Study looks at the travel habits of men vs. women

By Laura Del Rosso

A number of studies have shown that women most often are the planners when it comes to family travel and vacations, leading some travel agents to focus their marketing efforts on women.

Now, data to be released by Mandala Research aims to illustrate just how women and men differ in the way they decide where to travel and how to book their trips.
“There is a lot of anecdotal information about how they [men and women] may plan and travel differently but no quantitative analysis of these differences,” said Laura Mandala, president of Mandala Research, a Virginia-based firm that specializes in travel niche studies.
Mandala provided Travel Weekly's Home-Based Agent e-letter with a few highlights from the report, which will be released in January. Among the findings:

• Women are driven more by relationships when making their travel plans: 64% of women took trips to visit family or friends, compared with 57% of men.

• Women are more inclined to travel on an organized group tour: 24% compared with 16% of men.

• Men are somewhat more likely to take a trip on their own: 20% have traveled alone vs. 13% of women.

• Women are more likely to shop for "locally made" goods: 45% have done so, as opposed to 36% of men.

Mandala said that her team has gathered data from its various studies and surveys and put together the most useful data that note the differences and similarities between the genders as they plan, research and book leisure travel. 

The results, she said, can help determine whether travel professionals should market differently to men and women.