Guy García, a former Time Magazine staff writer and founder executive director and editor of AOL Latino, recently wrote a piece on the Huffington Post blog entitled "Are Hispanics the New American Reality? Claro que Sí! But Will They Get their Own Museum? Quien Sabe." García focuses on the still growing Hispanic population in the US and the differences and similarities among the various groups of Hispanics, e.g. Mexican or Colombian and American, or Latino, black and Nuyorican - the various ways in which Hispanics describe themselves. Seen as a market, if the Hispanic population in the United States was a country, it would be the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world, after Mexico. The purchasing power of the US Hispanic population hovers around the 1 trillion $ mark. García comments on a video produced by the Hispanic/American TV company Univision, in which we are told that Hispanic babies account for 25% of all babies born in the US every year, that in many US places Hispanic children account for 50% of all children. The numbers are impressive: Hispanics will account for 95% of the teen population growth through 2020. And so on. The article addresses the debate happening in America as to whether Latinos should have their own Latino Museum in Washington, DC or not. But that's a political issue. The reason I invite you to read the article as well as to see the video (embedded at the end of this post) is to consider the potential of this market for Canadian Tourism. A population of 50 million Hispanic Americans who do not need a visa to visit Canada surely must be of interest to you, if you are in the Canadian Tourism industry.
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While many Hispanic Americans do visit Canada, we don't know how many because StatCan figures do not distinguish between white Americans, Indo Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans or Hispanic Americans, etc. Intuitively, I think we are not getting as many US Hispanic visitors as we could. Marketing to US Hispanics requires a specific focus on sub-markets and zeroing in on those that would be more prone to travel to Canada. The US born Hispanic population is, as Mr García rightly points out, "increasingly bilingual and bicultural" and "multicultural and multifaceted...they watch MTV3res and True Blood, they listen to rap, rock and Mexican banda, sometimes in the same song. Recent studies have shown that Latino identity is malleable, contextual and constantly evolving. Younger Latinos in particularly see no contradiction in calling themselves Dominican, American and black, or Caucasian, Hispanic-American and Colombian, or gaysian, blaxican, or any other racial-cultural-sexual amalgam that fits their nationality, genealogy, sexuality and mood." And then there's also the non-US born Hispanic population which is also very diverse in income, language preference and education.
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The key to marketing to Hispanics in the US, in addition to segmenting the overall market and zeroing in on your best prospects, is understanding their bi-culturalism. Your message must be tailored accordingly, but two things to remember as a basic starting point: 1) Hispanics love (need) to have fun and 2) family is paramount. These 2 points are reflected in their travel habits. Being a Hispanic Canadian, I can attest to these points, but don't take my word for it. One study by the Tourism Center at the University of Minnesota (with data from the 2006 US Census) found that 33% of Hispanic trips include children under 18 and that the majority (77%) of Hispanics report travelling for purposes of leisure. And from the US Travel Association we have this little tidbit: "The Hispanic/Latino population in the U.S. is expected to reach 47.8 million by 2010 or 16 percent of the total population. By 2050, the Hispanic/Latino population is projected to total 102.6 million, comprising 24 percent of the U.S. population. In 2007, there were an estimated 16.2 million Hispanic adult leisure travelers who took a combined 50.4 million domestic and outbound trips and spent $58.7 billion on their travels. (Source: Profile of Hispanic/Latino Leisure Travelers, 2008 Edition)." We now know that in 2011, the US Hispanic population is more like 50 million. Regardless of the exact number, the point I want to emphasize is that Canada is uniquely positioned as a tourism destination to attract a substantial number of Hispanic American travelers simply because we are next door, they don't need a visa to enter Canada, and we have fantastic tourism product for them.
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But don't forget Mexico, the rest of Latin America and Spain...(next blogpost)
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Saludos,
Jaime
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