Unlocking the Potential of Dog Friendly Hospitality With Data-Driven Research

As the landscape of travel and hospitality evolves the demand for dog friendly travel services is on the rise, driven by a significant increase in dog *guardianship. For hospitality, travel, and hotel marketing professionals, understanding the motivations and behaviors of dog guardians is essential to tapping into this lucrative market segment.?

Recently, I have been thinking about this research study conducted by an obviously brilliant academic team from the University of Surrey, conducted by Lori Hoy , Brigitte Stangl and Professor Nigel Morgan , and entitled “The Social Behavior of Traveling with Dogs: Drivers, Behavioral Tendencies, and Experiences ”. They employed a robust data-driven approach to uncover the factors that influence a dog guardian's travel behaviors, and this paper is a detailed synopsis of that study , an overview of their process, and findings.?

Data-Driven Approach

The study utilized a mixed methods design, combining an online survey and semi-structured interviews with participants. Their quantitative analysis used a PLS-SEM model to test a conceptual model based on four key social representations/perceptions: human–dog symbiotic relationship, dog well-being beliefs, information acquisition, and perceived risks.

The qualitative component further enriched their findings by delving into the lived experiences of dog guardians, and their rigorous methodology enables us to glean a comprehensive understanding of the underlying factors driving the desire to travel with dogs, and provide us with plenty of interesting food for thought. If you want to avoid wading through the sometimes unfamiliar academic language of the paper, here is what you need to know and be thinking about if you work in the travel or hospitality industry.

Key Thinking Points

1. Dog Well-Being Beliefs: The belief that traveling enhances dogs' well-being significantly boosts guardians' intrinsic motivation and travel intentions. Ensuring their dogs' happiness and health during travel is their top priority.
2. Information Acquisition: Confidence in dog friendly travel information is crucial. Guardians who can easily find relevant information are more likely to travel with their dogs, emphasizing the need for accessible and detailed travel resources.
3. Perceived Risks: While perceived risks of logistical challenges do not impact intrinsic motivation or intention, they directly affect the actual travel behavior. Addressing these concerns through clear communication and risk mitigation strategies is vital if we want to make the world easier to travel with dogs.
4. Human-Dog Symbiotic Relationship: A strong emotional bond between guardians and their dogs fosters intrinsic motivation to travel together. This bond alone does not drive travel behavior; intrinsic enjoyment of the activity is a requirement for a positive travel experience.
5. Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation directly influences the intention to travel with dogs, which in turn affects their travel behavior. Guardians travel with their dogs primarily for the pleasure and satisfaction derived from the travel and hospitality experience.

Recommendations For The Hospitality & Travel Industry

For those of you working in the hospitality or travel industry, these granular thinking points can sometimes feel a little abstract, and they are, but we can glean some recommendations from this research that will help inform your strategy. If you want to lean into the rapidly growing travel with your dog trend that drives the growth of the dog friendly hospitality market and do so in a highly effective way, here is what you need to do.

1. Enhance Well-Being Services: Develop and promote activities that cater to both dogs and their guardians, such as dog-friendly hiking trails, parks, and wellness activities. Highlight the benefits in your materials.
2. Improve Information Accessibility: Ensure that detailed and easily accessible information about your dog friendly services and policies is available, and leverage dog friendly certification to build credibility around your information strategy and communicate it effectively.
3. Mitigate Perceived Risks: Address common concerns by providing clear information on health and safety measures, dog friendly amenities, facilities, and services. Offer solutions to potential logistical and accommodation problems to ease guardians' worries.
4. Leverage Emotional Bonds: Use marketing strategies that emphasize the emotional benefits of traveling with dogs, such as companionship and shared joy. Personal testimonials can effectively convey these messages.
5. Targeted Marketing: Utilize targeted marketing channels to reach dog guardians, such as dog friendly hotel directories , social media groups, and partnerships with dog-related charities. Tailor your campaigns to highlight your dog friendly service offering, and then back up that language in your execution to effectively manage customer expectations.

By understanding and addressing the specific needs and motivations of dog guardians, hospitality and travel providers can capture a larger share of this expanding market, enhance their customer satisfaction, and increase their average rate per guest over the long term.

Dog guardians want to travel with their dogs, be comfortable when they stay, and see the hospitality that you extend to humans evolve to include their dogs. When they see this they are willing to pay a premium, making them a lucrative market segment. In a world where 75% of the hotel industry thinks it is pet friendly , despite not letting you stay with your cat, and Tripadvisor hands out pet-friendly hotel awards to some of the worst pet-friendly hotels on the planet , there exists a large gap in the market for nimble operators.

Dog guardians increasingly want to travel with their dogs, and they represent an undeserved, but lucrative, market segment for the travel and hotel industry. Innovative operators are increasingly leveraging dog friendly certifications , and dog friendly language to differentiate themselves in a cluttered pet-friendly market and signal to guardians that they are serious about their dog's needs when they travel together.

Smart operators are figuring out how to leverage a data-driven approach to capturing customer attention during the discovery phase, with granular information resources that take the stress and logistical risk out of traveling with your dog. If you glean any insights from this research you think are worth sharing, please let me know in the comments below!

*Guardianship - Increasingly in the field of human-animal studies, the word ‘owner’ is considered to be problematic given that dogs are living, sentient individuals and not simply objects or property. Henceforth we refer to dog owners as guardians.