Rebuilding a leisure travel company’s view of its market

The question

A leisure travel company plans its commercial year around a view of its market: who its targets are, which matter most and how far it can grow.

Earlier versions of that view had served the business for years, and the market had moved on since. The company wanted segments its whole business could name, size, target and tag, from marketing to its database and its tracking, and a practical way to find the people in them.

Our approach

We surveyed the wider holiday market as well as the company’s own guests, because many of the people it could win were not yet customers.

The statistical solution started wider than any business could use, and we consolidated it with the client’s insight and data science team into segments every part of the business could work with.

Market sizing then put a size on each segment and on the headroom within it, so the segments could be weighed on value as well as described.

What the team came away with

The segmentation came with portraits of each segment, a sizing of the market and its headroom, and an interactive data tool for the client’s own questions.

Each portrait was written to be understood well outside research, so teams across the business could recognize the people in it.

A typing tool followed, built on a short set of questions, so people taking part in future research could be placed in a segment from their answers.

Because the client’s team had shaped the consolidation with us, the segments were described in terms the business already used. Marketing, planning and the insight team could now carry one view of the market into targeting, tracking and planning.