Family Vacations?

Analysis:

This news story was nothing more than a 2 minute and 30 second commercial for a local Travel Agency called Travel by Gagnon and Royal Caribbean. The story is basically about a local woman who decided that she can’t make family vacation plans on her own, so she calls Travel by Gagnon. The local travel agent is the main news source in this story and her role is framed as someone who offers travel tips. The reality is that no real tips are offered when she says things like this “We know the ins and outs, we know what rules to follow, we know where the great deals are and the computer is not as smart as we are.”

A question for news viewers to ask here is how does this story present useful information for consumers? The travel agent was basically saying that the number one family vacation these days is to take your family on a cruise. Much of the story uses video footage provided by Royal Caribbean (such as the still photo from the news story) of people on cruise ships or in exotic tropical locations. The only information that is provided that might be beneficial for consumers is a price break down for a Caribbean cruise before and after the New Year, which is a difference between $2700 and $3800 dollars. The question for listeners is this, which families can even afford this type of a vacation? And what does this say about who WXMI 17’s target audience is?

Story:

WXMI Reporter – It is quite a process finding the perfect holiday vacation. Lots of things to consider, where to go, when, and the most important question how much is it going to cost? Lots of travelers search the web for answers. Pat Gruen used to be one of them.

Consumer – We decided after taking a little walk through the Internet, that perhaps we weren’t as good as we thought.

Reporter – That is when Gruen and her family turned their vacation plans over to a professional.

Consumer – When you go on the Internet you don’t have somebody to sit there across from you and ask you questions about where you want to go, what you want to do, what are you trying to accomplish.

Reporter – Joanne Kochnoeff, the owner of Travel by Gagnon, she is now helping the Gruens.

Business – We know the ins and outs, we know what rules to follow, we know where the great deals are and the computer is not as smart as we are.

Reporter – The next step, when to get away.

Business – If they are a little flexible on the dates when they can go, if they don’t have a vacation that is cut in stone, we can very often find a much better price just by looking at a different time frame.

Reporter – Here is an example of what Kochnoeff is talking about. Say you want to take a 7 night Caribbean cruise for 2, round trip airfare from Grand Rapids over Christmas. It will cost $3884.00, over New Year $3124.00, but look at this in January, $2735.00.

Business – If you go perhaps the week after New Year. You can save sometimes a thousand dollars on your vacation, just by tweaking that vacation, just a little bit. Computers don’t tell you that, travel agents tell you that.

Reporter – The Gruens will be cruising this holiday season.

Consumer – The expertise of having somebody know the ship, know what level of the ship to stay on, what rooms are available. They can describe the room to you.

Business – Cruises have become the number one family type vacation because they offer so many different options.

Reporter – and if cruising isn’t you then Kochnoeff says there are plenty of other popular destinations and these are calling your name.

Total Time: 2 minutes and 30 seconds