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Three-quarters (77%) of parents across the nation take trips where they stay in a hotel at least once a year with their kids – regardless of how many children they have – with about one-third (30%) of families traveling three or more times a year.¹ Parents say that family vacations are among their favorite moments with their kids, and that’s why a favorite, family-friendly hotel brand is taking steps to help make these important journeys even easier on parents.

Recently, Embassy Suites Hotels, the Hilton Worldwide brand of upscale all-suite hotels, announced the launch of its new #PrettyGreat Family Travel Hacks community.

“Family vacations come in all shapes and sizes, but some of the challenges parents face are the same, which is why we are committed to providing families with everything they need for a terrific experience – from twooom suites to free, made-to-order breakfast to complimentary drinks and snacks for all ages at our evening reception,” said John Rogers, global head, Embassy Suites Hotels. “We are taking it a step further this year with new team member training, family-focused amenities and the new #PrettyGreat Family Travel Hacks online community, which gives parents the opportunity to learn and share great advice on what makes trips with the kids easier and more fun.”

The Embassy Suites #PrettyGreat Family Travel Hacks program includes the following components:

• #PrettyGreat Family Travel Hacks Online Community: The online community provides family travel “hacks” – simple, clever tips to make vacation journeys with children easier, from packing to keeping the kids entertained on the road – posted by family travel experts and fellow parents. Currently, parents can post their own battle-tested hacks for the chance to win one of eight one-night stays to the Embassy Suites hotel of their choice, awarded weekly from March 19 through May 14, 2015.

 

• Embassy Suites Team-Member Training: Fifty-six percent of people surveyed in the recent Embassy Suites Family Travel study said a friendly staff would make them return to the same hotel or stay at the same hotel chain in another location for a family vacation.¹ Embassy Suites is reinforcing its commitment to providing families with a great guest experience by incorporating family-specific training into its orientation program and ongoing team-member training sessions.  The brand is also adding resources, such as how-to videos featuring our All-Star Team Members, and encouraging team members to share their demonstrated best practices to inspire others.

 

• Family-focused Amenities: Embassy Suites is adding a variety of new family-focused amenities, from cocktail napkins with family-friendly games – like tic-tac-toe, Sudoku and word search – for the evening reception, to baby- and child-specific “do not disturb” signs, to coloring books and crayons at check-in. The brand is also planning a pilot program to offer baby care amenities – such as baby wash, wipes and other essentials – at select properties this summer.

To better understand and respond to the needs of traveling families, Embassy Suites Hotels commissioned a survey¹ of 2,000 U.S. parents with at least one child under the age of 18 at home. The results reinforce the desire of all parents to travel with their kids, and reveals key wishes and stumbling blocks related to family travel including:

• Families travel frequently, but Millennials show real wanderlust. Nearly 40 percent of Millennial parents (38%) travel and stay in a hotel three or more times per year with their children – a higher rate than both Generation X and Baby Boomer parents. Still, eight out of 10 parents (82%) overall wish they could travel with their kids even more frequently.

 

• Families that travel together, stay together. Sixty-three percent said they are motivated to take a trip with the kids in order to “build new memories with them,” and 62 percent said “spending time with their kids while they are still young” is a motivating factor.

 

• Travel is a family affair. Millennial parents often bring other family members on vacation. About one-third (34%) of Millennials bring another family member other than their partner and/or a grandparent (31%) on family vacations. Generation X and Baby Boomer parents are both less likely to take these additional family members, with Boomers being about two times less likely.

 

• Family travel is an important part of parenting today. Seventy percent of parents are motivated to take family trips because they believe giving their kids experiences they didn’t have as a child is important. These parents want their kids to be more wellounded than they were at their age (51%) and want to provide more for their kids than their parents were financially able to provide (47%).

 

• Family-friendly amenities lead to a successful vacation. Fifty-three percent said “affordable twooom suites,” and 47 percent said “free hot, made-to-order breakfast each day” would make them a lot more likely to take a trip with the kids, the two highestated of the choices offered. That’s good news for those staying at Embassy Suites, which has long catered to families by offering every guest a twooom suite, free cooked-to-order breakfast and a nightly two-hour reception with complimentary drinks* and snacks.