Travel's new flavors

“No travel? No problem. We’re bringing the flavor to you!” promised U.S. potato chip brand Lay’s during the summer of 2020.

Brand devotees could embark on a Lay’s Flavor Trip by tweeting their selection from a choice of global destinations. The brand responded by sending out a bag of chips offering a “taste of” the selected country. 

The marketing stunt aimed to satiate consumer travel urges. A year on, travel companies are exploring how to satisfy those urges for real. The challenge is how to appeal to constantly evolving tastes.

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Travelers are often traditionally defined across tiers or overarching travel purposes. Analysts outside of card programs may use consumer profiles, such as affluence and frequency or fun seeking versus self seeking, in addition to loyalty tiers. 

Tiers and consumer profiling work fine from a product perspective. But travel has always been personal. One person’s quest for unspoiled solitude is another’s recipe for boredom. The underlying purpose of a self-seeking traveler’s journey could be cultural enrichment or luxury shopping and may or may not be tagged onto a business trip.  

When the travel sector was booming, such perspectives were but details. Now, traveling is no longer a given, and those details matter.  

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