Millennials Made Travel Their Personality. For Gen Z, It’s Just Another Purchase

Gen Z is poised to reshape the travel industry, but their relationship with travel looks fundamentally different from the millennials who came before them. Brands will need to recognize where the two generations diverge (and build accordingly) to win in the decade ahead.

Picture a 30-year-old who just found out she’s getting an unexpected $4,000. What does she do with it?

If she’s a millennial, the answer has long been obvious: book a trip. Travel has defined the millennial identity — Instagram feeds, passport stamps, casual conversational references to “my semester abroad in Portugal”. Travel brands have spent more than a decade marketing to a generation of travel fanatics.

But if she’s Gen Z, there’s a good chance the money goes somewhere else entirely. It may be used responsibly, to be deposited into savings or used to pay down debt. But beyo