ATLANTA—With all of the industry talk about hotels catering to Millennials, there is one property here that is looking out for the “forgotten” generation: the Baby Boomers. The Loews Atlanta Hotel offers a Bucket List Package to Baby Boomers and empty nesters who are looking to explore the city and cross things off their bucket list—like visiting historic sites and popular attractions, as well as eating at famous local dining establishments.
It was a visit by a local travel journalist, who vented about the proliferation of promotions targeted to younger generations, which sparked the idea of the Bucket List Package, according to Mark Castriota, the hotel’s general manager.
“She mentioned to us that virtually all of the travel promotions and travel news she was seeing was geared to younger generations, despite older generations having more disposable income, more flexibility in travel schedule and more time available to travel,” he said. “Her comments really got us thinking about that particular segment of travelers and how they aligned so well with the style, location, quality and atmosphere of our hotel. We also saw an opportunity with the flexibility of this travel segment to incentivize them to stay with us on lower occupancy days, which is a win-win for both the traveler and the hotel.”
The hotel didn’t dive into creating the package without doing some research first, said Castriota, who noted that the articles he and his staff read on Baby Boomers used the following words and phrases to describe what they wanted out of their vacations: memorable experiences, personalized, high quality, active, genuinely experience a location, customizable and cross things off their bucket list.
“That last point, in particular, is what provided the idea for the Atlanta Bucket List Package,” said the GM. “We then looked at books like 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, and reviewed various local and regional must-see lists to determine the traveler consensus on what’s most critical to experience when visiting Atlanta.”
The Bucket List Package is made up of six elements: a discounted room rate; two Atlanta City Passes (“Rather than us selecting every piece of what guests should do, the pass enables them to customize their experience based what’s most important to them to cross of their bucket lists and how active they want to be,” said Castriota); two tickets to the popular Margaret Mitchell House & Museum one block away from the hotel; a $10 gift card to The Varsity, a nearly 90-year-old Atlanta “institution” that claims to be the world’s largest drive-in restaurant; a welcome bottle of wine in the room upon arrival; and concierge assistance in setting up bucket list experiences.
Castriota said of the concierge feature, “Speaking to high-quality and personalized experiences, our expert concierge team can help set up any desired experiences across the city; make reservations and appointments for those that require it; and help guests plan out their experience so they don’t miss anything.”
Besides the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum and The Varsity, bucket list attractions include the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, the Inside CNN Studio Tour and Zoo Atlanta.
So far, the response to the package has been “extremely positive,” said Castriota, who noted that bucket list business is likely to pick up now that kids are back to school and family vacation time is limited.
“We anticipate the fall will see even greater interest and more bookings as kids go back to school and families wind down their summer travels, which is when Boomers and empty nesters often take advantage of cooler weather and less-crowded attractions to travel,” he said.
—Adam Perkowsky