Arnie Weissmann
Last year, the Harris Poll and Quad, a marketing experience company, issued a report confirming that we really, really, really, really prefer the human touch to touch screens.
Consider these findings:
- 88% of respondents recall physical store interactions more than online shopping experiences.
- 79% agree that online shopping is "efficient" but lacks the "magic" of finding something they want in a store.
- 78% value the "authenticity" of real-life interactions with brands versus digital experiences.
- 76% feel a physical retail experience helps them connect more deeply with people and brands.
- 71% of consumers agree that print catalogs or magazines feel more authentic than digital campaigns; the same percentage who say online shopping experiences blur together.
- 63% say they have planned a vacation around visiting a retail store.
- 60% of Gen Z and millennials say that waiting in line is part of the fun.
OK, you lost me with that last one.
But the preference for a physical, if not exclusively human, interaction is undeniable. An in-store window display beats a social media advertisement by 20 percentage points.
Brands are noticing. In 2024, J. Crew brought back print catalogs seven years after they had stopped mailing them. Even Amazon has begun producing print catalogs.
Interestingly but perhaps not surprisingly, Gen Z and millennials over-index for what Harris and Quad call "return of touch." And not just by a little. The poll found that younger people are more likely than older consumers to experience digital fatigue. For the former, in-person shopping experiences are a novelty; for the latter, perhaps borderline nostalgia.
Even so, there's a lot of appetite for hybrid experiences among Gen Z and millennials. Seventy-eight percent of this cohort say they appreciate digital touchpoints within a physical shopping experience, and 68% would like to see brands experiment with augmented reality in packaging. These generations especially enjoy physical mail from brands when they feel it is personalized, something they may have come to expect from their online lives. And 74% want a unique "unboxing" experience, a trend that began online.
Parallel to these preferences is the very way they share their feelings about IRL versus digital with their friends: While 72% will recommend in-store experiences, only 46% will do so online.
"Offline has become a coveted currency," the report says.
"Return of touch" is, generally speaking, good news for travel advisors. One data point seemed particularly encouraging: 76% of those polled agree that "Retail ... should inspire me, not just sell me."
But before you start checking strip malls for vacant office space, there's plenty in the report to suggest that a return to the travel agencies of old is not what people are looking for.
What had always struck me as odd about pre-Internet travel agencies was that, although they were selling the most exciting products on earth, walking into one was not dissimilar to entering an insurance agency. They were profoundly boring spaces.
This research suggests, however, that the time for an exciting physical travel store may have come at last. Although this has been tried before by Travelfest in Texas in the mid-90s and more recently by Liberty Travel with a flagship store in 2013, the failure of both may have had more to do with timing than concept.
Travelfest's business plan had relied heavily on airline commissions just prior to their demise, and Liberty's store may simply have been ahead of its time (and was paying extraordinarily high Midtown Manhattan rent).
But the report suggests that the time is ripe for an exciting brick-and-mortar retail travel store that leans into technology in its displays but remains human at its core. Whereas many retail experiences work hard to reduce the number of humans available to assist customers (looking at you, Target and Walmart), the time may be ripe for human counseling in the "clienteling" mode within an atmosphere that captures the excitement of travel. Add in the sales of travel accessories, from luggage to money belts to plug adapters, and you may have the recipe for a perfect travel match for the "return of touch" era.
Recall that 78% of consumers value the "authenticity" of real-life interactions with brands and that 76% feel a physical experience helps them connect more deeply with brands. These two stats alone could make such an enterprise especially appealing to suppliers, who typically don't have their own physical retail outlet but who could see the benefit of piggybacking on such a concept, strengthening agency-supplier relationships.
An atmosphere that highlights the excitement of travel in a retail setting would also give clients something akin to the magic consumers feel while shopping in a store and discovering something they didn't know existed. It's a subtle but powerful art to simultaneously make recommendations yet give ownership of decisions to the buyer.
Is it really a surprise that people have become screen-weary and that physical retail experiences are rebounding? The moment feels right for travel to get in on the act.