can teach you how to create pots in traditional techniques,” he added.
A travel and activities services booking platform or an online travel agent, Klook aims to help travelers book beyond the usual activities.
“You cannot book flights or hotels on Klook but you can book anything else you can think of. You can book attraction tickets, theme park tickets, tours, wifi, train passes,” Marcus said.
Apart from offering promos, the app boasts of its technology that makes users save time and skip long lines, he said. “Most people, when they go to an attraction or tour, they actually end up queuing up in entrance.”
Coming from last year’s milestone-filled Philippine launch, the app created its biggest event this year—the 2018 Travel Fest, which the company claims to be the country’s first-ever mobile-led travel fair to be held on September 29 to 30 at SMX Convention Center, SM Aura.
The company’s vision is to be the first online travel agency to organize a large scale, mobile-led, experiential travel fair that will bring together both local and regional partner attractions, airlines, tourism bodies and key opinion leaders from the travel industry to a weekend of exhibitions, workshops, and best deals.