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| American Express Travel |
Than in the past consumers were sort of viewed as either online or offline you know in terms of their consumption of booking travel and now consumers are pretty much booking travel across the board we really play in any area that a consumer would want to book travel we have an online website it's actually right now the fastest growing online travel agency we have a call center for a platinum and centurion card members which has over 2 people in it and we have a walk in channel we have I a representative network that its franchisees which has over 3 people that network is well over 4 people sorry that network as well and just from a branding point of view I mean what do you want consumers to think of when they think American Express consumer travel network the city all the other competitors that are out there we really we want to be the best travel agency that's out there because we can really personalize it in a way that's unique to our brand you know were a brand that's really well known for our service we've always been had that service heritage for you know 50 years and so being able to manage the whole experience I said and and but with the level of service.
The other thing is as we're building our online capabilities we have a unique capability to use insights about the types of customers that we know tend to like the American Express brand so our consumers are really what we call creative achievers and they'd love to live life and experience that in a in a you know sort of full of life way and as we get a lot of insights about other people and other consumers you know making those experience in reaching your travel experience with insights from other people like you and really that that cut a one of a kind. Marketing and servicing that American Express overall is known for is what you're.
Delivering it through the trial absolute services so we have we wanna make it so that if you're a cardholder for example are online we have the same prices as the online travel agencies in fact we have a life white label agreement with 1 of the online travel agencies so exact same price but if your car member you also can pay with points with your membership rewards you get double membership rewards you get 247 service and you get access to our fine hotels resorts we want to take a basic experience and make it you know amex experience which is better and more and really the benefits of of being in our franchise. And what would you say you know from from a challenge point of view how would you define the travel network's biggest brand challenge right now.
For our friend I mean I think it's really the travel industry challenge right now that exists is how do we make this more simple for consumer so the growth of online has been great in terms of you know the consistency of information in the veil the availability of information it's also made it very hard for people in some cases they feel compelled to try to do all this research and it's become a job now for them and you know. I think the option for the travel industry is how do we simplify that whole experience and make it simple and make travel sonic and which is what it should be so you know allow you to do research where you want to do research but when you want to pick up the phone and have someone help you who really is an expert who maybe has been to India 20 times and has an insight that you don't have or talk to other cardmembers how do you make that experience really you know back to its roots of it's fun to think about and plan to travel a trip that's I think our industry challenge and I think we're really poised to take advantage of that you touched on some of the consumer insights like the one about value no price versus value for example that are driving our efforts can you also just sort of share with us some additional insights that are guiding your marketing and branding and and go to market strategy especially now is we're headed into the summer travel season or were in mid mid summer travel season really why do you know the same were you paying attention to and how are you sort of approaching them.
As a result 2 trends that I think are really interesting one is that you're seeing a lot more multi generational trips. So in the past we did we do his annual survey every year of 2 adults and ask about their travel for the summer in the past I think it was 45 percent of them said they would bring extended family this year was 71 percent.
Big increase you know part of that is I don't there's a lot more family love than there used to be I don't know but it's probably a function of spending the money again and feeling like that's a good use of our family funds to be able to you know have. Spend that time with each other so that's a big increase and the second piece that so a pretty emerging trend is with young professionals it's much more active type vacations so in the survey in the past you we asked how many what types of occasions are gonna take 13 percent of them were looking for active type vacations this year that number was 40 plus something percent so bigger increases in those 2 things not surprising as were coming out of the recession that you know it's probably inherent that that's what people have wanted to do but they're sort of coming back with a vengeance the multichannel rational one.
I think the cruise lines have always done really well with that they're very savvy about you know the. For generations in some cases grandma can go do this during the day mom can do this and the kids can do this but they can all come back together again at the end of the day so you got your own little unique vacation time but you're really there together as a family the resorts are also getting a lot more savvy about that as well so you're saying that market to multiple families.
