Targeting Gen Z: Adapting Your Hospitality Marketing Content to a Gen Z Audience 

Thinking of Gen Z as teenagers is old news. They’re the ones splashing the cash now. They’re literally guiding the digital conversation and becoming the new tastemakers, so it’s time to adapt your marketing content to them.  If brands are looking to make a splash, this generation are key to getting that coveted viral label.  

Everyone wants a younger audience. More than just taste, if you can convert them into bookers and buyers when they’re establishing their tastes and preferences, you can ensure you have loyal repeat customers for years to come. But do you know how to reach them?  

Here’s how your hotel, restaurant, or hospitality business can convert its biggest untapped audience.  

Who are Gen Z, and Why are They an Important Target for your Hospitality Brand?

If you are aged between 13 and 28, you’re a Gen Z. Gen Z are the generation after Millennials and before Generation Alpha, born in the years 1997 – 2012. They were the first generation that grew up with the things we take for granted now: the internet, smartphones, and the world being connected in a way it has never been before.  

Gen Z has a huge influence on your brand’s digital presence. Their widespread integration into social media and their early adoption of new technology mean they’re a key part of ensuring your brand’s presence in the digital sphere.  

But more than that, they’re becoming major consumers with a spending power that increases every year. In 2026, Gen Z will make up 25% of luxury spending. They make up ⅕ of the world’s population, and they’ve firmly entered the workforce – meaning whether you’re targeting B2B or B2C, you’ll likely be engaging with Gen Z.  

Gen Z and Hospitality 

For hospitality, they’re a huge consideration. The UK Gen Z population spends £857 million a week on UK hospitality. That’s Sunday brunches, a coffee on the way to work, drinks with friends, and hotel city breaks – all massively contributing to the sector. Nearly half of Gen Z plan to boost holiday spending this year, with international trips topping £4,000+ and UK stays over £2,000. To discard them from your strategy would be a huge mistake. Thinking of Gen Z as teenagers is old news. They’re the ones splashing the cash now, even if you don’t think about how they’re literally guiding the digital conversation and being the new tastemakers.  

What Mistakes do Brands Usually Make when Targeting a Gen Z Audience? 

Gen Z. Think about it. That’s an entire generation. When you’re targeting your content, what parameters do you consider? Demographics? Buyer types?  

To simply think of Gen Z as one big pool of potential customers that want to be spoken to the same way and sold in the same way is naive. Would a male scaffolder aged 27, starting a family, and carefully maintaining their budget be effectively advertised in the same way as an 18-year-old, pop culture-obsessed, female student with expandable cash and an interest in luxury items? At this point, the analogy is old. According to demographics, King Charles and the late Ozzy Osbourne would behave the same. They’re the same gender, same age, same nationality., and both lived in a castle. However, the marketing that would work for a rockstar probably (almost definitely) wouldn’t work for a British Royal. That’s why you need to investigate the data and work out exactly who your ideal target audiences are.  

Identifying your audience guides much more than just the audience for your ads. It should be dictating product updates, your brand’s tone and visual identity, the platforms you’re marketing on, the areas you’ll place OOH advertising, and so much more. Without your ideal audience, any step in marketing might be a misstep.  

If you’d like to find out more about how we analyse data and get a hand in digging through yours to work out your target audience, then get in touch today. We’re a data-driven, strategic marketing agency, so we’re the perfect choice to help you out. Find out how we handle data here.  

But, with all this said, there is a lot about Gen Z that unifies the generation, and marketers should be paying attention to. Overall, the data shows us this generation differs from others in the platforms they use, what motivates them to take action, and even their digital buyer journey. So, for brands wanting a young audience, knowing Gen Z is crucial.  

How do Gen Z Buy or Book?

The way Gen Z books has shifted the entire digital customer journey. They broke the marketing funnel. Think about it, they’re seeing content at a rapid speed, so likely to come in contact with your brand several times before even investigating your services and offering more deeply. Then they have to be won over. Their constant exposure to products and rapidly shifting attention means they’re always in the consideration stage. Attention spans have changed. The average attention span of a Gen Z is only 8 seconds.   

Price to Gen Z isn’t the only consideration. They’re motivated by a different kind of value. Experience and moral values matter to them just as much (if not more) than monetary value, meaning that you have to offer more than just the lowest prices in the market for the majority. Studies by McKinsey have shown that Gen Z consumers are looking for sustainability, ethical sourcing, and brand values when they’re choosing who to purchase or book from. You can read their report to find out more about these crucial insights on the future of commerce.  

That’s not to say ever Gen Z isn’t going to hunt for the deal that offers them the best bang for their book – but the data is showing us that if you want to interact with the generation at large, it’s time to rethink the way you’re advertising your offerings.  

What Platforms do Gen Z Use?   

Gen Z is social first. That’s a fact most marketers have already embraced, but do you know exactly where and how to grab their attention?  

93% of Gen Z use platforms like Instagram and TikTok for inspiration. Many are turning to visual-first sites like Pinterest to research destinations, hotels, and even experiences now. Over 60% of Gen Z have booked hotels they’ve seen on Instagram. Short-form video is still king, with 93% of them being interested in interactive video content.  

Social media surpasses the awareness stage of the sales funnel, so if you’re online, have an active presence, and your content is search optimised, they’re aware of you. Social first SEO is becoming more and more crucial.  

How do you Manage Social First SEO?  

• Make sure you’re updating alt text for accessibility and incorporating your keywords.  

• Meta has recently advised that hashtags no longer carry the weight they used to. If your caption is rich in keywords, your audience will find it without the need for  #LuxuryHotel.  

• Utilise captions in your videos with keyword-rich scripts.  

• Use the location tags platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer! Localisation is becoming a key factor in discoverability.  

How Do Gen Z Like to Buy?

Gen Z moves at a rapid pace. That means flexibility and the convenience of booking are key for them. This means they prefer to use apps or mobile booking options over websites (if you need a responsive website design so you can nab the mobile-first shoppers, our website development team are ready to chat).  

Book Now, Pay Later

In addition, they even have their own references for payment options. 34% of Gen Z prefer credit cards, and 19% use mobile wallets. But the newest development that we’ve been paying attention to is the preference for buy now, pay later schemes. Over half of the generation use BNPL services like Klarna – even for booking travel and hotel rooms.  

The industry has taken notice with OTAs like Expedia offering specific sections in search for hotels offering the payment options, and LastMinute.com offering a travel extra Pack Plus, where travellers can use Book now, pay later, receive a discount, and even get a voucher for their next trip! At a time when many hotels are trying to drive direct bookings, you have to look at what the OTAs are doing successfully and see if this is something you can integrate into your strategy.  

Gen Z and your Hospitality Marketing Strategy

Digital Tools and AI

Many marketers are now relying on AI for their content creation, and while it can be a really useful asset to your team, we should be wary of its use. 80% of consumers said AI-generated content would add to misinformation on social media, and 83% felt AI would make feeds feel even more saturated than they already are.  

Gen Z, as an age range, is more open to AI usage than others, with 46% of the group saying they were more likely to be interested in a brand using an AI influencer. However, with originality being the number two factor that Gen Z says makes their favourite brand stand out on social, your strategy should still be bold, unique, and not reliant on generic AI content that makes you blend in with your competitors.  

When thinking about adopting AI into your marketing, it’s about the right place, right time. While using AI to generate content might not always be the best idea – especially due to how important social media is to the generation – there are other ways to integrate it into your marketing strategy for the best effect.  

A large proportion of Gen Z uses AI for research, now expecting answers at their fingertips. Making sure your digital content is aligned to GEO best practice so it can be picked up by LLMs is key to how you should be approaching content. More than this, why not integrate AI chatbots and tools into your website to help offer suggestions for experiences, menu recommendations, and service?  

Authenticity and Trust

The environment Gen Z has growing up has caused the generation to prioritise trust and authenticity when they’re showcasing loyalty for a brand. It’s apparent in the social trends, in their values, and in their buying behaviour.  

As we emerge from the pandemic and there’s increasing optimism in the hospitality sector and the state of the UK’s economy, one way they can feel control is in their purchasing behaviour.  

The social content they consume is often a lot less refined and produced than the TV advertisements that were so popular for many years. 

Let’s explore examples:  

• If we look at brands that have a large Gen Z viewership, such as Duolingo, their videos are often shot in an office space, rather than a studio space.  

• Green screen and animation for brands like Ryan Air is raw; it’s obvious that their editing is purposefully bad.  

• Brands like Oreo and even Channel 4 (with a large audience of teens and young adults) are unfiltered in their responses on social media – something that older adults may feel is a misstep, but it connects with the Gen Z audience. They want to feel the personality of the brand, and they don’t want it to feel curated.  

• Social feeds are spontaneous, and the success of apps like BeReal is a perfect example of this trend.  

You can see more on Duolingo’s TikTok here or explore unhinged brand marketing examples Gen Z love in this list.  

Long approval processes and the need to ensure every piece of content pleases the largest possible audience often hold brands back from leaning into this preference, but it causes a disconnect for the Gen Z audience. Would you rather buy from a faceless entity or someone you know, you trust, and who feels real? That’s the question Gen Z are asking themselves.  

Punch Hospitality Marketing and Gen Z

So why are we talking about Gen Z? While many of our clients are focused on cracking this demographic and claiming that revenue, our knowledge of Gen Z goes further than that. 18% of the staff at Punch Hospitality are Gen Z. We have Gen Z across our creative team, across our strategy team, and across our account management – meaning we’re perfectly positioned to know how the generation functions and how to reach this audience. We don’t just analyse the data, we live it.  

Everything we do is data-driven and backed by market research. Each week we share our Turn Down – our insights taken from all across the realm of marketing, hospitality, and the latest AI news – that helps our team and our clients orient their strategy to drive revenue and build their communities. It’s how we get the great results we do.  

Are you Ready to Tackle your Gen Z Audience?

If you’re ready to get to grips with your biggest untapped audience, it’s time to get in touch with Punch Hospitality today. Our team is ready to guide you through the new sales funnel, how to effectively target the audience, and how you can convert them into your most loyal guests. Let’s talk hospitality marketing for Gen Z today.