Diversity agenda contributes to a shift in Hoseasons' core market

Simon Altham, Wyndham Vacation Rentals’ managing director of revenue, revealed at ITT that couples and groups of friends now make up 55% of Hoseasons’ business in the UK, overtaking families for the first time.

“For the first time in our history we are not [primarily] a family-focussed business; that’s partly down to developing our product, but diversity is also a part of it,” he explained.

Hoseasons has for the last three years featured people of different ethnicities and sexual orientation in its marketing, which Altham says has attracted new customers to the brand.

“We’ve had seven consecutive record years, for four of which we’ve been heavily pushing the diversity agenda,” he noted. “I’m confident that a diversity strategy delivers share value. So if you’re thinking, is it right for us, I’d say diversity makes absolute sense for your business,” he urged.

Altham was speaking on a panel chaired by TTG editor Sophie Griffiths about marketing to the LGBT community and issues faced by LGBT people working in the travel industry.

Thomas Cook’s group marketing director Jamie Queen explained his decision to make the tour operator’s marketing more inclusive was driven not just by the market potential but by pressure from younger employees within the business.

“Graduates ask us questions about our diversity agenda, they ask about CSR, they ask how many hours they can have off for volunteering,” he said.

“The people who are most active in challenging us on these things are millennials; that’s the inclusive world they have grown up in.”