Study Finds That Hotels, Hostels and Rentals Evoke the Same Amount of Joy in Travelers

The Brand Joy Lab (BJL), a proprietary insights tool developed by creative marketing agency PETERMAYER, has uncovered new hospitality insights.

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The BJL is an insights engine that uncovers how people experience joy, how products and services elicit joy and how brands can deliver joy to gain an emotional advantage. Its recent survey dissected traveler experience across lodging styles – comparing hotels, hostels and vacation rentals:

• In the last five years, 69% of Americans have stayed in a hotel, 36% have stayed in a vacation rental (like AirBnB), and 9% have stayed in a hostel.

• Hotels win on prevalence, but not on joy. Hotels deliver travelers with the same magnitude of joy as rentals and hostels. The differentiator is firsthand experience.

• There’s a gap between openness and conversion: 41.6% of people would consider a hostel and 71% would consider a vacation rental.

This means that experience is crucial. Among people who have actually stayed, all three lodging styles land within two points of one another on the Joy Index. For those who haven’t stayed, anticipated joy runs colder. If travelers have used these accommodations, they deliver in equal measure.

If vacation rentals and hostels can convert first-time guests, they could eat into hotels’ prevalence. Oppositely, hotels can defend their position by demonstrating unique advantages. When booking accommodations, travelers look for different experiences: hotels deliver on privacy and security, vacation rentals on togetherness and comfort, hostels on convenience and community. Travelers expect different things from each, and expectations change after they’ve checked in.

For all operators, accommodation marketing becomes about letting people discover, before booking, what they could only come to know by staying. The full white paper can be found at: www.peteramayer.com/content/trial-by-sleep and includes much more data.

About the Brand Joy Lab

The Brand Joy Lab is an insights engine that works to uncover how people experience joy, how products and services elicit joy, and how brands can help deliver joy to their customers. The research tool covers topics across categories, with industries including travel & hospitality, sports, finance, food & beverage, and more. For more information, visit: https://www.peteramayer.com/brand-joy-lab.

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