APT will continue to target the baby boomer and retiree market as owner Geoff McGeary claimed the demographic has never had it so good.
APT will continue to target the baby boomer and retiree market as owner Geoff McGeary claimed the demographic has never had it so good.
Generous superannuation policies and soaring house prices have provided new and soon-to-be retirees with “more money than they know what to do with”, McGeary said.
“You can’t believe the retiree market and how strong it has become,” he said.
McGeary said APT enjoyed success with the youth market through its interest in Topdeck but was “certainly not in the family business”, preferring to focus on markets that are resilient and travel-hungry.
“Once they’re married and have kids we don’t get them for another 20 or 30 years,” McGeary said.
“The folk we are carrying paid $30,000 for the house and most are now worth $1 million and if you live four and five kilometres from the water it’s nearer $2 million,” McGeary said. “They’ve got so much money they don’t know what to do with it.”
Medical advances are also helping and “giving them an extra 10 years”.
“This is the boom market and we’ve been buying up brands to suit this market and investing in them for quite a long time,” he said. “They are also not
ticking off countries anymore. They want experiences.”
McGeary was speaking at an event to announce APT’s acquisition of a near 50% interest in UK small ship cruising operator Noble Caledonia (Travel Today, yesterday).
“Not everyone wants to travel with 5000 passengers on Oasis of the Seas,“ he said.
