A guide to attracting Gen-Z to your hospitality business Generation Z, or “Gen-Z” refers to anyone born between the years of 1997 and 2012. As the oldest members of this cohort graduate from college and join the workforce, they’re eager to explore the world. Get to know a new generation of travelers with our guide. The way Gen-Z travelers approach traveling is fundamentally different from previous generations. Here’s what you need to know to attract them to your hospitality business: 1. They’re looking to maximize every experience For Gen-Z, “experiences over things” is more than just a phrase. With travel, they don’t just want to make memories. The entire experience needs to be curated just so—not so it can be “perfect,” but so that it can maximize every moment. This is a generation defined by global volatility and uncertainty in recent years, including a global pandemic that stopped travel completely, an emphasis on social justice, and an awareness (and anxiety) over the climate crisis just as they’ve come of age. When it comes to travel, this is a generation very aware that the time to go is now. Gen Z is clearly looking to make up for lost time. Two-thirds of Gen Zers ranked “travel and seeing the world” as the most important way to spend their money, and they plan to take five trips in the next year, more than Millennials (who say they are planning 4 trips this year) and Boomers (who plan to take 3 trips). And 64% of Gen-Zers plan to spend more on travel this year than last year. It’s not just “revenge travel” we’ve seen fueling travel demand—93% of respondents to a recent survey plan to travel in the next year—but making up for the kind of formative experiences denied to them, like canceled proms, graduations, and other celebrations. 2. They seek out connection with other travelers While family travel is still popular, they’re also more likely to plan a trip with a group of friends instead. This is where hotels in particular have their work cut out for them. Gen Z is inclined to book group gatherings as opposed to individual hotel rooms. For them, hotels aren’t just a place to crash for the night, but a part of the overall experience. You’ll need to appeal to their sense of community—how they can meet other people, for example, or show off your communal spaces like bars, pools, and event areas. For example, Hostelworld, an online travel agency that focuses on Gen-Z, facilitates an online chat room with everyone with a booking at a given hostel at the same time, which opens two weeks before the trip, as an example. How do you give guests an opportunity to connect with one another? Whether it’s welcome happy hour, friendly pooltime competitions, or other events, emphasize more than just a place to sleep for the night when you market your hotel. 3. They want a trip that’s aligned with their values Gen-Z, more than other generations, look for everything they do to line up with their values. They don’t just want to see the world, they want to learn as much as they can, and protect it at all cost. This is a generation that wants to be a part of something bigger. You can’t pay lip service to sustainability—this is an area that Gen-Z actively seeks out when choosing where to spend their money. This is a group that over-indexes for volunteering and eco-tourism by a whopping 58% compared to other age groups, according to YouGov. This means bringing your eco-friendly policies front and center, such as implementing a zero-waste or compost program, sourcing restaurant ingredients from local farms, and eliminating plastic. What’s important to note here is that Gen-Z, even more than your average consumer, can sniff out empty marketing language a mile away. If you plan to talk about your sustainable efforts, or make it a pillar of your marketing to attract them, you have to follow through. 4. They’re interested in adventure and wellness Gen-Zers, compared to other age groups, are much more likely to choose “adventure” as their primary reason for travel. According to YouGov, 50% of people ages 18-24 say they are looking for adventure on their vacations compared with just 30% of people 25 and older. Plus, Gen Z over-indexes by 30% against other age groups in listing adventure as a crucial part of the vacation experience. When it comes to type of trip, a cultural/sightseeing trip remains the most popular, with 32% of travelers of all ages planning one in the next few months. As you think about your hospitality business, talking about new, local experiences is what’s going to appeal to younger travelers. Gen-Z also are twice as likely to plan a trip around a wellness experience compared to older generations. This isn’t just a spa trip, though it may include one. “Wellness” has become a catch-all term that refers to any kind of self-care, including exercise, healthy meal choices, and relaxation. It’s all in the details. 5. They care about the wisdom of the crowds Gen-Z’s idea of “word of mouth” comes directly from social media. Unlike millennials and other age groups, Google searches are not necessarily their first stop to find information on destinations, but rather platforms like TikTok and Instagram. As digital natives, Gen-Zers actively look for reviews and opinions of travelers like them when it comes to making their decisions. When they do decide to book, they turn to the more than 73 million reviews and opinions on Tripadvisor to guide their decision. Gen-Z travelers are looking for a very different experience than previous generations. Stand out from the crowd with Tripadvisor for Business solutions that can enhance your listing, help more young travelers find your business, and more. Adapted from tripadvisor.co.za

World Rugby announced the exciting news of its revamped Sevens Series format that includes Cape Town. The 2023 edition marks the seventh time that the Mother City will proudly host the prestigious HSBC Sevens Series. Set to kick off in December, Cape Town will be one of eight host cities to welcome the eagerly awaited HSBC SVNS festivals. The revamped tournaments will showcase 12 men’s and women’s teams competing for the ultimate prize, while simultaneously treating fans to an extraordinary blend of sport, music, food, and immersive experiences. With a date set for 9 and 10 December 2023, Cape Town Sevens is all geared up, this time taking centre stage at the renowned DHL Stadium. Picture: City of Cape Town The Cape Town Sevens has earned praise for its unparalleled live experience in South Africa, having been honoured with the Best Live Experience award at the Sports Industry Awards on two separate occasions. Over the eight years of its tenure in the Mother City, the tournament has drawn a staggering 650 000 spectators, contributing over R3 billion in economic activity to Cape Town. The event has also played a significant role in creating over 2 000 jobs during its previous edition held in December 2022. ‘Cape Town’s inclusion in the remodelled Sevens Series is a massive feather in our cap. Cape Town Sevens has been one of the flagship events hosted in our city for nearly a decade, has proven a popular event with record attendance every single year and provides the best live experience for spectators.’ ‘The City of Cape Town has been supporting the event since it moved from Gqeberha to Cape Town and we are looking forward to continuing our partnership with the organisers to ensure an exciting experience for spectators,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security Alderman JP Smith. Copyright: https://www.capetownetc.com/

We shared in our previous blog that a couple of years ago, most of us marketers hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to use AI for marketing. Suddenly, we’re writing LinkedIn posts about the best prompts to whisper into ChatGPT’s ear. So our goal in this article is to view seven of the most prominent risks of using AI for marketing from a very high ground. We’ve rounded up advice from experts to help mitigate these risks. And we’ve added plenty of resources so you can dig deeper into the questions that concern you most. Today we continue with number 4. Risk #4: Homogeneous content AI can write an entire essay in about 10 seconds. But as impressive as generative AI has become, it lacks the nuance to be truly creative, leaving its output often feeling, well, robotic. “While AI is great at producing content that’s informative, it often lacks the creative flair and engagement that humans bring to the table,” Weaver says. AI is made to imitate Ask a generative AI writing bot to pen your book report, and it’ll easily spin up 500 words that competently explain the main theme of Catcher in the Rye (assuming it doesn’t hallucinate Holden Caulfield as a bank robber). It can do that because it’s absorbed thousands of texts about J. D. Salinger’s masterpiece. Now ask your AI pal to write a blog post that explains a concept core to your business in a way that encapsulates your brand, audience, and value proposition. You might be disappointed. “AI-generated content doesn’t always account for the nuances of a brand’s personality and values and may produce content that misses the mark,” Weaver says. In other words, AI is great at digesting, combining, and reconfiguring what’s already been created. It’s not great at creating something that stands out against existing content. Generative AI tools are also not good at making content engaging. They’ll happily churn out huge blocks of words with nary an image, graph, or bullet point to give weary eyes a rest. They won’t pull in customer stories or hypothetical examples to make a point more relatable. And they’d struggle to connect a news story from your industry to a benefit your product provides. How to avoid homogenous content Some AI tools, like Writer, have built-in features to help writers maintain a consistent brand personality. But you’ll still need an editor to “review, and edit the content for brand voice and tone to ensure that it resonates with the audience and reinforces the organization’s messaging and objectives,” Weaver advises. Editors and writers can also see an article like other humans will. If there’s an impenetrable block of words, they’ll be the ones to break it up and add a little visual zhuzh. Use AI content as a starting point—as a way to help kickstart your creativity and research. But always add your own personal touch. Risk #5: Loss of SEO Google’s stance on AI content has been a little murky. At first, it seemed the search engine would penalize posts written with AI. [Image: tweet from John Mueller on AI] More recently, Google’s developer blog said that AI is OK in their book. But there is a significant wink with that confirmation. Only “content that demonstrates qualities of what we call E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness” will impress the human search raters that continually evaluate Google’s ranking systems. Trust is clutch for SEO Among Google’s E-E-A-T, the one factor that rules them all is trust. [source] We’ve already discussed that AI content is prone to fallacies, making it inherently untrustworthy without human supervision. It also fails to meet the supporting requirements because, by nature, it isn’t written by someone with expertise, authority, or experience on the topic. Take a blog post about baking banana bread. An AI bot will give you a recipe in about two seconds. But it can’t wax poetic on the chilly winter days spent baking for its family. Or talk about the years it spent experimenting with various types of flour as a commercial baker. Those perspectives are what Google’s search raters look for. It also seems to be what people crave, too. That’s why so many of them are turning to real people on TikTok videos to learn things they used to find on Google. How to avoid losing SEO The great thing about AI is it doesn’t mind sharing bylines. So when you do use a chatbot to speed up content production, make sure you reference a human author with credentials. This is especially true for sensitive subjects like healthcare and personal finance, which Google calls Your Money, Your Life topics. “If you’re in a YMYL vertical, prioritize authority, trust and accuracy above all else in your content,” advises Elisa Gabbert, Director of Content and SEO for WordStream and LocaliQ. When writing about healthcare, for example, have your posts reviewed by a medical professional and reference them in the post. That’s a strong signal to Google that your content is trustworthy, even if it was started in a chatbot. Risk #6: Legal challenges Generative AI learns from work created by humans, then creates something new(ish). The question of copyright is unclear for both the input and output of the AI content model. Existing work is likely fair game for AI To illustrate (pun intended) the copyright question for works that feed large learning models, we turn to a case reported by technologist Andy Baio. As Baio explains, an LA-based artist named Hollie Mengert learned that 32 of her illustrations had been absorbed into an AI model, then offered via open license to anyone that wanted to recreate her style. Caption: a collection of artist Hollie Mengert’s illustrations (left) compared with AI generated illustrations based on her style, as curated by Andy Baio. The story gets more complicated when you learn that she created many of her images for clients like Disney, who actually own the rights to them. Can illustrators (or writers or coders) who find themselves in the same spot as Mengert successfully sue for

A couple of years ago, most of us marketers hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to use AI for marketing. Suddenly, we’re writing LinkedIn posts about the best prompts to whisper into ChatGPT’s ear. But our rapid adoption of AI may be getting ahead of important ethical, legal, and operational questions—which will leave marketers exposed to risks we never had to think about before (i.e. can we be sued for telling AI to “write like Stephen King?”). There’s a metric ton of AI dust in the marketing atmosphere that won’t settle for years. No matter how hard you squint you won’t make out every potential pitfall of using large language models and machine learning to create content and manage ads. So our goal in this article is to view seven of the most prominent risks of using AI for marketing from a very high ground. We’ve rounded up advice from experts to help mitigate these risks. And we’ve added plenty of resources so you can dig deeper into the questions that concern you most. Today we will share 3 of the risks you can face using AI for marketing. Risk #1: Machine learning bias Sometimes machine learning algorithms give results that are unfairly in favor or against someone or something. It’s called machine learning bias, or AI bias, and it’s a pervasive problem with even the most advanced deep neural networks. It’s a data problem It’s not that AI networks are inherently bigoted. It’s a problem with the data that’s fed into them. Machine learning algorithms work by identifying patterns to calculate the probability of an outcome, like whether or not a particular group of shoppers will like your product. But what if the data the AI trains on is skewed towards a particular race, gender, or age group? The AI will come to the conclusion that those people are a better match and skew ad creative or placement accordingly. Here’s an example. Researchers recently tested for gender bias in Facebook’s ad targeting systems. The investigators placed an ad to recruit delivery drivers for Pizza Hut, and a similar ad with the same qualifications for Instacart. The existing pool of Pizza Hut drivers skews male, so Facebook showed those ads disproportionately to men. Instacart has more women drivers, so ads for their job were placed in front of more women. But there’s no inherent reason that women wouldn’t want to know about the Pizza Hut jobs, so that’s a big misstep in ad targeting. AI bias is common The problem extends way beyond Facebook. Researchers from USC looked at two large AI databases and found that over 38% of the data in them was biased. ChatGPT’s documentation even warns that their algorithm may associate “negative stereotypes with black women.” Machine learning bias presents several implications for marketers; the least of which is poor ad performance. If you’re hoping to reach the most potential customers possible, an ad targeting platform that excludes large chunks of the population is less than ideal. Of course there are bigger ramifications if our ads unfairly target, or exclude, certain groups. If your real estate ad discriminates against protected minorities, you could land on the wrong end of the Fair Housing Act and the Federal Trade Commision. Not to mention completely missing the inclusive marketing boat. How to avoid AI bias So what do we do when our AI tools run amok? There are a couple of steps you can take to make sure your ads treat everyone equitably. First and foremost, make sure a someone reviews your content, writes Alaura Weaver, the senior manager of content and community at Writer. “While AI technology has advanced significantly, it lacks the critical thinking and decision-making abilities that humans have,” she explains. “By having human editors review and fact-check AI-written content, they can ensure that it’s free from bias and follows ethical standards.” Human oversight will reduce the risk of negative outcomes in paid ad campaigns, too. “Currently, and perhaps indefinitely, it is not advisable to let AI completely take over campaigns or any form of marketing,” says Brett McHale, the Founder of Empiric Marketing.  “AI performs optimally when it receives accurate inputs from organic intelligence that has already accumulated vast amounts of data and experiences.” Risk #2: Factual fallacies Google recently cost its parent company $100b in valuation when its new AI chatbot, Bard, gave an incorrect answer in a promotional tweet. Google’s goof highlights one of the biggest limitations of AI, and one of the biggest risks for marketers using it: AI doesn’t always tell the truth. AI hallucinates Ethan Mollic, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, recently described AI-powered systems like ChatGPT as an “omniscient, eager-to-please intern who sometimes lies.” Of course, AI isn’t sentient, despite what some may claim. It doesn’t intend to deceive us. It can, however, suffer from “hallucinations” that lead it to just make stuff up. AI is a prediction machine. It looks to fill in the next word or phrase that’ll answer your query. But it’s not self-aware; AI doesn’t have gut-check logic to know if what it’s stringing together makes sense. Unlike bias, this doesn’t seem to be a data problem. Even when the network has all the right info, it can still tell us the wrong thing. Consider this example where a user asked ChatGPT “how many times did Argentina win the FIFA world cup?” It said once and referenced the team’s 1978 victory. The tweeter then asked which team won in 1986. The chatbot admitted it was Argentina with no explanation for its former gaffe. The troubling part is that AI’s erroneous answers are often written so confidently, they blend into the text around them, making them seem completely plausible. They can also be comprehensive, as detailed in a lawsuit filed against Open.ai, where ChatGPT allegedly concocted an entire story of embezzlement that was then shared by a journalist. How to avoid AI’s hallucinations While AI can lead you astray with even single-word answers, it’s more likely to go off the rails when writing longer texts. “From a single prompt, AI can generate a blog or an eBook.