Marketing Insights
As we close out the third quarter of 2025, we continue to navigate a travel landscape marked by selective consumer behavior and economic uncertainty. While overall travel metrics across the US remain relatively stable, we’ re seeing travelers prioritize meaningful experiences over travel frequency— a trend that continues to shape our marketing strategies and partnerships across all destinations.
Skift Research’ s State of Travel 2025 Report makes an important observation in this regard:“ The transition to an experiential economy continues and thousands of new travelers are emerging.” The report emphasizes that“ travel is the most aspirational purchase in the world,” noting that the shift to spending on experiences over“ things” remains strong, with travel outranking dining, electronics, jewelry, and other discretionary purchases.
Our in-house Marketing team has taken note. We’ ve been working hard to promote the full-travel experience, leaning heavily on Google’ s identified phases of the traveler’ s journey— from dreaming to planning to booking to experiencing to sharing. It’ s an important framework that guides our approach to guest-facing marketing. To this end, we are working closely with our Guest Experience and Concierge teams to market stays that incorporate the full range of our amenities at each of our destinations.
We also continue to work hand-in-glove with our Revenue team to ensure our rates are aligned with our marketing efforts— a process that relies heavily on revenue and website performance data. Two important takeaways from the analysis: Demand currently remains elevated for shorter stays and discounts; also, website browsing sessions continue to run longer before guests complete their bookings, indicating that they remain cautious with their travel spend. That said, we continue to promote extended stays and target snowbirds for the upcoming Winter season. With national reports indicating ongoing declines in air travel, we are also enhancing our marketing efforts to reach guests within driving distance of our markets in an effort to attract those looking for a weekend or short getaway.
Gulf Coast Markets Q3 means the arrival of Fall and the roll-out of our Fall campaigns. This year our campaigns yielded an uptick in occupancy at all of our Gulf Coast destinations for Fall Break— from Destin to the communities of 30A to the Forgotten Coast. Since then, we have sought to capitalize on
04 360 BLUE • FORGOTTEN COAST • 2025 Q3 REVIEW