In this guest post, Andrew Birmingham, editor of Which-50.com, and Vaughan Chandler, executive manager of Red Planet (A Qantas Loyalty business), take a look at what’s behind travel enthusiasts and foodies…
Tired of slaving over a hot stove? It’s time you got out of the kitchen and booked your next holiday as it will do wonders for your happiness according to new research from Red Planet.
Its data sets for travel and cooking are huge and in both cases the results are based on a wealth of data sources such as demographics, on and offline behaviours, interests, attitudes, social interactions, on and offline transactions connected to an audience of over 11 million Australian consumers.
Wanderlust
The traveller’s lot is a happy one. They are more satisfied than the average person with their jobs, happy in their relationships, not especially stressed, and to a large extent they believe they have this work/life balance caper nailed.
Now, if only they could get a little more sleep.
Among the other notable insights from the data, affluence correlates with the NSW travel segment and that is reflected in their online behaviour;
- They are 45 per cent more likely to be researching luxury travel
- They love their bed and breakfasts (41 per cent more than others)
- Japan and South America beat out North America as destinations of choice
- And finally, one from left field – can you guess the most researched topic for NSW travel lovers? It’s airport parking.
They are almost 27 per cent more likely than the average to be searching on couples travel and given that NSW has a slightly male skew (two per cent above the average), it looks like men in NSW are taking the lead on booking romantic weekend getaways.
What’s cooking?
Some 57 per cent of the cooking segment are female and are less affluent than those in the NSW travel segment. The cooking crowd tends to have more utilitarian interests than average, with a strong interest in groceries, parenting and gardening. They are also 10 per cent more likely than the average to be looking at information about relationships. And no, that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Members of the cooking segment are 14 per cent more likely to be dissatisfied with their relationship, and dissatisfied with their work/life balance to the same extent. They find little solace in their employment either. They are 9 per cent more likely to be dissatisfied with their work and 8 per cent less likely than the index to be either satisfied or very satisfied at work.
Members of this segment are big blog readers and apparently are always on the lookout for new recipes. They can be found searching for and sharing recipes online.
So what have we learnt from this? Holidays make you happier, so less cooking, more (travel) booking!
