FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 15th, 2026
Grandparents Control $83 Trillion and Fund the Trips, Yet Remain Invisible in Family Travel Marketing, New Research Finds
Premier Travel Media releases industry brief making the case that the 61-to-80-year-old traveler is family travel’s most financially powerful and most overlooked buyer
Willowbrook, Il. — Premier Travel Media has released The Silver Generation’s Outsized Influence on Family Travel, an industry research brief arguing that grandparents represent the single most underserved audience in family travel marketing, and the one with the greatest capacity to drive demand.
The brief draws on data from the 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey (Family Travel Association / NYU Tisch Center of Hospitality), the Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts, the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, and Pew Research Center, among other sources.
The financial case is stark. Baby Boomers — now ages 61 to 80— currently hold $83.3 trillion in U.S. household wealth, representing 51.4% of the national total and making them five times wealthier than Millennials as a generation despite near-equal population size. As of 2025, approximately 65% of all U.S. household wealth sits in households over the age of 60.
The behavioral data is equally striking. According to the 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey, grandparents are not passive participants in family travel:
— 84% pay for skip-generational trips — travel with grandchildren, without parents present — entirely out of pocket
— 71% have taken a multi-generational trip in the past three years
— 48% expect to spend more on domestic skip-generational travel in the coming year
— 75% cite family bonding as their primary motivation for multi-generational travel
Despite these numbers, the brief finds that most family travel marketing continues to be built around parents in their 30s and early 40s, assuming the planner and the payer are the same person. The research argues that assumption is increasingly wrong, and that campaigns targeting older travelers frequently miss the emotional motivations that actually drive decisions. Grandparents are not responding to deal-forward messaging. They are motivated by legacy, connection and the sense that an experience will matter.
“The travel industry has spent years optimizing family travel marketing for an audience with limited spending headroom,” said Jeff Gayduk, President of Premier Travel Media. “Meanwhile, the generation holding the majority of U.S. household wealth — and writing the checks for family vacations — is barely visible in the creative. That’s not a small oversight. It’s a structural misalignment.”
The Silver Generation’s Outsized Influence on Family Travel is available for download at https://ptmgroups.com/silver-generations-outsized-influence-on-family-travel/.
About Premier Travel Media
Premier Travel Media is a leading business-to-business media company connecting destinations, attractions and travel suppliers with highly qualified planners across the group, leisure and sports travel markets.
Through a diversified portfolio of industry brands: Sports Planning Guide, Leisure Group Travel, Destination Reunions, Student Travel Pro and Destination Film Guide, Premier delivers targeted content and marketing solutions that reach decision-makers at every stage of the travel planning process.
With deep roots in the travel industry and long-standing relationships across destination marketing organizations, tour operators and event planners, Premier Travel Media serves as a trusted connector between those who market destinations and those who bring travelers to them. Learn more at www.PtmGroups.com.