Men, women, and travel
Exploring how gender affects where people like to go
Men and women — in aggregate, not individuals — behave differently and want different things.* Whether these differences are innate or learned, whether they’re positive or divisive, they exist.
With this in mind, earlier this summer we took a deep dive into Hitlist’s data to see what behavioral differences we might find between men and women. We’re always looking for ways to give our users the most relevant travel deals, and wanted to see whether we could or should tailor our offerings along gender lines.
We teamed up with data scientist Mike Kaminsky and found the following:
1. While men may be from Mars, they want to go to Asia.
Among US-based travelers, men disproportionately favor destinations in Asia. 40% of destinations that are more popular among men are Asian countries (vs 5% for women). Top countries for men are China, the Netherlands and Japan.
Women have much more interest in Europe: of the cities more popular among women than men, 60% are in Europe (vs 20% for men). The top countries more preferred by women are Greece, Italy, and Indonesia (and by Indonesia we mean Bali).
2. Women want to travel more than men.
For the purposes of this post, we’re looking at a sample of 32,947 US-based users of Hitlist for whom we have travel data. While there are considerable more males (27% vs. 16%), the females tend to use the app a bit more actively. On average, women select 7.4 countries as potential destinations, while men only select 6.3. Interestingly, men and women claim to have been to approximately the same number of countries — 2.
3. Women are more likely to want to go abroad.
Among cities more popular with men than women, 43% are in the US, and they tend to be major domestic cities such as New York and Washington, DC. You can see the top 21 destinations for men here (and see how much it would cost you to get to them!)
Only 17% of the cities more preferred by women are in the US, and they tend to be less trafficked destinations like Nashville and San Jose. The top 24 cities female travelers prefer are visible here.
4. Men prefer urban areas, women really seem to like beaches.
The top 5 domestic cities more popular with men are New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Boston and Las Vegas. Women have more interest in Maui, New Orleans, Honolulu, Nashville and Kauai.
Internationally, the top 5 cities more popular with men are Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, Tokyo and Berlin. Women are setting their sights on Bali, Mykonos, Athens, Nice and Cancun.
How are we using this data at Hitlist? Since we’ve noticed that women are more active users, we’re making an effort to introduce more content that caters to this demographic. We’ve added more coverage of off-the-beaten track highlights like this list of inspiring, slightly edgy destinations curated by Misadventures magazine.
Every Hitlist user receives personalized alerts that we think will appeal to him or her most. In the absence of any other data, we can factor gender into the equation, but as soon as we know a bit more about what you’ve done and where your interests lie that will take precedence.
For users that haven’t given us gender data, we’re able to infer probable gender based on their user activity, and make an effort to tailor our alerts accordingly.
We make no value judgments on who should go where, and don’t mean to imply that any of these cities are more girly or brotastic than any others. We love getting our users to their dream destinations, wherever they may be.
For a fuller breakdown of the numbers, head over to Mike’s awesome blog.
*Emphatic caveat: this applies to the population in general, not individuals. None of this should ever be interpreted to mean ‘women/men/boys/girls should do X’. Only ‘statistically women/men are more likely to X, and every individual woman/man is free to do as she/he chooses.’
Download Hitlist here. You can find Hitlist on Twitter @hitlist_app, me at @gillianim, and Mike at @mike_kaminsky. We’re also on AngelList.
